German to Fijian: ownership wording can depend on what the item is for
Mein does not identify a Fijian possession category
German possessive determiners contain information about the owner and agree with the possessed noun. The German treebank documentation explicitly separates these layers: an ending can reflect the noun’s gender or number while the determiner’s lexical form identifies the possessor. Fijian possession organizes additional distinctions that cannot be recovered from a German masculine, feminine, or neuter noun gender.
Albert J. Schütz’s primer contrasts ligaqu, my hand, with mequ bia, my beer, kequ ika, my fish, and noqu vale, my house. These examples do not describe four different speakers. They show different relationships between one owner and different kinds of possessed items. A German text using forms of mein throughout therefore need not repeat one unchanging Fijian possessive expression.
A food item can be possessed for a purpose other than eating
Schütz distinguishes possession associated with body parts and kinship, edible items, drinkable items, and other possessions. Importantly, he also explains that an item can move between the relevant constructions according to its intended use. His taro example contrasts an eating-related possessive with a general possessive when the taro is intended for sale. The distinction is not just a label permanently attached to a dictionary noun.
In a German market message, “my fish” could identify the seller’s stock rather than the speaker’s meal. A translation that chooses an eating-related construction solely because fish is edible may therefore imply the wrong relationship. Conversely, a meal invitation can genuinely concern food assigned to someone for consumption. The source phrase’s practical function matters more than the German article category of Fisch.
Owner identity and the item’s intended role must both survive
Compare the meanings “This is my drink,” “This is her drink,” and “These drinks are for sale.” The first two change the associated person while keeping a drinking-related item. The third establishes a commercial purpose rather than necessarily assigning the beverages for the speaker to consume. A correct Fijian construction should not preserve the possession category at the expense of the owner, or preserve the owner while inventing an intended use.
German sein and ihr can also identify different third-person possessors, with endings that reflect the thing possessed. Those grammatical clues should be resolved before interpreting a Fijian possession phrase. A German message mentioning a man’s hand and a woman’s house combines two owner references with two different possession relationships. It would be wrong to assume that a changed target possessive automatically signals a change of owner: the change might be required by the type of relationship itself. Establish who is associated with each item, whether a bodily or kinship relationship is involved, and whether food or drink is being referred to as consumption or as another kind of property. That preserves information a short German possessive phrase can leave to its surrounding situation.
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