Persian to Fijian: group size, respectful reference and object pronouns
Separate the people mentioned from the form used to refer to them
Roberts’s Persian Grammar Sketch distinguishes singular and plural pronouns, but also documents polite singular uses of plural-shaped reference. The human pronoun išun can refer respectfully to one person. A Persian message using that form therefore does not automatically establish a group that a Fijian translation should count as several participants.
Conversely, a genuinely plural Persian reference may leave the group’s precise size unstated. Identify whether the message concerns a couple, a small party or a larger collection only where the surrounding account supports that distinction. A change from referring to people as they to addressing them as you does not itself change who belongs to the group. Follow the participants through the Persian exchange before selecting Fijian reference forms. Otherwise a dialogue can appear to shrink or enlarge its audience simply because the speaker changes from describing the visitors to speaking directly to them. The grammatical perspective and the real group size are separate facts.
Fijian distinguishes a pair from a small group without counting every small group as three
Hong’s account of Fijian pronouns distinguishes singular, dual, trial and plural categories. His second-person examples include o drau for two and o dou for three or several. He explicitly cautions that the category called trial is not restricted to exactly three: it can cover a limited group beyond that number, with no sharp universal boundary against the larger plural.
For a Persian invitation naming two guests, keep the pair identifiable. For an invitation referring only to several guests, do not manufacture the exact number three merely because a Fijian form is traditionally labeled trial. Hong also documents respectful uses in which nonsingular forms address one person. This adds a second reason to interpret the social setting before counting pronoun morphology literally. A Fijian respectful address and a Fijian reference to an actual pair may overlap in form without describing the same number of people. Preserve what the Persian exchange establishes about both relationship and membership.
A Fijian object pronoun belongs inside a target construction
Van Urk’s primary study of Fijian describes an important difference between ordinary noun objects and pronoun or proper-name objects. Pronoun and proper-name objects remain adjacent to the verb in the patterns examined and omit the article used for them elsewhere. Common noun objects show a different distribution. A Persian object phrase cannot therefore be replaced with a Fijian pronoun while assuming the surrounding sentence stays unchanged.
The study also shows that Fijian common nouns do not change form simply to distinguish these numbers; pronouns and subject clitics supply number information. When a Persian message repeatedly mentions a group, preserve that information even if the target noun itself looks unchanged. At the same time, do not interpret the extra pronominal material as another group in addition to the named people. Select its number and position together with the Fijian construction so the message continues to refer to the same participants.
Language references