Gramática Rapa Nui

A grammar of Rapa Nui
the language of Easter Island

Copyright © 2016, Paulus Kieviet. All rights reserved.
Cover background picture: rongorongo board, known as the Mamari tablet

Map of the Pacific (p. xx) by the author, licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Map of Rapa Nui (p. xxi) by the author, using some elements by Eric GABA
(Wikimedia Commons); licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
license.
ISBN 978-94-6299-350-1
NUR 616
Printing: Ridderprint BV, www.ridderprint.nl

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT
A grammar of Rapa Nui

the language of Easter Island
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan

de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
op gezag van de rector magnificus
prof.dr. V. Subramaniam,
in het openbaar te verdedigen
ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie
van de Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen
op dinsdag 5 juli 2016 om 11.45 uur
in de aula van de universiteit,
De Boelelaan 1105
door
Paulus Jan Abraham Kieviet

geboren te Middelharnis
promotor: prof.dr. L.J. de Vries
copromotor: dr. D.R. Clark
Acknowledgements
The project of writing this grammar formally started in November 2012, when I
submitted my dissertation proposal. In several ways, however, this project has a much
longer history. In 2004, my wife Antje and I went to live in French Polynesia with our
daughters Mattie and Nina, to assist language groups there with Bible translation work.
After learning Tahitian, in 2005 I started to study Rapa Nui as well and became
involved in checking the Rapa Nui translation of the New Testament. In 2007 we
moved to Easter Island and ended up living there for three years. Among other things,
I was involved in Bible translation, the edition of educational materials and the
elaboration of a lexical database. In the course of time I started to collect observations
on the grammar of Rapa Nui. Coming from French Polynesia, there was much of
interest in a language so similar to Tahitian, yet so different in many respects.
This grammar would not have been possible without the help of many people. First of
all I would like to thank Bob (Roberto) and Nancy Weber, who have devoted their
lives to the Rapa Nui people and who have done a tremendous amount of work on
vernacular education, Bible translation and linguistic research, as well as assisting the
Rapa Nui community in anything having to do with the language. They were the ones
who invited us to join them on Easter Island, made us feel welcome and helped us in
many ways. Their observations, notes and suggestions helped me a great deal to learn
to know the language. Over the years and decades, they have collected the texts which
have served as corpus for this grammar.
I wish to thank the Rapa Nui translation team and various other people who welcomed
us on the island and made their knowledge of the language available: María Eugenia
Tuki Pakarati, long-time translator and linguistic worker; Alfredo Tuki Pakarati, who
helped us through the visa application; Pai Hiti ꞌUira Rano Moai; María Virginia Haoa
Cardinali; Victoria Hereveri Tuki; Virginia Atan Tuki.
A big thank you to my supervisors, Lourens de Vries and Ross Clark, who guided me
through the process of writing a book that had to meet the requirements of a
descriptive grammar and a dissertation; encouraging, correcting, fine-tuning where
needed. Thanks also to the members of the reading committee for their willingness to
review this dissertation: Aone van Engelenhoven, Ben Hermans, Marian Klamer, Pieter
Muysken and Ger Reesink. A special thank you to Marian Klamer and Ger Reesink for
their many helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.
I wish to thank Kevin and Mary Salisbury, for their hospitality during my stay in
Auckland; Nico Daams, Albert Davletshin, Mary Walworth, Kevin and Mary Salisbury,
for our discussions about Polynesian languages; Stephen Levinsohn, for reviewing in
detail my analysis of Rapa Nui narrative discourse; Steven Roger Fischer, for clearing
up many details of the transcription of Alfred Métraux’ notebooks; Bob and Nancy
vi
Weber, Ross Clark, Andrew Pawley and Albert Davletshin, for supplying valuable
linguistic resources; René van den Berg, for encouraging me to start this PhD project.
Nico and Pam Daams were the people who invited us to join them in Bible translation
work in Polynesia. Their friendship, help and encouragement over the past fifteen
years have been truly invaluable.
Finally, I’d like to thank you, Antje, for your support and initiative all these years in so
many visible and invisible ways. Without you this grammar would not have been
written.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... v
Table of contents ........................................................................................vii
Symbols and abbreviations ....................................................................... xvii
Maps .......................................................................................................... xx
1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1
1.1. Rapa Nui: the island and the language .......................................................... 1
1.1.1. The island and its name ........................................................................ 1
1.1.2. Origins ................................................................................................... 2
1.1.3. Snippets of history ................................................................................ 3
1.2. Genetic affiliation .......................................................................................... 5
1.2.1. Rapa Nui in the Polynesian language family ........................................ 5
1.2.2. Evidence for Eastern Polynesian and Central-Eastern Polynesian ........ 8
1.3. The Rapa Nui language: typology and innovations ..................................... 11
1.3.1. General typology ................................................................................. 11
1.3.2. Innovations and losses in Rapa Nui .................................................... 12
1.4. Sociolinguistic situation .............................................................................. 14
1.4.1. Influence from Tahitian and Spanish .................................................. 14
1.4.2. Language use and vitality ................................................................... 17
1.4.3. Orthography ........................................................................................ 18
1.5. Previous work on the language ................................................................... 20
1.5.1. Lexicon ................................................................................................ 20
1.5.2. Grammar and sociolinguistics ............................................................. 20
1.6. About this grammar..................................................................................... 22
1.6.1. A corpus-based study .......................................................................... 22
1.6.2. The corpus ........................................................................................... 23
1.6.3. Organisation of this grammar ............................................................. 25
2. Phonology .............................................................................................. 27
2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 27
2.2. Phonemes .................................................................................................... 27
2.2.1. Consonants .......................................................................................... 27
2.2.2. Vowels ................................................................................................. 30
2.2.3. Phoneme frequencies .......................................................................... 32
viii A grammar of Rapa Nui
2.2.4. The glottal plosive............................................................................... 33

