Āe, engari kāore ia i te wātea i tēnei wā means: Yes, but unfortunately he/she is not available at this time.
This is a fun one to revise with because it’s a bit of a longer sentence than the other examples so far. I’m going to do a very grammar nerdy break down of it into phrases and look at each component. This will expand on the structure of a phrase which I mentioned in an earlier post.
- Āe - The word for ‘yes’ is neither a base nor a particle, so it operates as a phrase of its own.
- engari - The word for ‘but’ is also neither a base nor a particle, but a word which is either used to connect clauses (as it does here) or to answer negative questions.
- Kāore a Mere i konā? - Isn’t Mere there?
- If you said “yes” to this, it wouldn’t be clear if you meant ‘yes, she is’ or ‘yes, she isn’t’ so you can use:
- Engari, kei konei ia - Yes, she is here (contradicting the negative question)
- kāore ia i te wātea i tēnei wa - as a whole unit, this clause (containing multiple phrases) focuses on a negated version of ‘kei te wātea ia’ (he/she is available) or ‘i te wātea ia’ (he/she was available) because both ‘kei te’ and ‘i te’ use the same negation structure and you need to determine from context which tense ‘kāore… i te…’ is in. In this case the subsequent comment makes it clear that we’re talking about the present. A clause is a unit made up of one predicate phrase, subject phrase and any comment phrases. This clause is made up of the following phrases:
- kāore - This negating word is neither a base nor a particle, but introduces many forms of negative sentence.
- ia - he/she is the subject of the sentence and a full phrase on its own
- i te wātea - this verb phrase is the predicate, a statement we are making about the subject (in this case the statement is about their availability), it is made up of:
- i te - the preposed verbal particle which when used in a negative sentence negates either ‘kei te’ or ‘i te’ (inferred from context). This can roughly be thought of as present/past tense, although they have broader meanings in practice (and at higher levels of study than I’m at).
- wātea - this is the nucleus of the phrase, the verbal base for “to be free, unoccupied, open, vacant, blank, available, clear, unencumbered”
- ∅ - the null symbol is used here to record that there is no postposed particle in this phrase.
- i tēnei wā - this phrase is a comment. In a simple sentence, any phrase which is not the predicate or the subject is a comment to add specificity to the phrase. They may add a where, when or how to the phrase, or other similar pieces of information. In this case the comment expands on when the subject is not available: “at this time”. The phrase is made up of the following parts:
- i - this particle is a preposition with no direct English translation and a wide variety of functions. In this case it marks a comment of time.
- tēnei - this particle is a determiner which means ‘this’. When used in a time expression, it refers to the present. If a preposition and a determiner both appear in the preposed periphery, the preposition goes first. There is never more than one of each of these in a phrase. Both of these particles together form the preposed periphery of the phrase.
- wā - the noun for ‘time’ is the base which forms the nucleus of this comment phrase.
- ∅ - the null symbol is used here to record that there is no postposed particle in this phrase. An example of a particle that could go here is if ‘tēnei wā’ was broken up into ‘te wā nei’ which has the same meaning and is an optional thing you can pick between based on the flow of the sentence.