A little help, please.

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by chryuop

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?

[chryuop]

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.