ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR KINDS OF WORDS

PARTS OF SPEECH

Universals. [~suffix] (e.g. [~a]) These are words which can have a passive ending attached to them. In the dictionary, the ending is given in square brackets after the head word - for example "pai [~ngia]". This means that the usual passive form of the word pai is paingia. With the few words which do not simply tack on a passive ending to the active form, the whole passive form is included in the square brackets (e.g. "rongo [rangona]"). For more information about "passives", see the notes in the section on "Other Terms", below. As their name implies, many universal bases can be used in a variety of ways. For example, using common English grammatical terms to describe its versatility, pai can occur in constructions where it functions as a noun (e.g. i ngä wä hoki o te pai "in times of prosperity, too"), or in an adjectival sense (e.g. he tohu pai tënei "this is a good sign), as an active verb (e.g. E kore ahau e pai ki tënä patu "I wouldn’t like that patu"), and of course in the passive (paingia means "to be liked or thought well of by someone").

Derived universals. These are universals formed by adding the causative prefix whaka- to a universal, stative or noun base. The meaning of the combination will be related to that of the base without the suffix, usually in the sense of "cause to do" an action, or "make into, become" a state or object. Many commonly encountered causatives are given separate entries in the dictionary. Since whaka- tansforms these words into universals, the appropriate passive suffix is indicated for those forms listed in the dictionary.

Statives. [S] These words can be used as the key element in verb phrases, but do not take passive suffixes. Because they mostly refer to states and conditions of existence, they may be equivalent to verbs or adjectives in English. Many statives function also as nouns. They can thus occur in both verb and noun phrases. Examples are reka, which can mean "sweet" (e.g. he kakara tino reka "a very sweet fragrance"), "to be sweet" (e.g. kua reka ki te kai "it was good to eat"), or "sweetness" (e.g. kia mau ai te reka o nga kakano "so that the sweetness of the nut can be retained"); and mate, which can mean "sick, dead, injured" (e.g. te hunga mate "the company of the dead", te wïra mate "the damaged wheel"), "to be sick or dead" (e.g. i te mea e mate ana ahau "because I am sick"), to be affected by sickness or death (e.g. ka mate rätou i te mätao "they were perishing because of the cold"), "to die (e.g. ka mate te rangatira me töna iwi "the chief died along with his people"), and "death or sickness" (e.g. he mate kë tërä "that’s a different kind of sickness"). Statives are often transformed into universals when they are prefixed with causative whaka-. See the dictionary entry for whaka- for more information about this.

Numerals. [num] In Professor Biggs’ classification, numberals are a sub-class of statives. They are the base numerals from nine to nine (tahi, rua, toru, whä, rima, ono, whitu, waru, iwa) plus the interogative hia "how many?", and maha "many" Like statives, they can occur as the centre of a verb phrase, but do not take passive suffixes. However, they alone can occur with four numeral prefixes, toko- indicating that people are referred to (e.g. tokomaha "how many [people]"), tua- transforming cardinal numerals to ordinals (e.g. tuaono "sixth"), taki- indicating occurrence in groups (e.g. takitahi "one-by-one", takiwhä "in fours"), and hoko-, which multiplies the number by twenty (e.g. hokotoru "three score, sixty").

Nouns. [N] These words can occur with determiners and articles as the centre of a noun phrase, but they are not used as the nucleus of a verb phrase. In Maori, ika "fish" is a noun. Note that in English, fish is a much more versatile word, as it can be used as a noun, as an active verb and also in passive constructions; that is, in English the word fish has the grammatical versatility of a Maori "universal". This is why knowing the part of speech to which a word belongs in each language is important: as nouns, ika and fish do mean much the same thing, but otherwise they are very different words, and one cannot automatically be substituted for the other when you change languages.

