Ngā Tohutohu
I hokihoki ngā tūruhi ki ō rātou whenua
Indicating repetitive or frequent action
You might have noticed by now that many words in Māori are partially or wholly doubled. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to affect the meaning of a word, particularly with nouns, like the following examples;
Hei tauira:
| ringa, ringaringa |
arm, hand |
| wae, waewae |
leg, foot |
Doubling of a verb usually indicates that an action is repetitive, and this is what we will focus on at this time, have a look at the following examples;
Hei tauira:
| I hoki rātou ki tō rātou kainga. |
They returned (together) to their home. |
| I hokihoki rātou ki ō rātou kāinga. |
They have returned (independently)
to their (own) homes. |
| I haere ia ki tāwāhi. |
He/She went overseas. |
I hāereere haere ia ki tēnā whenua, ki tēnā
whenua. |
He/She went travelling around to
each country. |
It is also worth noting that some verbs may have three or more syllables in the word before reduplication. If this is the case then only two of the syllables will be double as in the following examples.
| tapahi |
cut |
| tapatapahi |
cutting (frequent/repetitive) |
| haere |
go, travel |
| hāereere |
travelling around (see example above) |
For further explanations and examples see Te Pihinga pp. 87 – 88.
Whakakīa ngā āputa o ngā rerenga kōrero e whai ake nei ki tētahi o ngā kōwhiringa e toru.
From the three options given, fill in the gaps of the following sentences
