Fijian and Chinese/Contrastive Grammar

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Noun Phrase Structure

  • An NP in Fijian has to begin with an article: a for common nouns (which becomes na after a preposition) and o for proper names and pronouns (which is dropped after a preposition). The articles in Fijian roughly corresponds to the definite article the in English, and there's no indefinite article in Fijian. However, in Chinese, an NP can only consist of a bare noun, and there's no definite or indefinite article in Chinese; the meaning of the definite article the in English is generally expressed by a demonstrative 这个 ‘this' in a Chinese NP.

(fij) a ’oro → (chi) 这个村子 ("the village")

  • In a Fijian NP, adjectives, demonstratives, relative clauses modifying the head noun, if present, must follow the head noun, while in a Chinese NP, they have to precede the head noun.

(fij) a ’oro vina’a yai → (chi) 这个好村子 ("this good village")

Predicate Structure

  • The major clause type in Fijian always has a predicate at the beginning of the clause, usually with a verb as the head and a obligatory subject pronoun in the initial position of the predicate; all other NPs (subject NP, object NP, object pronoun, etc.), which are optional, follow the predicate. A Chinese clause usually has the word order SVO (or SOV sometimes), and a pronoun and an NP with the same reference cannot cooccur as the subject of a verb (except when the NP is the topic/focus)

(fij) Era la’o a gone. → (chi) 孩子们在走。 ("The children are going.)


Subordinate Clauses