2.2.5. The glottal plosive in particles ............................................................ 34
2.3. Phonotactics ................................................................................................ 36
2.3.1. Syllable structure ................................................................................ 36
2.3.2. Word structure .................................................................................... 37
2.3.3. Cooccurrence restrictions .................................................................... 41
2.4. Suprasegmentals .......................................................................................... 43
2.4.1. Stress ................................................................................................... 43
2.4.2. Intonation............................................................................................ 45
2.5. Phonological processes ................................................................................ 48
2.5.1. Regular processes ................................................................................ 48
2.5.2. Lexicalised sound changes .................................................................. 50
2.5.3. The phonology of borrowings ............................................................. 53
2.6. Reduplication .............................................................................................. 56
2.6.1. Patterns of reduplication ..................................................................... 57
2.6.2. Functions of reduplication .................................................................. 64
2.6.3. Reduplications without base form ...................................................... 68
2.7. Conclusions.................................................................................................. 68
3. Nouns and verbs ..................................................................................... 71

3.1. Introduction: word classes in Rapa Nui ....................................................... 71
3.2. Nouns and verbs .......................................................................................... 72
3.2.1. The noun/verb distinction .................................................................. 72
3.2.2. Lexical noun/verb correspondences.................................................... 79
3.2.3. Syntactic nominalisation ..................................................................... 83
3.2.4. Nouns used as verbs ............................................................................ 93
3.2.5. Nominal drift....................................................................................... 93
3.3. Nouns........................................................................................................... 95
3.3.1. Classification of nouns ........................................................................ 95
3.3.2. Proper nouns ....................................................................................... 96
3.4. Verbs............................................................................................................ 99
3.4.1. Classification of verbs ......................................................................... 99
3.4.2. Active, stative, intransitive ............................................................... 101
3.5. Adjectives .................................................................................................. 103
3.5.1. Does Rapa Nui have adjectives? ....................................................... 103
3.5.2. Degrees of comparison ...................................................................... 111
3.6. Locationals................................................................................................. 114
3.6.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 114
3.6.2. Relative locationals ........................................................................... 115
3.6.3. Absolute locationals .......................................................................... 122
3.6.4. Temporal locationals ......................................................................... 126
3.6.5. The locational phrase ........................................................................ 127
3.7. Conclusions................................................................................................ 128
Table of contents ix
4. Closed word classes .............................................................................. 131

4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 131
4.2. Pronouns .................................................................................................... 132
4.2.1. Personal pronouns ............................................................................. 132
4.2.2. Possessive pronouns .......................................................................... 133
4.2.3. Benefactive pronouns ........................................................................ 135
4.2.4. Uses of pronouns ............................................................................... 136
4.3. Numerals ................................................................................................... 138
4.3.1. Forms of the numerals ...................................................................... 139
4.3.2. The numeral phrase .......................................................................... 144
4.3.3. Ordinal numerals .............................................................................. 147
4.3.4. Definite numerals .............................................................................. 147
4.3.5. Fractions............................................................................................ 149
4.4. Quantifiers ................................................................................................. 150
4.4.1. Overview ........................................................................................... 150
4.4.2. taꞌatoꞌa “all” ...................................................................................... 151
4.4.3. paurō “each” ...................................................................................... 153
4.4.4. ananake “together” ............................................................................ 154
4.4.5. rauhuru “diverse” .............................................................................. 155
4.4.6. tētahi “some, other” ........................................................................... 156
4.4.7. meꞌe rahi and rahi “much, many” ...................................................... 158
4.4.8. Other quantifiers ............................................................................... 162
4.4.9. tahi “all” ............................................................................................ 164
4.4.10. The quantifier phrase ...................................................................... 165
4.4.11. Conclusions ..................................................................................... 165
4.5. Adverbs ...................................................................................................... 167
4.5.1. Verb phrase adverbs .......................................................................... 167
4.5.2. Sentential adverbs ............................................................................. 169
4.5.3. Individual adverbs ............................................................................ 169
4.5.4. Sentential particles ............................................................................ 174
4.6. Demonstratives .......................................................................................... 183
4.6.1. Forms ................................................................................................ 183
4.6.2. The t-demonstrative .......................................................................... 185
4.6.3. Postnominal demonstratives ............................................................. 187
4.6.4. Demonstrative determiners ............................................................... 192
4.6.5. Deictic locationals ............................................................................. 195
4.6.6. Demonstrative pronouns ................................................................... 197
4.7. Prepositions ............................................................................................... 199
4.7.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 199
4.7.2. The preposition ꞌi/i “in, at, on” ......................................................... 200
4.7.3. The preposition ki “to” ...................................................................... 203
4.7.4. The preposition mai “from”............................................................... 205
4.7.5. The preposition pe “toward” ............................................................. 205
4.7.6. The preposition a “along; towards” .................................................. 206
x A grammar of Rapa Nui
4.7.7. The benefactive prepositions mo and mā .......................................... 207

