Articles

An article is a small word that determines how well another word is known. Articles are quite compulsory, as they are the way to show if something is singular or plural in Māori. The articles in Māori can be arranged into the following chart.

“ētahi” can also be spelt “wētahi” or “ngētahi”.

Definite articles convey the sense that something is known.

Indefinite articles convey the sense that something is unknown.

“he” can be both singular and plural.

It’s mostly used at the start of an equative clause like the following.

Notice that what we already know comes last in sentences like this. The first phrase (“he ika” in this case) is the one that is emphasised in Māori sentences. It is the new information.

What comes after “he” can also be more of a description.

The final one is “a”, the proper article. It comes before the names of people and places when they’re the subject of the sentence.

Additionally, it comes before people’s names and personal pronouns (“I”, “you”, “they”, et cetera) when they follow locative prepositions. An explanation of locative prepositions can be found in the Locative Prepositions section.

Another useful word to know is “ko”. Like “he”, it generally comes at the start of equative clauses.

That last example emphasises “you” as the winner. Compare that to some other constructions, which can give slightly different meanings.

You now have the knowledge of how to make simple equative sentences in Māori. As you can see, they will start with either “he” or “ko”.

Another handy thing to know is that questions can be made out of any kind of sentence with the sole addition being a question mark.