Prepositions and sentences without verbs

Prepositions in te reo live up to their name: that is, they are always ‘‘preposed’’. Whenever a preposition is used, it’s always the first word in a phrase.

This means, of course, that there can be no more than one preposition in any one phrase.

Prepositions form the largest group of particles in te reo, including such words as ko, me, e, ki, kei, i, hei, a, o, ma¯ , mo¯ , na¯ , no¯ . Some of these words have more than one prepositional function. It should also be noted that some – me, e, kei, i – are the same as words in the list of verb particles. This isn’t as confusing in practice as it might initially appear.

Sometimes a preposition in te reo may be appropriately translated into a preposition in English – as is ki in the phrase ki te whare (‘‘to the house’’) – but this is far from always the case. It would be quite wrong to assume, for instance, that the Ma¯ ori preposition ki and the English preposition ‘‘to’’ always correspond in function.

In some cases, a different English word may be needed to translate ki, and in other cases ki may have a function in the Ma¯ ori text for which there is no equivalent in English.

It should be emphasised, therefore, that with prepositions (and indeed all particles) what needs to be understood are the grammatical functions of each, in different contexts. For example, in introducing oneself, the preposition ko is commonly placed before one’s name: Ko Hoani / au. (‘‘I / am / John.’’).

Just as there is no word in te reo Ma¯ ori for the English ‘‘am’’, there is no word in English for the Ma¯ ori ko.

The preposition ko acts as a marker, or pointer to the word which follows. It’s sometimes called the ‘‘focus particle’’. The sentence Ko Hoani / au might be rendered something like ‘‘ > John / I’’. This sentence communicates the intended information perfectly adequately, without requiring the use of a verb.

It’s a principle of English grammar that a sentence, to be complete, must have a main verb. This rule doesn’t apply to te reo.

Sentences in te reo may be quite complete without any verb at all. Often, the main verb in an English sentence may be a part of the verb ‘‘to be’’ – as in ‘‘I / am / John’’. But the sentence Ko Hoani / au makes do without a verb.

More about prepositions is to follow in the next column.

It’s a principle of English grammar that a sentence, to be complete, must have a main verb. This rule doesn’t apply to te reo.