4.7.8. The preposition pa/pē “like” ............................................................. 209
4.7.9. The instrumental preposition hai ...................................................... 210
4.7.10. The deictic preposition ꞌai ............................................................... 212
4.7.11. The prominence marker ko ............................................................. 212
4.8. Conclusions................................................................................................ 217
5. The noun phrase................................................................................... 219

5.1. Introduction: the structure of the common noun phrase........................... 219
5.2. The collective marker kuā ......................................................................... 221
5.3. The article te .............................................................................................. 222
5.3.1. Introduction: determiners ................................................................. 222
5.3.2. The function of the article te ............................................................. 223
5.3.3. The syntax of t-determiners .............................................................. 225
5.3.4. te as marker of referentiality ............................................................. 229
5.4. The predicate marker he ............................................................................ 231
5.4.1. he as predicate marker ...................................................................... 231
5.4.2. Other uses of he ................................................................................. 231
5.4.3. he is a determiner .............................................................................. 233
5.5. Numerals in the noun phrase .................................................................... 234
5.5.1. Numerals before the noun................................................................. 234
5.5.2. Numerals after the noun ................................................................... 235
5.5.3. Optional numeral placement; e tahi “one” ........................................ 237
5.6. Plural markers ........................................................................................... 238
5.6.1. The plural marker ŋā ........................................................................ 238
5.6.2. Co-occurrence of ŋā and the determiner ........................................... 240
5.6.3. Other words used as plural markers ................................................. 241
5.7. The noun: headless noun phrases .............................................................. 242
5.8. Modifiers in the noun phrase .................................................................... 244
5.8.1. Introduction: types of modifiers ........................................................ 244
5.8.2. Compounds ....................................................................................... 246
5.8.3. Modifying adjectives ......................................................................... 252
5.9. Adverbs and nō in the noun phrase ........................................................... 253
5.9.1. Adverbs ............................................................................................. 253
5.9.2. The limitative marker nō................................................................... 254
5.10. The identity marker ꞌā/ꞌana .................................................................... 256
5.11. The deictic particle ai .............................................................................. 257
5.12. Heavy shift .............................................................................................. 258
5.13. Appositions .............................................................................................. 259
5.13.1. Common nouns in apposition ......................................................... 259
5.13.2. Proper nouns in apposition ............................................................. 260
5.14. The proper noun phrase .......................................................................... 261
5.14.1. Structure of the proper noun phrase ............................................... 261
5.14.2. The proper article a......................................................................... 263
Table of contents xi
5.15. Conclusions.............................................................................................. 266
6. Possession ............................................................................................ 269

6.1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 269
6.2. Possessive constructions ............................................................................ 269
6.2.1. Possessives in the noun phrase ......................................................... 270
6.2.2. The partitive construction ................................................................. 272
6.2.3. Other possessive constructions.......................................................... 274
6.2.4. Summary: use of possessive forms .................................................... 276
6.3. The semantics of possessives ..................................................................... 278
6.3.1. Relationships expressed by possessives ............................................. 278
6.3.2. a- and o-possessives........................................................................... 280
6.3.3. Possessive relations marked with a and o ......................................... 282
6.3.4. General discussion............................................................................. 292
6.4. Conclusions................................................................................................ 297
7. The verb phrase.................................................................................... 299

