daily-reo

Tō means: Your (singular).

tō is the neutral form of the possessive determiner “your” (singular). The neutral possessive determiners follow the pattern I mentioned yesterday of converting the pronoun into a suffix, except for the second person pronoun (your) which instead of adding ‘-u’ makes the ‘o’ long.

It’s called neutral because te reo Māori commonly makes use of a/o categories, which are ways of modifying the possessive pronoun to specify the nature of the relationship between the possessor and the possessed. This is a pretty huge kaupapa so I won’t give it loads of coverage for a weekend post, but it can be read about a bit at the link above.

For each of the below, the ‘t’ is omitted if the possessed subject is plural. Describing relationships of possession which are ‘a-category’ would use:

• tāku/āku
• tāu/āu
• tāna/āna

Describing relationships of possession which are ‘o-category’ would use:

• tōku/ōku
• tōu/ōu
• tōna/ōna

The neutral forms can often be used without specifying the nature of the relationship:

• taku/aku
• tō/ō
• tana/ana

You can use these neutral forms with some exceptions:

• You cannot immediately follow it with a postposed particle. You can have “Tōku nei whare” - “This house of mine” but you cannot have “Taku nei whare” with a neutral form.
• You need to specify a noun. The a/o forms can be used on their own but the neutral cannot, so you can have “Kua pakaru taku pene. Tēnā hōmai tētahi o āu?” - “I’ve broken my pen, can I have one of yours?” but you could not make the second sentence “Hōmai tētahi o ō”.
• You can’t emphasise the neutral possessive pronoun, so if you want to stress whose thing you are talking about you need to use the a/o form. “Ka tū te pō whakangahau ki tōku whare, kaua ki tōna.” - “The party is at my place, not his” but you wouldn’t say “Ka tū te pō whakangahau ki taku whare…”