Treating an Event as a Thing
An arrival clause can become a phrase naming that arrival.
How It Works
Compare Kua tae mai ngā tamariki, “The children have arrived”, with te taenga mai o ngā tamariki, “the children's arrival”. The clause asserts an arrival; the noun phrase names the event for use within a larger construction.
Learn established nominal forms such as taenga, tīmatanga and mutunga. Their endings are not freely interchangeable, and a passive form does not reliably predict the nominal form. Nominal derivatives can also develop lexical meanings beyond the event itself. Participants receive marking appropriate to their relation to the event; the nominal ending does not agree with their person or number.
The containing construction supplies temporal interpretation. Nō te ... ka can organize a past sequence, whereas ā te introduces a future reference. An event noun phrase can also be the subject of a predicate describing how near that event is.
Examples (3)
- Nō te taenga mai o ngā kaiako ka tīmata te hui.
When the teachers arrived, the meeting began.
The arrival noun phrase supplies the reference event in a past sequence.
- Kua tata te tīmatanga o te whakataetae.
The start of the competition is near.
The event noun phrase is the subject of the containing predicate.
- Ā te mutunga o te akoranga, ka hoki tātou.
When the lesson finishes, we will return.
Ā te supplies future reference; tātou includes the addressee.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Move from asserting an arrival to naming that arrival as a phrase. Track its participants and show how the phrase can serve as a subject or temporal reference, with time supplied by the containing construction.
Related Patterns
Practice Treating an Event as a Thing in Bubblegum
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