7.1. Introduction: the structure of the verb phrase .......................................... 299
7.2. Aspect marking .......................................................................................... 300
7.2.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 300
7.2.2. The obligatoriness of aspectuals ....................................................... 301
7.2.3. Neutral he .......................................................................................... 301
7.2.4. Perfective i ........................................................................................ 305
7.2.5. Imperfective e.................................................................................... 309
7.2.6. The contiguity marker ka .................................................................. 314
7.2.7. Perfect aspect ko – ꞌā ......................................................................... 318
7.2.8. Aspectuals and constituent order ...................................................... 323
7.3. Preverbal particles ..................................................................................... 325
7.3.1. rava “given to” .................................................................................. 325
7.3.2. Degree modifiers ............................................................................... 325
7.4. Evaluative markers .................................................................................... 328
7.4.1. The limitative marker nō................................................................... 328
7.4.2. The asseverative marker rō ............................................................... 330
7.4.3. Conclusion ......................................................................................... 332
7.5. Directionals ............................................................................................... 333
7.5.1. Use of directionals............................................................................. 333
7.5.2. Directionals with motion, speech, and perception verbs .................. 342
7.5.3. To use or not to use a directional ..................................................... 346
7.6. Postverbal demonstratives ......................................................................... 347
7.6.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 347
7.6.2. Proximal nei ...................................................................................... 348
7.6.3. Medial ena ......................................................................................... 349
7.6.4. Neutral/distal era .............................................................................. 350
7.6.5. PVD’s with perfective i ....................................................................... 351
xii A grammar of Rapa Nui
7.7. Serial verb constructions ........................................................................... 352

7.7.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 352
7.7.2. The syntax of SVC’s in Rapa Nui ........................................................ 353
7.7.3. Semantics of SVC’s ............................................................................. 355
7.8. Conclusions................................................................................................ 357
8. The verbal clause ................................................................................. 359

8.1. Introduction; constituent order ................................................................. 359
8.2. Case marking: introduction ....................................................................... 362
8.2.1. Case in Polynesian ............................................................................ 362
8.2.2. Case in Rapa Nui ............................................................................... 363
8.2.3. Preliminaries to the analysis of case marking ................................... 364
8.3. Marking of S/A .......................................................................................... 365
8.3.1. The agentive marker e....................................................................... 365
8.4. Marking of O ............................................................................................. 374
8.4.1. Use and non-use of the accusative marker ........................................ 374
8.4.2. Conclusion: Rapa Nui is an accusative language .............................. 379
8.5. The passive ................................................................................................ 380
8.5.1. Passivisation in Rapa Nui .................................................................. 380
8.5.2. The pseudopassive ............................................................................ 384
8.5.3. Two other uses of e ........................................................................... 385
8.6. Non-standard verbal clauses ...................................................................... 386
8.6.1. Marked constituent orders ................................................................ 386
8.6.2. Topicalisation .................................................................................... 390
8.6.3. The actor-emphatic construction ...................................................... 395
8.6.4. Other non-canonical arguments ........................................................ 399
8.7. Case marking in nominalised clauses ........................................................ 410
8.8. Obliques..................................................................................................... 411
8.8.1. Indirect object? ................................................................................. 411
8.8.2. Marking of obliques .......................................................................... 412
8.9. Reflexive and reciprocal ............................................................................ 414
8.10. Comitative constructions: “with” ............................................................ 415
8.10.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 415
8.10.2. Pronouns as comitative markers ..................................................... 416
8.10.3. ararua and ananake “together” as comitative markers ................... 417
8.10.4. koia ko “with” ................................................................................. 418
8.10.5. ko without comitative marker ......................................................... 419
8.10.6. Pronouns as NP1: inclusory and exclusory use ................................ 420
8.10.7. The inclusory pronoun construction ............................................... 420
8.11. The vocative ............................................................................................ 421
8.12. The causative ........................................................................................... 422
8.12.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 422
8.12.2. Causativisation of intransitive predicates ....................................... 423
8.12.3. Causativisation of transitive verbs .................................................. 425
Table of contents xiii
8.12.4. Reflexive and implicit causatives .................................................... 426

8.12.5. Lexicalised causatives ..................................................................... 428
8.12.6. The causative prefix with nouns ..................................................... 428
8.12.7. Lexical causatives ............................................................................ 429
8.13. Conclusions.............................................................................................. 430
9. Nonverbal and copular clauses ............................................................. 433

9.1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 433
9.2. NP NP clauses ............................................................................................ 433
9.2.1. Classifying clauses ............................................................................. 433
9.2.2. Identifying clauses ............................................................................ 435
9.2.3. Comparing classifying and identifying clauses ................................. 438
9.2.4. Constituent order in identifying clauses ........................................... 440
9.2.5. Split predicates.................................................................................. 441
9.2.6. Clefts ................................................................................................. 442
9.2.7. Attributive clauses ............................................................................ 444
9.3. Existential clauses...................................................................................... 446
9.3.1. Verbless and verbal existential clauses ............................................. 446
9.3.2. Existential-locative clauses................................................................ 447
9.3.3. Possessive clauses.............................................................................. 448
9.4. Prepositional predicates ............................................................................ 450
9.4.1. Locative clauses................................................................................. 450
9.4.2. Proprietary clauses ............................................................................ 450
9.4.3. Other prepositional predicates .......................................................... 451
9.5. Numerical clauses ...................................................................................... 451
9.6. Copula verbs .............................................................................................. 452
9.6.1. ai “to exist” as a copula verb ............................................................ 453
9.6.2. riro “to become” ................................................................................ 455
9.7. Conclusions................................................................................................ 456
10. Mood and negation ............................................................................. 459

