Whakakāhoretanga is the negation of sentences.
Rather than focusing posts on the daily reo bot, I’m going to start just posting something when I want to deep dive into a topic for my notes. In this case, we’ve moved to rumaki reo (full immersion) and I’ve found the thing I improvise most on is negating sentences (by just throwing a casual kaore/ehara at the start of the sentence and calling it a day) which is going to reinforce bad habits, so I’m going to make sure I remember the right way to negate all the sentence types I know.
Ko sentences are discussed in an earlier post. They are negated using the negative word “ehara”.
“Ko te rangatira a Hōne” (Hōne is the chief) is negated as “Ehara a Hōne i te rangatira” (Hōne is not the chief).
If you wanted to emphasis that Hōne is the chief, rather than someone else, you could put the noun phrases in the opposite order to emphasise Hōne. “Ko Hōne te rangatira”. To negate this sentence, you still use “ehara” but retain “ko” also.
“Ehara ko Hōne te rangatira”.
Verbal sentences are negated with the negative word “kāore” and by changing the tense marker depending on the tense of the sentence being negated, as in the following sentence (translated using simplified meanings of each tense marker):
Passive sentences follow the same form:
As a subset of verbal sentences, commands in the form “Haere, e hoa!” (Go, friend!) are negated using the negative word “kaua” as in “Kaua e haere, e hoa!” (Don’t go, friend!) or “Kaua hei haere, e hoa!” (same translation, less common particle). Similarly, commands using “kia” as in “Kia tere” (be quick) are also negated using “kaua” as in “Kaua e tere”.
Phrases suggesting something should happen such as “Me karakia tātou” (we should karakia) can be negated in a couple of ways. One is to dismiss the notion that we should perform a specific action, as in “we do not have to karakia” and the other is to explicitly suggest that we should not karakia.
To suggest that we should not karakia, we would use the negative word “kaua” as in “Kaua tātou e karakia”.
To suggest that “we should karakia” is not true you could use “ehara i te mea me karakia tātou” (it is not the case that we should karakia), or phrases with a similar meaning.
He sentences are discussed in an earlier post and expanded on in another.
When the sentence consists of one phrase as in “He taniwha” (there are/exist taniwha) it is negated using the negative word “kāore” as in “Kāore he taniwha” (there are no taniwha [existing]). If the existential phrase has an additional comment detailing place using either “kei” or “i” that comment is introduced by “i” in the negation, so “he taniwha kei toro i tērā ana” (there are taniwha in that cave) becomes “Kāore he taniwha i roto i tērā ana” (there are no taniwha in that cave).
When the nucleus of the predicate is a noun, as in “He rangatira a Hōne” (Hōne is a chief) it is negated using the negative word “ehara” as in “Ehara a Hōne i te rangatira” which is the same as the negation for “Ko te rangatira a Hōne”. This sentences uses “te rangatira” instead of “he rangatira” because the phrase is marked with the pūhono (joiner) “i” which cannot precede “he”.
When the nucleus of the predicate is an adjective, as in “He makariri rawa te rā” (the day is too cold) it is negated using the negative form of the verbal sentence so we would treat “He makariri rawa te rā” as if it were “Kei te makariri rawa te rā” and negate it using the rules for verbal sentences with “Kāore te rā i te makariri rawa”.
When the subject of the sentence is a possessive determiner such as in “He kaputī tāku” (I have a cup of tea) the sentence is negated using the negative word “kāore” and the determiner becomes plural as in “Kāore āku kaputī” (I have no cups of tea).
When the subject of the sentence is a possessive phrase such as in “He kaputī ā Mere” (Mere has a cup of tea) it loses the macron but keeps “he” to become “Kāore he kaputī a Mere”.
Kei sentences are discussed in an earlier post. They are negated using the negative word “kāore”.
“Kei roto i te pouaka te ngeru” (the cat is inside the box) is negated as “Kāore te ngeru i roto i te pouaka” (the cat is not inside the box).
Past/present sentences take the pūhono (joiner) “i” while future sentences can optionally take the pūhono (joiner) “ki”.
If a predicate is introduced using “hei” to mean that it’s for a particular purpose, it’s negated using the negative word “ehara”. “Hei tapahi mīti tēnei maripi” (This knife is for cutting meat) is negated as “Ehara hei tapahi mīti tēnei maripi” (This knife is not for cutting up meat).
Sentences which take the structure illustrated by “Ki te kōrero rūkahu tāua, ka mōhio rāua” (If we tell lies, they will know) are negated using the negative word “kore” for the first clause or “kāore” for the second (verbal) clause:
N/M possessives are discussed in an earlier post. They are negated using the negative word “ehara”.
“Māku te kaputī” (the cup of tea is for me) is negated as “Ehara māku te kaputī” (the cup of tea is not for me).
If the subject is a pronoun is in “Nō Ākarana koe” (you are from Auckland) it can be placed between “ehara” and the predicate as in “Ehara koe nō Ākarana”.
Similary, the related actor/agent emphatic construction is negated in the same way. “Nā Hata te kaputī i inu” (Hata drank the cup of tea) is negated as “Ehara nā Hara te kaputī i inu”.