The Māori Thread

[Imralu]

A short note on pronunciation of the prepositions o and a. They are never written with a macron but they are pronounced long when the next syllable contains a long vowel. (I'm not sure if this rule includes diphthongs.) The Māori orthography as prescribed by the Māori Language Commission (Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori) is thus not entirely focussed on a 1:1 phonetic representation but is somewhat simplified to help the reader keep a couple of very similar but different words apart, such as a or o "of" and ā or ō "(those) of", the latter of which are always pronounced long. There are a few other words which vary in length according to the surrounding context but are either written with or without a macron, such as the personal article a, and apparently also ngā, the plural "the", which is apparently pronounced short before a short vowel, and the distal locational marker "rā" (whether occurring in the demonstratives such as tērā or occurring as a standalone word), which is pronounced short sentence finally. (I think I've heard and noticed all of these except ngā, which always sounds long to me!)

Now onto the real stuff:

Preposed Possessive Phrases
In the phrases we encountered before, the possessor (whether subordinate or dominant to the possession) follows the possession, introduced by a preposition. This is pretty typical word order for a head-initial language such as Māori. I'll translate these here with the English word order closest to the Māori, but it is not an equivalent difference between the two possibilities. Note that Māori retains at least a trace of the articles of both noun phrases.

• te matua o te wahine = the father of the woman
• te tama a te wahine = the son of the woman's

It is, however, also possible to embed the possessor into the noun phrase of the possession, placing it before the noun and essentially combining the preposition a or o with the article of the possession.

• te + o = tō
• te + a = tā

• te matua o te wahine = the father of the woman's
  → tō te wahine matua = (the?!) the woman's father

• te tama a te wahine = the son of the woman
  → tā te wahine tama = (the?!) the woman's son

I have left the t in these words black on purpose because it refers to the singularity of the possession. Just like the demonstratives near the beginning of this thread, the plural is indicated by a lack of this t.

• ngā + o = ō
• ngā + a = ā

• ngā mātua o te wahine = the parents of the woman
  → ō te wahine mātua = (the?!) the woman's parents

• ngā tama a te wahine = the sons of the woman
  → ā te wahine tama = (the?!) the woman's sons

These preposed possessor phrases are not actually all that common where the possessor is a noun. From what I gather, they are useful for poetic turns of phrase these days, but NOUN of NOUN is more common in everyday speech and writing.

This structure opens a nice can of recursive worms and makes it theoretically possible to have phrases such as ā ō ō ā ō ngā wāhine mātua wāhine mātua mātua wāhine, which, if I've counted correctly, should mean "the women's fathers' wives' father's fathers' wives", but obviously that's an abstraction and quite probably no one would ever put more than one inside another as it would be pretty stylistically horrible (although funny!) in any case. Ō ō ō ngā tūpuna tūpuna tūpuna tūpuna = The ancestors' ancestors' ancestors' ancestors. It also gets potentially quite confusing, even with only one nested phrase, when the two nouns phrases, which are now next to each other with nothing to show who belongs where, could conceivably be compound phrases, or not. For example te tupuna wahine means "the female ancestor" and te wahini matua means "the head wife" (in a marriage of multiple wives), so tō te tupuna wahine matua could either mean "the ancestor's head wife" (tō te tupuna wahine matua) or "the female ancestor's father" (tō te tupuna wahine matua). *headsplode*

Preposed possessive phrases are, however, the only possibility for pronouns. You cannot say ngā mātua o koe "the parents of you". You have to say either ōku mātua or aku mātua "your parents" and for that, there are obviously some more rules coming.
___________
EDIT: Oops! I just realised: because spouses are a-class possessed and ancestors are o-class possessed, the headsplode example would actually be unambiguous, in a further headsploding way:

• tā te tupuna wahine matua = te wahine matua a te tupuna = the ancestor's head wife
• tō te tupuna wahine matua = te matua o te tupuna wahine = the female ancestor's father

But I'm sure you can appreciate that there could still be ambiguities with other phrases and that there is a lot of potential for garden-pathing if you use these phrases willy nilly.

[Imralu]

Possessive personal pronouns:

With dual and plural pronominal possessors:

Here's the table of personal pronouns just for convenience as I last mentioned it on the last page:

Code: Select all

             SINGULAR  DUAL   PLURAL
1st Excl.    au/ahau   māua   mātou
1st Incl.    -         tāua   tātou
2nd          koe       kōrua  koutou
3rd          ia        rāua   rātou

Possessives of personal pronouns are always preposed. For the dual and plural pronouns, this is simply a case of embedding the pronoun within the noun phrase, with the necessary change of the article to a possessive determinative as outlined above.

• te whare = the house
  te whare o māua = the house of us
  → tō māua whare = our house (= belonging to me and her/him)

• ngā whare = the houses
  ngā whare o rātou = the house of them
  ō rātou whare = their houses (= belonging to more than two people)

Aside from the general complexity of the pronoun and possession system that results in quite a bit of complexity (sixteen ways to say our), it's quite straightforward and because these are pronouns being embedded, not nouns, there's no potential ambiguity regarding compounds as no "bases" (content words: nouns, adjectives, verbs etc. are bumping shoulders.)

More: show

Here are the 16 ways to say "our", singular and plural possessed object, a-class and a-class possession, dual versus plural possessors and exclusive vs inclusive "we".

