In this lesson, we are going to talk about prepositions.
A preposition is a small word that indicates a relationship between words. For example, in the sentence "the book is on the table"m the word "on" is a preposition.
In the sentence "the children are behind the house", the word "behind" is a preposition.
There are many prepositiosn n English. For example:
Sure! Here are some common prepositions in English:
And there are many more.
In te reo Māori, the prepsotopomns are i and ki.
Of course, there are ways to say "on", "under", "behind", etc in Māori.
Kei runga te pukapuka i te tēpu.
The book is on the table.
Kei muri ngā tamnariki i te whare.
The children are behind the house.
But pretty much i and ki are the primary prepositions.
Of course, there are ways to say "on", "under", "behind", etc in Māori.
Kei runga te pukapuka i te tēpu.
The book is on the table.
Kei muri ngā tamnariki i te whare.
The children are behind the house.
But pretty much i and ki are the primary prepositions.
This means that i in a Māori sentence can be translated in many different ways, using a variety of English prepositions. In some cases i might be tranbslated "from", in other sentences as "in" or "by".
The Williams dictionary lists 18 different words to translate i, including from, beside, in comparision with, by reason of, by, along, etc
Today I want to talk about the subject and the object of a sentence. Now, this is a bit of nerdy grammar, so bear with me.
I want to begin by talking about a rule of grammar in English that everyone knows but that no-one knows they know.
If a word can be either a noun or a verb, then the emphasis is in different places. For example, if I am holding an object, object is a noun, and it is pronounced OB-ject. But if I use ther word as a verb - if I object to what you are saying - the emphasis changes, and I would say I ob-JECT.
A noun is OB-ject and a verb is ob-JECT. "I am ob-JECT to your OB-ject.:
The same with subject. I am teaching a SUB-ject - the emphasis is on the firsty syllable. Abnd I am hoing to sub-JECT you to my sense of humour.
A noun is SUB-ject and a very is sub-JECT.
The fascinating thing is that everyone knows to say it the right way, but virtually no-one knows the rule about stressing different sykabls bnetween verns and nouns. No one knows this, but everyone says it correctly. No one one says: "this is a very difficult sub-JECT" and no one says "I OB-ject to what you are saying!".
No one knows the rule, but everyone knows the rule. They don't know they know it.
And there are lots of these words:
You may wonder why I am telling you this. Well, in this lesson we are going to talk about OB-jects and SUB-jects in a sentence.
And one of the cool grammatical rules that everyone knows but no one knows that they know, is that in English, the personal pronouns (like, me, he, she, us) changes depending on whether the person being talked about is the subject or the object of the sentence.
If a person is the subject of a sentence, we use "I', "he", "she", "we" and "them".
For example:
I am going to the shop.
He is reading a book.
She is fixing the car.
We are on holiday.
They are going to the movies.
But if the person we are talking about is the object of the sentence, we use "me", "him", "her", "us" and "them".
Give the book to me.
The class was taught by him.
Talk to her.
It was lucky for us.
What's happening to them?
The thing is that everyone knows the rule. No one says: "me going to the shop" or "give the book to I". No one says: 'Him is reading the book" or "the class was taught by he".
But no one thinks: "Oh, that person is the object of the sentence so I should use 'her' rather than 'she'" - unless you are an English teacher or are learning English, in which case you need to learn the rule that everyone who is a native English speaker just knows without knowing the grammatical rule.
If you ask a five year old why they say: "I want an icecream" and not "me want an icecream" they won't be able to tell you. They might say: "Me want an icecreams sounds funny", which it does.
They certainly won't say: "the first person singular pronoun is 'I' for the subject of a sentence and 'me' for the object of a sentence."
Similarly, a native Māori speaker might not be able to explain why you say "kei te pānui au i te pukapuka" and not just "kei te pānui te pukapuka". They might just say that one sounds right and the other one sounds funny. They probably won't say that the direct object of a sentence is marked by the particle i - unless they are a Māori language teacher or a grammar nerd.
But as second language learners, we need to learn the rules, just like second language English learners need to learn the rule of SUB-ject and sub-JECT and the rules of "I" and "me".
This takes us to the point of this lesson, which is that the object of a sentence in Māori is marked by either i or ki.
For example, if you wanted to say: I am reading the book, you might say: kei te pānui ahau te pukapuka, but this would be wrong.
Because I am doing the reading, I am the subject of the sentence. And the book, the thing being read, is the object of the sentence. We have to indicate the object with either i or ki. So we would say:
Kei te pānui ahau i te pukapuka.
I am reading the book.
Similaerly, if you want to say "The woman is singing the song" you might say: kei te waiata te wahine te waiata, but you would be wrong.
The woman, who is doing the singing, is the subject of the sentence. The song, which is being sung, is the object of the sentence. And we have to mark the object with either i or ki, so we would say:
Kei te waiata te wahine i te waiata.
The woman is singing the song.
This is one thing that most Māori language learners forget, because we don't have this marker in English. We don''t say: I am reading to the book, or she is singing of the song - this sounds weird to us, and so adding the i to the object of the sentence doesn't come naturally and is easy to forget. But its an important aspect of the Māori language,
We can also have more than one object in a sentence. In English, they are known as the direct object and the indirect object.
We can say:
Kei te pānui i te pukapuka ki ngā tamariki
I am reading the book to the children.
Or:
Kei te pānui i te pukapuka ki ngā tamariki i te whare pukapuka.
I am reading the book to the children in the library.
Or even:
Kei te pānui i te pukapuka i te reo Māori ki ngā tamariki i te whare pukapuka.
I am reading the book in Māori to the children in the library.
There is almost an infinite number of possible sentences that you can say with a subject and an object:
The man is building the house.
The woman is fixing the car.
The children are washing the dishes.
The policeman is arresting the thief.
The dog is chasing the cat.
The penguin is eating the fish.
etc
And in each of these sentences, we need to indicate the object with i or ki. So we would say:
The man is building i the house.
The woman is fixing i the car.
The children are washing i the dishes.
The policeman is arresting i the thief.
The dog is chasing i the cat.
The penguin is eating i the fish.
etc
It sounds weird in English, but it's the way to have a sentence make sense in Māori.