Kaimahi means: Worker / staff.
Following on from the earlier post about the prefix kai- and yesterday’s post about ‘he’ sentences, today’s revision is going to be on the use of ‘he’ sentences to say what someone’s job is. You can use a simple classifying sentence to do this:
Another way to say this is by using the classifying sentence in a slightly different way, to make a statement about their job instead of about them directly:
Someone’s job isn’t always specified using the kai- prefix, there are plenty of words for occupations not constructed in this way. Another thing we can see here is that someone’s job (and actions performed by them) are in the ‘a’ category when using possessive pronouns.
One additional use of the ‘he’ sentence which is unrelated to talking about someone’s job is the “existential possessive” which is a way of saying that someone owns a non-specific thing: