te ... -tanga a

Actors in an Event Noun

Level 5

Te + event noun + a + actor can name someone's action.

How It Works

A supported action pattern is te patunga a ... i ..., naming someone's striking or killing of something. Possessive a identifies the actor, while i introduces the affected participant. A personal affected participant takes personal object marking, as in i a Ria.

Compare te patunga a Mere i te namu with te patunga o te namu e Mere. Both name the same event, with different participant organization. The nominal form does not agree with either participant's number. Learn its established ending rather than adding one universal suffix to every verb.

Not every action noun needs a suffix. Te tangi a ngā manu names the birds' singing. This supports the particular unsuffixed pattern, rather than every conceivable bare-base nominalization. Likewise, the actor interpretation illustrated here does not extend to every possessive a phrase: interpret the relationship through the noun and construction.

Examples (3)

  1. te patunga a Ria i te namu

    Ria's killing of the sandfly

    Noun-phrase fragment: Ria is the actor; the sandfly is affected.

  2. te patunga a ngā tamariki i a Ria

    the children's hitting of Ria

    Noun-phrase fragment: plural actors retain a; the personal affected participant takes i a.

  3. te tangi a ngā manu i te ata

    the birds' singing in the morning

    Noun-phrase fragment: tangi is an unsuffixed action noun; i te ata supplies time.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

te ... -tanga aLevel 5Actors in an Event Noun

Learn This First

Read possessive a as relating an actor to the particular action noun, with an i-marked affected participant where appropriate. Include the attested unsuffixed tangi pattern without generalizing either its morphology or the actor reading to every noun.