Derived nouns. [Der.N] Dervived nouns are formed by adding a nominalizing suffix to universals and statives. The suffix always ends in nga, but its form with any particular universal normally follows the pattern of the passive suffix: where this is -a or -ngia, and also with statives, the nominalizing suffix will usually be -nga (e.g. patu - patua - patunga), -ia in the passive will usually be paralleled by -anga in the derived noun (e.g. noho - nohoa - nohoanga), and -hia, -kia, -mia, -nia or -tia will mostly keep the consonant and replace ia by anga (e.g. inu - inumia - inumanga). The derived noun usually refers to the circumstances, location (in time or space) or associations of the state or activity referred to by the base. Sometimes the derived noun will have quite a specific meaning; in other cases it may range over all the meanings of the base form. With some bases, a change in the suffix may also indicate a change of meaning, for example the Williams' Dictionary has poronga "the end of something" and porohanga "fragment, piece" as distinct words derived from poro "cut short; butt, broken off piece", but there are not yet any examples of this in the Tai Tokerau Dictionary..

Locatives. [L] These bases do not occur with the articles te and nga (unless these are part of a place name), or determiners, and can come immediately after the locative prepositions i, ki, and kei. They include all place names, and a special set of words such as runga "top", raro "bottom", roto "inside", waho "outside", waenganui "middle", tua "other side of a clear space", täwahi "other side of a solid object", uta "landward", tai "seaward", mua "front", muri "back", reira "there, spoken of", könei "here", konä "there, near you", korä "over there", tahaki "alongside", as well as hea and whea ("where?"). Months of the year are often treated as locatives following i and ki, but also have the characteristics of Personals (see below).

Personals. [P] This group of words is defined gramatically by the fact that they alone can occur directly following the personal article a, which always comes before them and the locative prepositions i, ki, hei and kei (e.g. Koinei te körero ä Mämä ki a Päpä "This was Mum’s advice to Dad"). Names of people, meeting houses named after an ancestor, and other objects or phenomena which have been personified, belong to this class of words. The personal pronouns are "personals" with special characteristics; these are discussed separately below. Months of the year are another class of personals, but not days of the week (the names of days are treated as ordinary nouns). The months fall gramatically between personals and locatives. They do not occur with the definite articles (ngä and te). They may be preceeded by the personal article following a locative preposition (e.g. Hei a Tïhemea ka tïmata te noho kähui "In December the gathering in flocks will begin"), but are sometimes preceded directly by ki, as would be expected if they were locatives (e.g. tae noa ki Noema "right up until November").

Pronouns. [pron.] Personal pronouns are a special sub-group of "Personals". These words stand in place of personal names or noun phrases referring to people or supernatural beings (in Maori, these pronouns are not used to refer to objects or animals except when these are personified in stories). The pronouns are indicate "number" - singular, dual (two people), and plural (more than two) - and, with dual and plural pronouns, whether or not the person being addressed is included. The singular pronouns are au "I" (also ahau), koe "you", and ia "he, she". The dual pronouns are täua "you and I", mäua "he/she and I", körua "you two", räua "they too". The plural pronouns are tätou "several of us, including you", mätou "several of us, but not you", koutou "you: all of you", rätou "they: all of them". (Note that Maori does have the same case distinctions which English makes in its first and third person pronouns, so ahau is equivalent to "me" as well as "I", ia also includes "him/her", räua and rätou "them". The singular pronouns have combining forms, which are suffixed to the possessive particles a, o, mä, mö, nä, nö and to the definitives tä, tö, etc.; these are -ku "me" (e.g. töku "my"), -u "you" (e.g. näu "yours"), and -na "him/her" (e.g. mäna "for her/ for him")

PARTICLES AND COMBINATIONS OF PARTICLES

Definitives. [def.] These are combinations of the definite articles and other particles, e.g. positional particles, and with possessive particles, alone or with the combining forms of pronouns. In these combinations, "ngä) is usually replaced by the absence of the initial t in the singular form. Examples are tënei "this", ënei "these", töku "my, sg.", öku "my, pl.".

