e ... rā

An Event at a Distance

Level 4

Head noun + e + predicate phrase + rā + remaining participants.

How It Works

Place e before the predicate and rā after its phrase. Directional and manner particles precede rā. When the head supplies the subject, leave that subject unexpressed inside the relative; objects and location phrases retain their ordinary marking. Rā has no person or number agreement.

Compare te manu e tau nei, “the bird perched here”, with te manu e tau rā, “the bird perched over there”. Nei connects the event with the immediate viewpoint, nā with the listener’s situation, and rā with distance from those reference points.

Distance can also concern time or the principal viewpoint in a narrative. Rā does not impose a fixed past tense: context establishes when the event occurs. In e tū mai rā, mai precedes rā, but the combination alone does not specify which way a stationary person faces.

Examples (3)

  1. He mā ngā hipi e kai rā i te pātītī.

    The sheep eating the grass over there are white.

    Rā supplies distance; i marks the object.

  2. Ko tōku matua te tangata e tū mai rā i te piriti.

    The person standing over there on the bridge is my father.

    Mai precedes rā without determining physical facing.

  3. Inanahi, i kite au i ngā tamariki e oma rā ki te kura.

    Yesterday, I saw the children running over there to school.

    The main clause establishes past observation; rā supplies distance.

How It Connects

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

e ... rāLevel 4An Event at a Distance

Learn This First

Use rā after the predicate phrase to frame a relative event at spatial or discourse distance. The sheep and bridge examples introduce that distance concretely; the past observation example shows that context supplies time independently.