How to create verbless sentences in te reo

The focus of the last column was upon changing affirmative statements into the negative – but dealt only with sentences containing verbs. In English, for a sentence to be deemed a proper sentence, there must be a main verb. Many types of sentences in te reo do not contain any verb.

In introducing oneself, for instance, the commonly used form might be Ko Mere/ahau (‘‘Mary/I’’) or Ko Mere/to¯ ku ingoa (‘‘Mary/my name’’).

English versions of similar statements would be ‘‘I am Mary’’ and ‘‘Mary is my name’’ – but, just as English has no word for the Ma¯ ori focus particle ko, so te reo has no equivalent of the English ‘‘am’’ or ‘‘is’’, or any part of the verb ‘‘to be’’.

The sentences in te reo communicate the information quite clearly without the use of a verb.

Such verbless sentences are sometimes called ‘‘equative’’ sentences: Ko Hone/te rangatira (‘‘John [is] the chief’’), Ko te¯ nei/te whare (‘‘This [is] the house’’), He whare pai/te¯ ra¯ (‘‘A good house that’’ = ‘‘That [is] a good house’’).

Converting verbless statements into the negative involves two different forms of negation phrase.

With statements such as those beginning with Ko, or He (as in the above examples), the negation phrase Ehara is used: Ehara/a Hone/i te rangatira (‘‘Hone is not the chief’’), Ehara/te¯ nei/i te whare (‘‘This is not the house’’), Ehara/ te¯ ra¯ /i te whare pai (‘‘That is not a good house’’).

It should be noted that the focus particle ko is replaced before a person’s name by the personal article a, and also that the preposition i is introduced.

A good example of this form of negative occurs in the popular waiata beginning: Ehara/i te mea/ no¯ na¯ ianei/te aroha (‘‘Aroha is not something belonging [only to] the present time’’) . . . No¯ nga¯ tu¯ puna/ tuku iho/tuku iho (‘‘From the ancestors [it is] handed down, handed down’’).

For verbless statements beginning with either of the location prepositions kei or i, the negation phrase is Ka¯ hore (or

Ka¯ ore): Kei kora¯ /te kurı¯ (‘‘The dog [is] over there’’) but Ka¯ hore (or Ka¯ ore)/te kurı¯/i kora¯ (‘‘The dog is not over there’’). The preposition i is also used in this sentence-type (here replacing kei).

There are several other types of negative sentences to be explored, and fuller information may be found in Bruce Biggs’ Let’s Learn Maori.

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. His new book Te Reo Ma¯ ori – The Basics Explained is scheduled for publication by Oratia Books in February.