Fijian to Finnish: a possessive suffix does not identify the same noun classes
Both languages can attach possession, but the distribution differs
Joseph Hong illustrates Fijian ligaqu, my hand, with a possessive suffix attached to the body-part noun. His general possession example noqu pusi, my cat, instead has a separate expression before the noun. A Finnish translation can use possessive suffixes too, but that surface similarity does not reproduce the Fijian division between possessed-item classes.
The practical consequence is that a suffix in the source does not require a body-part interpretation in the target, and a separate source possessive does not require Finnish to avoid a suffix. The translator must recover the associated person and the actual noun. Reusing the shape of the source construction is less informative than preserving who is connected to what.
Hong’s familiar category also includes kinship, alongside body parts. That is a grammatical grouping in his Fijian account, not an instruction to describe relatives as owned objects. Finnish expressions identifying a relative and identifying an owned item can both express association without copying the source classification.
Finnish standard usage can put the person information on the noun
The official Finnish guidance lists kirjani, my book, and kirjamme, our book, as possessive-suffix examples. It explains that first- and second-person suffixes can identify the relevant person without an accompanying genitive pronoun. Thus a Fijian separate possessive expression can correspond to Finnish person information carried on the noun.
An explicit Finnish pronoun can contribute emphasis or contrast rather than supply a missing person automatically. The guidance illustrates a contrast between the speaker’s tablet and somebody else’s. For a Fijian source that neutrally identifies an item, adding an overt pronoun at every occurrence may suggest an emphasis the sender did not express. If the source really contrasts two owners, that distinction deserves expression.
The same official account notes that third-person singular and plural possessive suffixes share their shape. Consequently a target suffix alone may not retain whether a Fijian possessor is one person or a group. The source distinction must be recovered through the surrounding Finnish reference when relevant, rather than assumed visible in the ending.
A Finnish exception depends on close association and register
Salli Kankaanpää’s Kielikello explanation discusses a limited standard-language exception: a first-person plural genitive, and sometimes second-person plural, can accompany a noun without a possessive suffix when expressing close association with a family or comparable community. Her examples concern mother and a school class. Formal informational prose normally uses the suffix instead.
That exception is not a Finnish counterpart to every Fijian familiar possessive. Its conditions concern the Finnish expression’s plural association and style, rather than simply whether the source noun denotes a relative. Do not automatically omit a Finnish suffix whenever a Fijian kin term appears. Equally, do not assume a suffixless close-family expression has lost its possessor. Choose the Finnish construction from its own grammatical and stylistic conditions while preserving the Fijian participant reference.
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