Fijian to Bangla: naming a relative does not yet say where they are
A kinship suffix is part of the relationship
Hong illustrates Fijian direct possession with tinaqu, my mother, and ligaqu, my hand. In these examples the first-person possessor is expressed by a suffix attached to the noun, rather than a separate word before it. A Bangla translation must recover that relationship even if a reader looking for an independent Fijian equivalent of my would miss it. The suffix contributes meaning; it is not an ornamental ending that can be discarded during transcription.
Bangla expresses a comparable possessive relationship with a genitive expression such as amar. Thompson’s example amar baba achen concerns the speaker’s father, with the father as the subject and an honorific existential verb. The kinship term is different from tinaqu, so this is a structural comparison, not a translation of that Fijian example. What carries across is the need to associate the relative with the correct person while building a complete target sentence.
The distinction between a noun phrase and a complete assertion matters here. Fijian tinaqu supplies my mother; it does not by itself tell a Bangla reader that the mother is currently nearby, still alive or available to speak. Adding an existential expression to make an isolated phrase sound like a sentence can add one of those interpretations. First establish whether the source is naming a relative, identifying somebody or reporting the relative’s presence.
Separate the possessor from the subject of the assertion
Thompson explains that amar baba achen can mean that the father is alive or that he is here. In that construction amar identifies the relationship, while baba is the grammatical subject. A Fijian passage about a relative’s arrival should not become an assertion about the speaker’s own existence simply because its possessive suffix is first person. The relation and the person whose presence is asserted occupy different parts of the meaning.
This also helps distinguish kinship from other Fijian possessive constructions. Schütz and Komaitai teach a special direct pattern for body parts and relatives alongside patterns used for food, drink and general possessions. A Bangla genitive can participate in several kinds of relationship without reproducing those Fijian classes as separate grammatical labels. Translating a relative does not require wording that presents a human being as a transferable object merely because the grammar calls the construction possessive.
In a family introduction, the useful result may therefore be a Bangla kinship phrase rather than a new statement that somebody exists. In a message explaining who is present, an existential predicate may be necessary, but its location or availability reading should follow the Fijian account. These are different communicative tasks. Preserve both the person associated with the relative and what the sentence actually says about that relative, rather than letting the form of an English gloss such as my decide the entire Bangla sentence.
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