10.1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 459
10.2. Imperative mood ..................................................................................... 459
10.2.1. The imperative ................................................................................ 459
10.2.2. Third-person injunctions (jussives) ................................................. 461
10.2.3. First-person injunctions (hortatives) ............................................... 461
10.3. Interrogatives .......................................................................................... 462
10.3.1. Polar questions ................................................................................ 462
10.3.2. Content questions ............................................................................ 464
10.3.3. Dependent questions ....................................................................... 471
10.4. Exclamatives ............................................................................................ 472
10.4.1. ka in exclamations .......................................................................... 472
10.4.2. ko in exclamations .......................................................................... 472
10.4.3. ꞌai in exclamations .......................................................................... 473
xiv A grammar of Rapa Nui
10.5. Negation .................................................................................................. 474

10.5.1. The neutral negator ꞌina .................................................................. 474
10.5.2. Status and origin of ꞌina .................................................................. 478
10.5.3. The perfective negator kai .............................................................. 481
10.5.4. The imperfective negator (e) ko ...................................................... 482
10.5.5. Negation of the imperative ............................................................. 483
10.5.6. The constituent negator taꞌe ............................................................ 484
10.5.7. The negator kore ............................................................................. 488
10.5.8. hia/ia “not yet” ............................................................................... 489
10.6. Conclusions.............................................................................................. 489
11. Combining clauses .............................................................................. 491

11.1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 491
11.2. Coordination ............................................................................................ 491
11.2.1. Asyndetic and syndetic coordination .............................................. 491
11.2.2. Disjunction ...................................................................................... 495
11.3. Clausal arguments ................................................................................... 496
11.3.1. Perception verbs.............................................................................. 497
11.3.2. Aspectual and manner verbs ........................................................... 499
11.3.3. Cognitive verbs ............................................................................... 502
11.3.4. Speech verbs ................................................................................... 503
11.3.5. Attitude verbs.................................................................................. 504
11.3.6. Modal verbs..................................................................................... 505
11.3.7. Summary ......................................................................................... 507
11.4. Relative clauses ....................................................................................... 507
11.4.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 507
11.4.2. Relativised constituents .................................................................. 508
11.4.3. Aspect marking in relative clauses .................................................. 513
11.4.4. Possessive-relative constructions .................................................... 515
11.4.5. Bare relative clauses; verb raising ................................................... 517
11.5. Subordinating markers ............................................................................ 520
11.5.1. The purpose/conditional marker mo ............................................... 520
11.5.2. The irrealis marker ana ................................................................... 524
11.5.3. The purpose/temporal marker ki .................................................... 528
11.5.4. ꞌo “lest”............................................................................................ 532
11.5.5. mai “before; while” ......................................................................... 533
11.5.6. Summary ......................................................................................... 534
11.6. Adverbial clauses ..................................................................................... 535
11.6.1. Adverbial clause strategies .............................................................. 535
11.6.2. Time ................................................................................................ 535
11.6.3. Purpose: bare purpose clauses ........................................................ 542
11.6.4. Reason ............................................................................................. 544
11.6.5. Result .............................................................................................. 545
11.6.6. Condition ........................................................................................ 546
Table of contents xv
11.6.7. Concession....................................................................................... 547

11.6.8. Circumstance ................................................................................... 548
11.6.9. Summary ......................................................................................... 549
11.7. Conclusions.............................................................................................. 550
Appendix A: Interlinear texts .................................................................... 551

1. Te tātane taŋata – The devilman (R215).................................................. 551
2. Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa – Tikitiki a Ataranga (R352) ..................................... 554
3. He oho iŋa o te nuꞌu hoko rua rama – The trip of two people who
went torch fishing (R357) .................................................................... 563
Appendix B: The text corpus ..................................................................... 567
References ............................................................................................... 571
Summary ................................................................................................. 595
Subject index ........................................................................................... 601

Symbols and abbreviations
(Abbreviations for text sources are listed in Appendix B.)
Grammatical categories
* ungrammatical; reconstructed protoform
(*XX) ungrammatical if XX is included
*(XX) ungrammatical if XX is excluded, i.e. XX is obligatory
> becomes
Ø zero
/.../ phonemic transcription
[...] in chapter 2: phonetic transcription; elsewhere: constituent
1, 2, 3 first, second, third person
A (in possessives:) a-class possession
A (verb argument:) the most agentive argument of a transitive verb
(typically expressed as subject)
A/M aspect/mood marker
ACC accusative (i)
AG agentive (e)
ART article (te)
BEN benefactive
C consonant
CAUS causative (haka)
CNTG contiguous (ka)
COLL collective (kuā/koā)
COMIT comitative (koia)
CONT continuous (ꞌā/ꞌana)
CQ content question (hē)
DEIC deictic
DEM demonstrative
DIS distal (far from speaker)
DO direct object
DU dual
DUB dubitative (hō)
EMPH emphatic (rō)
EXC exclusive
EXH exhortative (e)
FUT future
HORT hortative (ki)
IDENT identity (ꞌā/ꞌana)
xviii A grammar of Rapa Nui
IMM immediate (ꞌī)

