Thoughts and Beliefs

Level 5

Identify the knower or believer, then the content.

How It Works

A mental-state complement supplies the content of knowing or believing. After mōhio, a me clause can express an action understood as advisable or necessary. Other content retains its own aspect marking or conditional structure. The embedded participant may be the knower or someone else.

Compare knowing that one should study with knowing that a meeting has finished. The first concerns a recommended or required action; the second concerns a resulting state. Keep the inner predicate's particles appropriate to that meaning. The supported mōhio ... me pattern permits an explicitly repeated pronoun when both clauses concern the same person.

The belief example uses the complete conditional frame mehemea ki te. Its presence does not establish that both words are obligatory in every conditional construction. Neither predicate agrees with participant number. These are specific knowledge and belief patterns, rather than a shared complement rule for all verbs of thought or feeling.

Examples (3)

  1. E mōhio ana au me ako au ki te reo Māori.

    I know I should learn Māori.

    The me clause expresses an action understood as advisable or necessary.

  2. Kua mōhio a Mere kua mutu te hui.

    Mere now knows that the meeting has finished.

    The outer kua presents acquired knowledge; the inner kua presents the completed meeting.

  3. E whakapono ana a Hemi mehemea ki te ako ia, ka mōhio ia.

    Hemi believes that if he studies, he will understand.

    The content is conditional; both instances of ia are intended to refer to Hemi.

How It Connects

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

Thoughts and BeliefsLevel 5

Learn This First

Identify the knower or believer and then read the content's own modal, aspectual or conditional structure. Treat the demonstrated complements as construction-specific, including the complete mehemea ki te frame shown here.