Articles. These include the personal article [pers.art.] a (no English equivalent), the definite articles [def.art.] te ("the", singular) and ngä ("the", plural), and the indefinite article [indef.art.], he "a, an, some". .

Locative prepositions. [loc.prep.] These are the four prepositions indicating location in space or time, i, ki, hei and kei. See the dictionary entries for more information.

Positional particles. [pos.part.] These are nei "near speaker", nä "near you", and rä "away from us".

Other particles. [part.] These are the linking particle, -ä- (as in waiata-ä-ringa "action songs"), the focus particle, ko, and so on.

Directional particles. [dir.part.] The particles mai "hither", atu "away", iho "from above", and ake "from below".

Pre-posed verbal particles. [pre-vb.part.] These particles are the ones that come before verb-like uses of universals or statives to signal time, continuity and so on: kua, i, e, ka, kei, me, e, kia, ina

Possessive pronouns. [poss.P] Possessive pronoun (combination of NA, NO, MO, MO with the suffixes -ku, -u, -na), words that stand for nouns and indicate ownership, control or attachment – näku, möu, näna, etc.

Negators. [neg.] These are words like ehara, të, kähore and so on that indicate that something is, was not, will not, should not or might not be the case.

Conjunctions. [conj.] Words like me ("with, and") which join sequences of words or statements.

Interjections. [interj] These are words used to express surprise, horror, amazement and so on, but which don't refer to any particular object, state, action or direction - e.g. Ai!, Auë!

Possessive particles. [poss.part] Words which indicate that something belongs to, is part of, is owned or controlled by or benefits something or someone - e.g. ö, nä, mö.

Post-verbal particles. [post-vb.part] The verbal particles ana, ai, which occur after a verb.

Other post-posed particles. [post.part] Other particles which come at the end of a phrase, e.g. anake, anö, hoki, etc.

Locative combinations. [loc.comb]. These are combinations of particles and local nouns to indicate relative location, e.g. i runga i, nö roto o, etc.

Manner particles. [man.part] rawa, tonu, kë, noa, pea, koa

OTHER TERMS USED IN DESCRIBING KINDS OF WORDS AND THEIR USES

Verbs. In some of the descriptions and definitions, "verbs" are mentioned. This is just a shorthand way of saying "Statives and universals used in constructions with verbal particles".

Pronouns. Words like ia, koe, ahau, tätou which can be used in place of nouns or names.

Prefix. A particle which is joined to the beginning of another word, e.g. kai- in kaimahi, whaka- in whakarite.

Suffix. A particle which is joined to the end of another word, like the passive suffixes -a, -tia, etc. and the nominalizing suffix -tanga.

Pre-posed Coming before the head word in a phrase, like e in e haere ana.

Post-posed Coming after the head word in a phrase, like ana in e haere ana

Plural. [pl.] Indicating more than one - like mätua "parents" (in contrast to matua "parent").

Singular. [sg.] Indicating just one - like matua "parent" (in contrast to mätua "parents").

Combination of particles. [comb.] These are groups of particles which have special meanings whem they are used together, for example ki te "if" -- a conjunctive combination; kei te, i te to indicate "present" and "past" action respectively, pre-verbal combinations]

Variant. [var.] An alternative form of particular word, when each form has the same meaning, e.g. kourua and körua "you two".

Passive. [pass.] "Universal" bases can occur with passive suffixes. The most common of these is -ngia, but there are other variants, too, with particular bases, e.g. -mia in inumia, -a in patua, and so on. See also the entry on derived nouns (in the section on bases, above).

Causative. The prefix whaka- can be added to any univeral or stative to form a "causative" base (which functions as a universal). The meaning of the resulting word is usually to cause something to happen in the way indicated in the root word, e.g. haere "go", whakahaere "make something go, organize"; muri "back, behind", whakamuri "backwards".