• tā māua
  ā māua
  tō māua
  ō māua
  tā mātou
  ā mātou
  tō mātou
  ō mātou
  tā tāua
  ā tāua
  tō tāua
  ō tāua
  tā tātou
  ā tātou
  tō tātou
  ō tātou

With singular pronominal possessors:
The singular pronouns, however, have suffixing forms which are only used for possession. These are

• First person singular: -ku
• Second person singular: -u
• Third person singular: -na

Here are some examples:

• tāku kau = my cow
• āku kau = my cows
• tōku hōiho = my horse (for riding)
• ōku hōiho = my horses (for riding)

• tāu rorohiko = your computer
• āu rorohiko = your computers
• tōu ingoa = your name
• ōu ingoa = your names

• tāna tāne = his/her husband
• āna tāne = his/her husbands
• tōna whare = his/her house
• ōna whare = his/her houses

Neutral possessors:

There is one final kink. These forms for singular, pronominal possessors also have neutral forms which do not indicate show a-type or a-type possession. To form them, the long ā or long ō of the above is simply replaced with a short a. In the second person, however, the vowels merge into just a long ō. This is only available for singular pronominal possessors and these can only be used as possessive determiners (my, your, his, her) and never as possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers) - for those, you need to use the full forms which indicate a-type or o-type possession.

Examples:

• taku kau = my cow
• aku kau = my cows
• taku hōiho = my horse (for riding)
• aku hōiho = my horses (for riding)

• tō rorohiko = your computer
• ō rorohiko = your computers
• tō ingoa = your name
• ō ingoa = your names

• tana tāne = his/her husband
• ana tāne = his/her husbands
• tana whare = his/her house
• ana whare = his/her houses

Both neutral and marked possession are commonly used where they can be, so you may hear either of these sentences:

• Ko wai tōu ingoa? = What is your name?
• Ko wai tō ingoa? = What is your name?

And you can answer with either of these sentences:

• Ko _____ tōku ingoa. = My name is ______.
• Ko _____ taku ingoa? = My name is ______.

[Imralu]

To Have

We now have all the ingredients to say "have".

When the object of "have" is indefinite, you essentially just use he to introduce the possession and then the subject phrase is a t-possessive phrase. (There are other kinds of possessives that I'll get to in later posts: n-possessives and m-possessives. What we've done so far are just the t-possessives.)

He whare tōku. = I have a house (Lit. "Mine is a house.")
He whare ōku. = I have houses (Lit. "Mine are houses.")

He kī tāku. = I have a key (Lit. "Mine is a key.")
He kī āku. = I have keys (Lit. "Mine are keys")

Compare with this structure that I introduced in an earlier lesson.

Kei a au te kī. = I have the key (Lit. "The key is at me.")
Kei a au ngā kī. = I have the keys (Lit. "The keys are at me.")

In the first structure, there is nothing that indicates the tense, so, depending on context, those sentence could also mean "I had (a house, etc.)" or "I will have (keys, etc.)". In the second structure, which is indicating the location of a specific object the preposition indicates the tense. (But of course it does!) Kei indicates present location, i indicates past location and hei indicates future location. I a au te ki. = I had the key.

[jal]

Thanks again for the interesting info.

Some observations:
- "Possession cont. "T-possession"" - there's a couple "of the women's" with double possessive, don't think you mean that.
- in general: I'd just mark impossible constructions with a "*" in front, instead of strike through?
- "Possessive personal pronouns:" - the last "ingoa?" shouldn't have question mark.


JAL

[Nerulent]

The reason for I have heard for modes of transport and water being 'dominant' is that waka (canoes), water and medicine were traditionally communally owned. I am pretty sure that kava is also dominant in other Polynesian languages for the same reason.
Edit: and at least according to Harlow, clothes being dominant is an extension of the body parts or parts of a whole category.

I use the mnemonic a for 'alienable', although like you say they don't quite fit the alienable/inalienable distinction. Also useful is a for 'agentive', o for 'objective', which then makes it easy to remember which is which for verbal nouns.

ā ō ō ā ō ngā wāhine mātua wāhine mātua mātua wāhine [...] tō te tupuna wahine matua

That first one is almost certainly ungrammatical - heavy phrases are barred from the preposed possession and I think that level of nesting is unnatural in natural langauge anyway. The second example might be okay if tupuna wahine is seen as a unit, but is much less likely to appear than te matua o te tupuna wahine.

Also I think it's worth drawing the parallel to the demonstrative pattern te whare nei ~ tēnei whare, because it has the same t/∅ plural alternation, as well as the fact the preposed forms can stand on their own: tēnei 'this one', āku 'my ones', tō te ariki 'the chief's one'.

- in general: I'd just mark impossible constructions with a "*" in front, instead of strike through?

Agreed.

[Vijay]

Rorohiko "computer" essentially means "electric brain"!

Same in Chinese

[Nooj]

Do you have any plans to go to New Zealand in order to speak Māori? I grew up in New Zealand but I unfortunately left as a child before I could learn Māori. The only places I heard it was at the marae, and it is one of my great regrets.

[Linguoboy]

Rorohiko "computer" essentially means "electric brain"!

Same in Chinese

This used to be specifically Taiwanese Mandarin. Are they using it on the Mainland nowadays?

[Vijay]

Rorohiko "computer" essentially means "electric brain"!

Same in Chinese

This used to be specifically Taiwanese Mandarin. Are they using it on the Mainland nowadays?

They've been using it in the Mainland for decades already. 计算机 is being used less and less.