A little help, please.
 

Hi,

I was just wondering if someone could explain something to me.

This sentence "姪ちゃん、前に結婚したおねえちゃんのベビー?".

Does it mean something like, "your niece, did your sister have her baby getting married?" OR a little more like "your niece, the baby of your sister who had the wedding before now(that you went to)?"

Any help much appreciated.:)
Thanks a lot.

"Your niece, is she the baby of your sister who got married some time ago?"

Why your niece? Placed like that doesn't show the person is talking to the niece?

Are you talking to me?

There might be plural contexts.
Without no context, my interpretation would be;

Oh, dear, my niece! Are you really the baby of my sister who just had the wedding before?

Thanks to you all for your help.

Masaegu, that seems like the most appropriate meaning looking at the context. Thanks again for the explanation.

Not even close. I thought you had answered affirmatively when someone asked you if you were a Japanese-speaker.

Thank you, masaegu, for your comment. :)
But I didn't understand, not yet. Please tell me why did you know my interpretation was not even close? (Actually, it turns out to be not even close.)

And what does "I thought you had answered affirmatively when.........-speaker"
mean?

To me, your answer seems to correct billyjapan's English sentence. Doesn't he a native-English speaker? :confused: :confused:
To me, your answer seems to follow the interpretation of billyjapan (especially the second one). Why?

Why your niece, as chryuop asked previously ?

わかりました。ひょっとして、
ネイティブの日本人っぽいヤツ（reply)を無理にひねり出 そうとしているので、気負いすぎて、かえってとんちん かんな答えになってるよ、ってことですね。;)

マサエグさんに答えが遅れて、すみませんね。僕の町は 金曜日に小さい竜巻で直撃されて、２日間停電してしま いました。

Yes, I was not understanding why it is "your niece". I thought when you talk directly to someone that's the way you address. Like if I talked to my mother I might say "母ちゃん、。。。".

I'm really sorry to hear that. Hope all your family and friends are alright.
_____

「姪ちゃん、前に結婚したおねえちゃんのベビー?」

First, unlike 母ちゃん and 父ちゃん, you don't address your own niece as 姪ちゃん
. You would address her with her actual name or nickname. So the addressee of this sentence is NOT the niece. It is someone's niece but not the speaker's. I will come back to this in a second.

Now, think about who the speaker is. When I read the 「前に結婚したおねえちゃんのベビー?」 part, I immediately knew that the speaker was not part of the family in questioon. Agreed? The speaker does not even know who this girl's mother is. S/He doesn't seem to know much about the family.

Who is the addressee? From the context, it is clearly a member of the family because the addressee is someone who could answer the question being asked: "Who is the mother of the girl?" So, the addressee is related to both 姪ちゃん and お姉ちゃん.

So, we can safely say the following so far:

Speaker = outsider to family
Addressee = family member
Subject of sentence = 姪ちゃん

Let's add words to the colloquial sentence so that Japanese-learners can see the structure.

「姪ちゃん、前に結婚したおねえちゃんのベビー?」
becomes:
「姪ちゃんって、前に結婚したおねえちゃんのベビーの 事ですか?」
って　＝　は

姪ちゃんって = As for the niece that you just mentioned

We now know that the addressee would have to be the uncle of this niece, wouldn't it?

Thank you for your concern, we are all fine.

I understand now why it is your niece. I didn't know you address differently to niece. I thought member of the family you address the same way. Also おねえちゃん tricked me. I guess the way that he used ちゃん made me immediately think about member of the speaker's family.