More on questions and answers in te reo

Probably the most wellknown question word in te reo Ma¯ ori is pe¯ hea? along with its dialectal alternative pe¯ whea? It’s the question word almost always used in greetings: Kia ora! Kei te pe¯ hea

koe? (‘‘Hello! How are you?’’)

The translation is given here in simple, idiomatic English – ‘‘How are you?’’ – but the word pe¯ hea? (or pe¯ whea?) is surprisingly difficult to translate in precise literal terms. This most common of conversational exchanges actually provides a useful example of one of the most significant differences between te reo and English.

This difference is that there is no equivalent of any parts of the English linking verb ‘‘to be’’ in te reo – that is, in the present example, there is no literal translation for the English word ‘‘are’’.

In te reo, there are two main types of verb: action verbs (‘‘doing words’’), which are similar to the main verbs of English, and stative verbs (‘‘being words’’), which describe a ‘‘state of being’’ (and which are not found in English).

In English, a ‘‘state of being’’ is commonly described using a part of the verb ‘‘to be’’ followed by an adjective – eg ‘‘This talk is good’’. The Ma¯ ori phrase corresponding to ‘‘is good’’ is a stative verb phrase, such as in Ka pai, Kei te pai or E pai ana/te¯ nei ko¯ rero.

The word pe¯ hea?/pe¯ whea?, although always a question word, belongs in this group of stative verbs. Thus, Kei te pe¯ hea/koe? could be literally translated as ‘‘In what sort of state you?’’.

Simple questions in te reo usually supply the pattern or template for an answer. That is, an answer involves just putting an answer word in place of the question word. Question: Kei te pe¯ hea/koe? Answer (with the necessary change of the pronoun): Kei te pai/ahau. (‘‘I’m fine.’’)

This is worth noting because the same situation doesn’t apply in English. To the question ‘‘How are you?’’, an answer is hardly likely to be ‘‘Fine am I’’.

But the word pe¯ hea?/pe¯ whea? is of such frequent occurrence and so familiar that some speakers often abbreviate the question phrase simply to Pe¯ hea? or even (when using the northern E . . . ana verb construction) to Pe¯ ana? Question: Pe¯ hea/te ahua/o te ra¯ ? (‘‘What state the look of the day?’’ = ‘‘How’s the weather?’’). An abbreviated answer could be: Tino makariri! (‘‘Very cold!’’) or Tino wera (‘‘Very hot’’).

David Ka¯ rena-Holmes is a New Zealand-born writer currently living in Nelson. A tutor of grammar since the 1980s, he is the author of Ma¯ ori Language: Understanding the Grammar (Pearson), and is examining te reo grammar in a series of fortnightly articles.