IMP imperative (ka)
INC inclusive
INST instrumental (hai)
INTENS intensifier (rā)
IPFV imperfective (e)
IRR irrealis (ana)
LOC locative; locational
MED medial distance
N noun
NEG negation (ꞌina)
NEG.CONS constituent negation (taꞌe)
NEG.IPFV negation, imperfective (ko)
NEG.PFV negation, perfective (kai)
NMLZ nominaliser
NTR neutral aspect (he)
NUM numeral marker
NUM.PERS personal numeral marker (hoko)
O (in possessives:) o-class possession
O (verb argument:) the least agentive argument of a transitive verb
(typically expressed as object)
PAST past
PFV perfective (i)
PL plural
PND postnominal demonstrative
POSS possessive
PRED predicate marker (he)
PRF perfect (ko/ku)
PRO pro-form (ira)
PROM prominence marker (ko)
PROP proper article (a)
PROX proximal (near speaker)
PVD postverbal demonstrative
PVP postverbal particle (ai)
RED reduplication
S the single argument of an intransitive verb (typically expressed as
subject)
SG singular
SUBS subsequent (ꞌai)
SVC serial verb construction
V verb; vowel
VNOM nominalised verb
VOC vocative (e)
Y/N yes-no question (hoki)
Symbols and abbreviations xix
Language groups and protolanguages

PAN Proto-Austronesian
POc Proto-Oceanic
PEO Proto-Eastern Oceanic
PPN Proto-Polynesian
(P)NP (Proto) Nuclear Polynesian
(P)SO (Proto) Samoic-Outlier
(P)EP (Proto) Eastern Polynesian
(P)CE (Proto) Central Eastern Polynesian
(P)Ta (Proto) Tahitic
(P)Mq (Proto) Marquesic
Marshall
Fe d e ra t e d S t a t e s Islands
of Micronesia
Nukuoro
N o r t h P a c i f i c
Kapingamarangi Galapagos
K
ir Equator Islands
u
i b
u
at
i
Tak
Pa p u a Solo Ma
Tu
mo r
v
New Guinea n Is a
qu
la lu Tokelau
nd
esa
s
s
Pukapuka
S a mo
a Tu a m
Co
otu
Va
ok
Isla
n
nd
s
Isl
Fiji
ua
Tahiti
an
tu
Ne Niue
To n g a
ds
w
Ca Rarotonga
led Mangareva
on Austral Henderson Tropic of Capricorn
ia Isla Pitcairn
nd Sala y Gómez
Rapa s Rapa Nui
Australia
e
l
i
h
S o u t h P a c i f i c
C
d
n
la
ea
Z
ew 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 km
N
Anakena
beach
0m
15 Rapa Nui
0m
30
Ahu Nau-nau
Maꞌuŋa Terevaka
▲ (507m)
Maꞌuŋa Pōike
Ahu Te Peu ▲(370m)
Puꞌi 300
▲ Maꞌuŋa
(302m) m
Ahu ꞌAkivi Rano Raraku 150m
statue quarry ■ Toŋariki

▲
▲
Tahai
Haŋa
▲
Roa
▲
Haŋa Piko
Ma main road
tav
eri Maꞌuŋa ꞌŌrito
Air
por ▲(218m) Haŋa Teꞌe minor road
t
statue site (only a few are shown)
Vinapū ■ other place of interest
Rano Kau crater lake
ꞌŌrongo ■
(ceremonial ▲ summit
0 1 2 3 4 5 km
village)
Contours are shown for 150m and 300m
Motu ꞌIti Motu Kao-kao
Motu Nui
1. Introduction
1.1. Rapa Nui: the island and the language
1.1.1. The island and its name

