Saturday, October 04, 2008

Maori Unpacked, 18, The passive

18

The passive
A NEW BOX people! Is there room? Might have to hang some things up...

Ka mahi au i te mahi.
I do the work
This is an active sentence

Ka mahia te mahi e au
The work is done by me
This is a passive sentence

Holmes does that mean that there are, in fact, TWO boxes?
ONE for verbs that do take the passive
Universal verbs
mahi, work

And ONE for verbs that do not take the passive
verbs of movement
haere, go
and
statives
mau, take
Ka mau i a au te raakau
The stick was taken by me
Statives are inherently passive

Elementary my dear chap...

Now you can make a set of Mobiles with
one saying
UNIVERSAL VERB
another saying
VERBS OF MOVEMENT
and another saying
STATIVES.

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