Exercise One

Indicating repetitive or frequent action

I hokihoki ngā tūruhi ki ō rātou whenua
Indicating repetitive or frequent action

You might have noticed by now that many words in Māori are partially or wholly doubled. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to affect the meaning of a word, particularly with nouns, like the following examples;

Hei tauira:

ringa, ringaringaarm, hand
wae, waewaeleg, foot

Doubling of a verb usually indicates that an action is repetitive, and this is what we will focus on at this time, have a look at the following examples;

Hei tauira:

I hoki rātou ki tō rātou kainga.They returned (together) to their home.
I hokihoki rātou ki ō rātou kāinga. They have returned (independently)
to their (own) homes.
I haere ia ki tāwāhi.He/She went overseas.
I hāereere haere ia ki tēnā whenua, ki tēnā
whenua.
He/She went travelling around to
each country.

It is also worth noting that some verbs may have three or more syllables in the word before reduplication. If this is the case then only two of the syllables will be double as in the following examples.

tapahicut
tapatapahicutting (frequent/repetitive)
haerego, travel
hāereeretravelling around (see example above)

For further explanations and examples see Te Pihinga pp. 87 – 88.

Whakakīa ngā āputa o ngā rerenga kōrero e whai ake nei ki tētahi o ngā kōwhiringa e toru.

From the three options given, fill in the gaps of the following sentences

Kei wareware i a koe ngā piko, ngā tohu pātai, ngā ira kati me ngā tohutō i ngā wāhi e tika ana.

Nā Hone ngā rūma i

.


John swept the rooms.

Kei te

haere te kurī i ngā hōiho.


The dog is chasing the horses around.

Kei te

rātou.


They are laughing.

Kei te

te tīma.


The team is having a discussion.

Kei te

haere ō tātou ngahere.


Our forests are dying off.

Nā Hākopa ngā mīti i

.


Jacob cut up the meat.

Ka

ahau mō te pāti.


I asked (around) about the party.

Kua

mai ngā kaimahi.


The workers have begun to arrive.