Filipino to Armenian: distinguish a pointing pronoun from a noun modifier
A translation of this may need more than one Armenian form
NIU presents Filipino ito as a speaker-near demonstrative that can replace an ang-marked noun phrase. Its examples use the demonstrative to refer back to an object already identified. In Armenian, the documented proximal set includes both սա, transliterated sa, and այս, ays, glossed this. Identical English glosses do not make those Armenian forms freely interchangeable in every sentence.
The practical distinction is between pointing to something independently and identifying something while retaining its noun. A Filipino message may first name an object and then refer to it with ito. An Armenian translation can likewise maintain a reference, but it must select a form appropriate to the target construction. Keeping the noun and replacing the noun are different grammatical choices even when both versions point to the same item.
Distance and grammatical function are separate decisions
The Armenian UD account groups demonstrative pronouns, determiners and adverbs by proximal, medial and remote deixis. Its examples include the medial pair դա and այդ, transliterated da and ayd, and remote այն, ayn. Those groupings show that relative location is only one dimension of the system; a location category contains expressions used for different grammatical jobs.
Filipino iyan is described by NIU in relation to the hearer, while iyon refers to something far from both speaker and hearer. The Armenian documentation describes its medial category as neither close nor distant relative to the reference point. These descriptions should not be flattened into an automatic three-row substitution chart. A translator needs the actual viewpoint and the target expression’s function, rather than assuming that having three categories guarantees identical boundaries.
Imagine a short Filipino note identifying which package to take. A standalone pointer relies on the package already being recoverable; a noun-modifying expression can identify the package explicitly. If the Armenian wording changes from one structure to the other, the pointing expression must change with it. Selecting a roughly appropriate distance word is insufficient if it is then placed in the wrong grammatical construction.
A plural reference still needs the right referents
NIU illustrates a plural replacement with flowers that have withered: the version with a named plural noun is followed by one using mga ito. The marker mga retains reference to multiple items. In Armenian, preserving that group is a different requirement from choosing a proximal demonstrative. A near pointer cannot by itself recover whether the source described one flower or several.
For this direction, keep track of three independent pieces of information: which objects the speaker means, how their location is being presented, and whether the target names them or refers to them independently. A Filipino pointer can be short because earlier context identifies the flowers or package. Armenian should retain that economy only when its selected construction still identifies the same referents. Otherwise a translation may preserve the general meaning this while losing the noun relationship or the group that made the original message clear.
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