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We are now going to look at a series of sentence structures: negations.
And there are a few of them.
No there aren’t.
Let’s start with the simplest: I am not singing.
To say I am singing, we would say:
Kei te waiata ahau.
Kei te marks the present tense, and waiata is the verb to sing.
So this is a verbal sentence.
Now, there are three steps to use when negating verbal sentences.
Step 1
We negate a verbal sentence by putting kāore at the start.
So instead of:
Kei te waiata ahau,
we might try:
Kāore kei te waiata ahau.
But this is not correct yet.
Step 2
We change the word order.
The subject (the person doing the action) comes immediately after kāore.
So we get:
Kāore au kei te waiata.
This is closer, but still not correct.
Step 3
We change kei te to i te.
So the final, correct sentence is:
Kāore au i te waiata.
I am not singing.
We can also add an object at the end:
Kāore au i te waiata i tētahi waiata.
I am not singing a song.
Here's another sentence
Kei te kai koe i te keke.
You are eating the cake.
1. Add kāore:
Kāore kei te kai koe i te keke.
2. Move the subject after kāore:
Kāore koe kei te kai i te keke.
3. Change kei te to i te:
Kāore koe i te kai i te keke.
You are not eating the cake.
Easy!
Kei te pānui ngā tamariki i te pukapuka.
The children are reading the book.
Kāore ngā tamariki i te pānui i te pukapuka.
The children are not reading the book.
Kei te taraiwa a Mere i te taraka.
Mere is driving the truck.
Kāore a Mere i te taraiwa i te taraka.
Mere is not driving the truck.
Kei te kanikani ngā pirihimana
The police officers are dancing
Kāore ngā pirihimana i te kanikani
He police officers are not dancing.
Kei te umere ahau.
I am shouting.
Kāore au i te umere.
I am not shouting.
Yes you are. No I'm not.
Kei te tautɔhɛ tāua.
We are arguing
Kāore tāua i te tautɔhɛ.
We are not arguing
Yes we are.
No we're not.
An argument is a collective series of statements to establish a definite proposition
No it isn’t.
Yes it is! It isn’t just saying, “no it isn’t.”
Yes it is!
No it isn’t!
To say "I am walking" in te reo we would use the present tense kei te:
Kei te hīkoi ahau.
I am walking.
To say that we are not walking we would use kāore... i te...
Kāore au i te hīkoi.
I am not walking.
Note that the verb hīkoi ("walk") and the pronoun au ("I") have swapped places. This because in a normal sentence using kei te, the action comes first (kei te oma), but in a negation of that sentence, the person we are talking (the subject of the sentence) about comes first (kāore au).
See how the verb and the subject swap places:
Kei te waiata ia.
She is singing.Kāore ia i te waiata.
She is not singing.Kei te oma ngā tamariki.
The children are running.Kāore ngā tamariki i te oma.
The children are not running.