Te reo base-words and particles
Almost all words in te reo Ma¯ ori (but not quite all) may be identified as belonging to one or other of two main categories: base-words and particles.
There are thousands of basewords in te reo Ma¯ ori, and new words are frequently added. Sometimes called ‘‘content words’’ or ‘‘conceptual words’’, or described as having ‘‘real meaning’’, they refer to things, actions, or events which exist in the world of our experiences.
Applied to English, the term base-word would cover nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Many words belong in more than one group: words such as ‘‘dance’’ and ‘‘book’’ for instance may be either noun or verb.
In Let’s Learn Maori the basewords of te reo are classified in five groups: two types of verbs, many of which are used also as common nouns, and three types of nouns which are not used as verbs.
Words such as waiata (‘‘sing’’), ko¯ rero (‘‘speak’’) and haere (‘‘move’’) are examples of one type of verb (verb of action). Many such base-words may be used as either verbs or common nouns. The words waiata and ko¯ rero are frequently used as common nouns (‘‘song’’ and ‘‘speech’’ respectively). Words such as whare (‘‘house’’), ika (‘‘fish’’) and ra¯ kau (‘‘tree’’ or ‘‘stick’’) are examples of common nouns which are not used as verbs.
Particles have no ‘‘real meaning’’. They have grammatical functions. Words such te, nga¯ , and ki are examples. There are only about 55 particles in total, classified into different groups. No new words are added to the list of particles.
If a sentence is likened to a stone wall, base-words could be said to represent the stones, whilst particles represent the mortar or cement which binds the stones together into a coherent, meaningful whole. A phrase in te reo Ma¯ ori is formed around a ‘‘stone’’ or ‘‘nucleus’’ of one or more base-words.
One or two particles (normally never more than two) may precede the base-word nucleus of a phrase. The common noun whare is the nucleus of these phrases: te whare (‘‘the house’’) and ki te whare (‘‘to the house’’).
One or more particles (occasionally several) may follow the nucleus. The verb of action haere is the nucleus of these phrases: Haere mai! (‘‘Come here!’’) and E haere mai ana … (‘‘Coming this way ...’’). In many phrases there may be particles in both positions (as in the last example).
David Ka¯ rena-Holmes is a New Zealand born writer currently based in Nelson. A tutor of grammar since the 1980’s, he is the author of Ma¯ ori Language: Understanding the Grammar (Pearson), and will be examining te reo grammar in a series of fortnightly articles.
A phrase in te reo Ma¯ori is formed around a ‘‘stone’’ or ‘‘nucleus’’ of one or more base-words.