Rerehāngū

Watch this video from te reo Māori expert Hemi Kelly explaining the rerehāngū structure.

A rerehāngū is a tricky little bugger! It's function is very similar to a reremahi, but the focus changes from the doer to the action.

There's also a few little extra RULES in place TOO.

RULE #1 - ka whai whiore te tūmahi.

Have you heard the waiata "Waiatatia te maunuhanga mai i Hawaiki..."

The first part of the kupu is waiata (yup, OK, to sing) but then it has this extra part, this -tia on the end. That is it's whiore, it's tail. This is a tūmahi hāngū.

In a rerehāngū, the tūmahi is almost always given a whiore. Let's look at different tūmahi and their whiore.

Waiata(tia) Kai(ngia) Tuhi(a) Patu(a) Whana(ia)

So, how do we know what whiore to give them? -tia? -ngia? -hia? -ia? -a??????

Well, if you look the word up in Māori dictionary, it'll have it in brackets, next to the word type. Take a look at the screenshot with the example of inu.

Listed below are some tūmahi. Find the whiore for these kupu from Māori Dictionary and make note of them.

oma moe whakamāori whakapākehā patopato peita

kōhimuhimu katakata riri aroha peke hīkoi

tū noho tunu rutu mahi tangi

kangakanga kohete ūmere

RULE #2 put an 'e' before kaimahi

Whenever there is a kaimahi in the rerehāngū - there doesn't always have to be a kaimahi becooooooz (enter you answer here... or highlight the next part with your curser and say it was your answer and not mine...) the focus of the sentence is on the action, NOT the doer.So when there is a Kaimahi, there needs to be the pū e in front of the kaimahi.

Hei tauira:

e Hine - by Hine e te tama - by the boy e kōrua ko matua - by you and matua

We're going to put a super simple rerehāngū together using what we have just learnt and rules #1 and #2. Using the Tohu Wā - I, and the tūmahi with a whiore and adding an e before the kaimahi, we're going to translate some sentences. YAY!

So here's the formula:

Tohu Wā + tūmahi hāngū + e + kaimahi

It was jumped by Hine I pekehia e Hine
It was growled by Taika I kohetetia e Taika
It was sworn by the boy I kangakangaia e te tama
It was loved by Aroha I arohaina e Aroha
It was worked by the class I mahia e te karaehe

RULE #3 we lose the i/ki connector

The third and final rule of the basic rerehāngū structure is that there is no i/ki connector. It is IMPORTANT to remember that the i/ki always follows the kaimahi or doer. Here are one examples that highlight the connector below

I patu te tama i te poro (reremahi) I patua e te tama te poro (the ball was hit by the boy)

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