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is located at 27°05’S 109°20’W. The island is
known for its giant statues (mōai), as well as for its extreme isolation: while the nearest
islands (Sala y Gómez) are at a 400 km distance, the nearest inhabited island is tiny
Pitcairn, 2100 km away. The closest population centres are Tahiti in French Polynesia
(over 4200 km to the west) and Valparaíso on the Chilean coast (3700 km to the east).
The island forms a triangle, composed of three extinct volcanoes, with a surface of
about 165 km2. The highest point is Mt. Terevaka (507m).
At the last census (2012), the island’s population numbered 5,761.1 Almost all
inhabitants live in the town of Hanga Roa. Roughly half of the island’s population is of
Rapa Nui origin; other inhabitants include continental Chileans, as well as small
numbers from other nationalities. Conversely, numerous ethnic Rapa Nui live in
continental Chile, while there is also a Rapa Nui community of a few hundred people
on Tahiti.2
The number of ethnic Rapa Nui does not coincide with the number of speakers of the
Rapa Nui language. Wurm (2007) estimates the number of speakers at 2,400–2,500,
but the actual number is probably lower. Makihara (2001a:192) gives an estimate of
1,100 speakers, out of 1,800 Rapa Nui; linguists Bob & Nancy Weber (p.c.) give a
rough estimate of 1,000 speakers.
The name Rapa Nui, literally “great Rapa”, is used for the island, the people and the
language.3 It may have been coined in 1862, when Rapa Nui people came in contact
1
http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/familias/demograficas_vitales.php (accessed 27
October 2015); the projected population for 2016 is 6,600.
2
It is extremely hard to estimate the total number of ethnic Rapa Nui. Estimates over the past
years range from 2,600 to 7,748 (Bob Weber, p.c.). According to the 2012 census, 63.81% of the
inhabitants of Rapa Nui (i.e. 3,676 out of 5,761) belong to an indigenous people group.
According to the same census, 2,697 people on Rapa Nui, and 4,934 people in Chile as a whole,
are able to conduct a conversation in Rapa Nui. Though these figures seems to be impossibly
high, they may give an indication of the number of people on the island and on the Chilean
mainland adhering to the Rapa Nui identity.
3
The name is often spelled as a single word: Rapanui. In this grammar, the spelling Rapa Nui is
used, in accordance with the accepted orthography (→ 1.4.3). The spelling sparked some debate
in the Rapa Nui Journal: Fischer (1991, 1993c, 1993d); N. & R. Weber (1991).
2 A grammar of Rapa Nui
with people from Rapa, the southernmost island of what is nowadays French Polynesia
(Fischer 1993b:64; 2005:91); the latter is also called Rapa Iti, “little Rapa”.4
The island has been known by many other names (Fischer 1993b), all of them of post-
contact origin. The name Easter Island and its corollaries in other European languages
(Isla de Pascua, Osterinsel, Paaseiland...) dates back to 1722; it was given by the Dutch
explorers who discovered the Island on Easter Sunday, April 5. No pre-contact name
for the island or the people has been transmitted, and none may ever have existed.
1.1.2. Origins
Linguistic, biological and archaeological data unambiguously indicate that the Rapa
Nui people are Polynesians (Green 2000; Kirch 2000; Stefan et al 2002 and refs. there).
In a certain sense, the early history of the island is uncomplicated. The island has a
single language and there is no evidence that it was settled more than once. The date
of settlement of the island is usually assumed to coincide with the date at which Rapa
Nui split off from its protolanguage.
Even so, the prehistory of the Rapa Nui people is still surrounded by uncertainty,
despite extensive archaeological, biological and linguistic research. The only virtually
uncontested fact is, that the first settlers of the island came from somewhere in east
Polynesia.5 They probably arrived by a voyage of purposeful exploration rather than by
chance (Bahn & Flenley 1992:72ff; Kirch & Kahn 2007:199). Some scholars suggest an
origin from the Marquesas (cf. Bahn & Flenley 1992:66), but the current consensus is
that an origin from southeast Polynesia is much more likely, given the distance and
prevailing winds. This means that the people who first discovered Rapa Nui probably
arrived from Mangareva, Pitcairn and/or Henderson (Green 1998; Stefan et al 2002).
Henderson Island, the closest habitable island to Rapa Nui (c. 1900 km), is deserted
nowadays but was populated in the past, possibly as early as 700–900 AD (Weisler
1998; Green & Weisler 2002).
A more southern origin, from or through the Austral islands, has also been proposed
(Langdon & Tryon 1983), but is generally rejected (Green 1985, 1998).
The date of initial settlement of the island is much debated. In the past, attempts were
made to date the split-off of Rapa Nui from its protolanguage by means of
glottochronology (using the amount of lexical change and an assumed rate of change),
4
The meaning of the name Rapa itself is unknown, despite Caillot’s (1932:69) assertion that
there cannot be any doubt that it means “en dehors, à l’extérieur ... de l’autre côté”; the lexical
sources for Rapa (Stokes 1955, Fischer 1996a [Green 1864], Kieviet & Kieviet 2006) do not list a
lexeme rapa. In Rapa Nui there are two lexemes rapa: 1) “to shine, be lustrous”; 2) “ceremonial
paddle”.
5
Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that the Rapa Nui came from South America, is commonly rejected
(see Bahn & Flenley 1992 for an extensive critique), though Schuhmacher (1990) continues to
explore the possibility of (secondary) influence of South-American languages on Rapa Nui. On
the discussion about possible non-Polynesian elements in the Rapa Nui language, → fn. 164 on
p. 141.
Chapter 1: Introduction 3
but these did not give satisfactory results: Emory (1963) obtained glottochronological
dates as far apart as 1025 BC and 500 AD, and settled on an estimate of 500 AD on the
basis of a single radiocarbon date provided by Heyerdahl & Ferdon (1961:395).6 Green
(1967, 1985:21), Emory (1972) and Kirch (1986) also give an estimate between 400
and 600 AD based on radiocarbon dates. Du Feu & Fischer (1993) and Fischer (1992)
suggest a possible split between Rapa Nui and its relatives as early as the first century
AD. Others give later dates: between 600 and 800 AD (Fischer 2005, based on a
radiocarbon date of 690±130 given by Ayres 1971; Green & Weisler 2002), or
between 800 and 1000 AD (Green 2000:74; Spriggs & Anderson 1993; Martinsson-
Wallin & Crockford 2001).
More recently, even later dates have been proposed. Re-examination of radiocarbon
dates from Rapa Nui and other islands in east Polynesia, eliminating those samples not
deemed reliable indicators for initial settlement, has led some scholars to date the
onset of colonization after 1200 AD (Hunt & Lipo 2006, 2007; Hunt 2007; Wilmshurst
et al 2011).
Others continue to propose dates late in the first millennium AD (Kirch & Kahn 2007;
Mieth & Bork 2005, 2010).
The date of settlement of Rapa Nui is closely linked to the question of the colonization
of east Polynesia as a whole, an issue which is in turn linked to the relative chronology
of the different archipelagos in east Polynesia. Here as well, a wide range of dates has
been proposed. Settlement of east Polynesia started either in the Society Islands, with
Tahiti at the center (Emory 1963; Kirch 2000; Wilmshurst et al 2011), in the
Marquesas (Wilson 2012:290, Green 1966), or in the Societies/Marquesas area as a
whole (Kirch 1986:9; Marck 2000:138). According to Spriggs & Anderson (1993), there
is solid archaeological evidence for human presence in the Marquesas from about 300–
600 AD and in the Society Islands from 600–800 AD. Kirch (1986:9) suggests that the
Marquesas may have been peopled as early as 200 BC. On the other hand, Wilmshurst
et al (2011) date the initial settlement of the Societies as late as 1025–1120 AD, while
all the other archipelagos in Eastern Polynesian (including Rapa Nui) followed after
1190.
The relation between the Rapa Nui language and Eastern Polynesian is discussed in
1.2.2 below.
1.1.3. Snippets of history

