Divehi to Hausa: the ownership link can move to the thing possessed
Locate the owner before comparing the order
Gnanadesikan identifies -ge as the Divehi genitive ending used for a noun in a possessor relationship. Genitive phrases precede the head noun in her noun-phrase description. The visible source ending thus belongs to the possessor, not automatically to the thing owned.
Crysmann’s Hausa analysis presents a different arrangement. A bound linker attaches to the head noun before the following possessor; a free linker supplies another construction. His rìigaa ta Audù gown example demonstrates that the ownership relationship can remain the same while its grammatical connection appears on a different element.
For a Divehi message identifying somebody’s garment, establish which expression names the garment and which names its owner. Copying the source order together with its ending placement would not reproduce the documented Hausa structure. A correctly translated possessive relationship can reverse the visible ordering without exchanging owner and possession.
The head noun controls one target distinction
The Hausa study assigns ta and bound -r to feminine singular heads, with na and bound -n used for masculine and plural heads. Its book example uses a masculine linker with Kande, a female possessor. The grammatical class of the book, rather than the owner’s sex, selects that part of the construction.
Divehi does not have a corresponding noun-gender agreement category in Gnanadesikan’s description. A Divehi genitive ending therefore cannot choose between the Hausa linker forms. Select the target noun and its grammatical properties first. A change in linker between a garment and a book does not by itself establish that the owner changed.
Crysmann also notes a restriction on adjacency for the bound form: an intervening prepositional phrase can require the free form instead. Longer Divehi possessions containing an additional description consequently need phrase-level organization, not just an ownership suffix transferred to the nearest Hausa word.
An age statement can use a possessed quantity
UCLA’s Hausa grammar illustrates Shekarunsa sha biyu as an age statement for a twelve-year-old male referent. The explanation treats the years as a possessed expression followed by a numerical predicate. In that quantity construction, the usual ne or ce identification element is absent when the subject includes a possessive.
A Divehi statement of somebody’s age should retain the person and the number of years, even when Hausa presents the information through a different possessive and predicate arrangement. Its lack of ne or ce is not sufficient evidence that a word equivalent to is was accidentally dropped. The target construction already supplies the age relationship.
This also keeps ownership morphology from being read too literally. Possessing a garment and having a stated number of years are different meanings realized through related grammatical resources. When assessing a Divehi-to-Hausa result, identify the actual relationship first, then read the linker, possessed expression and numerical predicate together. Counting source genitive endings or demanding a separate target copula cannot establish whether those meanings were preserved.
Language references