The argument realisation of give and take verbs in Māori

Aoife Finn | Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

The case-system of Māori is often disputed. Through Role and Reference Grammar, this analysis examines give and take verbs where both accusative and ergative elements of the grammar intersect in argument realisation. Give verbs hoatu and homai pattern accusatively. There are two verbal forms which lexicalise directionality. With preposition choice, the semantic role of the ‘recipient’ is elucidated. The sense and logical structure of the verb will be altered. The prepositions provide insight into possession in Māori. Take in Māori is realised with two verbal forms. Tango exhibits accusative marking, riro exhibits ergative marking. An examination of the give and take verbs in the marked voice, the actor-emphatic and nominalizations underscore some of the challenges in categorizing the Māori case-system.

Published online: 14 January 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.167.07fin

References

Bauer, Winifred

. 1993 Māori. London: Routledge.

Biggs, Bruce

1973 Let’s learn Māori: A Guide to the Study of the Māori Language, rev. edn. Wellington: Reed Education.

Blansitt, Edward L.

1988 Datives and allatives. In Studies in Syntactic Typology [Typological Studies in Language 17], Edith A. Moravcsik, Jessica R. Wirth & Michael Hammond (eds), 173–191. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dixon, Robert M.W.

1994 Ergativity. Cambridge: CUP.

Du Feu, Veronica

1996 Rapanui. London: Routledge.

Gibson, Jeanne D. & Starosta, Stanley

1990 Ergativity east and west. In Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology [Trends in Linguistic Studies and Monographs 45], Philip Baldi (ed.), 195–210. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Harlow, Ray

2001 A Māori Reference Grammar. Auckland: Pearson Education.

2007 Māori A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.

Newman, John

1996 Give: A Cognitive Linguistic Study [Cognitive Linguistics Research 7]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Nolan, Brian

2012 The Structure of Irish: A Functional Account. London: Equinox.

Pavey, Emma L.

2010 The Structure of Language: An Introduction to Grammatical Analysis. Cambridge: CUP.

Sinclair, Michael B.V.

1976 Is Māori an ergative language? The Journal of the Polynesian Society 85. Auckland: Polynesian Society.

Van Valin Jr., Robert D.