After its initial settlement, Rapa Nui may have maintained contact with other islands
in east Polynesia, despite its geographical isolation (Clark 1983b:424; Green 1998,
6
In general, Eastern Polynesian languages have changed vocabulary at a much higher rate than
other Polynesian languages. Pawley (2009) calculates replacement rates of 0.67–2.0% per
century for a number of non-EP languages, against 2.0–3.4% per century for EP languages (2.5%
for Rapa Nui), based on retention of basic PPN vocabulary. This is explained by the “founder
effect”, i.e. rapid change in a small isolated speech community (Marck 2000:138, Wilmshurst et
al 2011:1818)
2000; Kirch & Kahn 2007).7 At some point, there must even have been contact between
at least one Polynesian island and South America, given the fact that the sweet potato
and the bottle gourd spread from South America throughout Polynesia prior to
European contact; Green (1998:98) suggests that Rapa Nui people may have travelled
to South America, returning either to Rapa Nui or to another island.
However, contact between Rapa Nui and other islands was probably very intermittent;
Rapa Nui language and culture developed in relative isolation, an isolation which at
some point became complete. This explains the high amount of lexical innovation
noticed by Emory (1963), Langdon & Tryon (1983:45) and Bergman (1963:36).
The history of Rapa Nui is described in Bahn & Flenley (1992), McCall (1994), Flenley
& Bahn (2002) and Fischer (2005). Rapa Nui’s prehistory is the tale of a society
constructing hundreds of increasingly large stone statues (mōai) and transporting them
to almost all corners of the island; a number of often feuding tribes whose names
survive in legends; the gradual deforestation of an island once covered with giant palm
trees;8 and the “birdman” cult, which involved an annual contest between young
warriors for the season’s first tern egg on one of the islets off the coast.
Rapa Nui entered written history on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722, when it was sighted
by a Dutch fleet of three ships, commanded by Jacob Roggeveen. Later in the 18th
century, the island was visited by a Spanish expedition led by Don Felipe González in
1770, followed by James Cook in 1774 and La Pérouse in 1786. From the early 19th
century on, many explorers, traders and whalers called at the island.
The repeated arrival of foreigners caused epidemic diseases, which in turn led to
depopulation and a major socio-cultural upheaval. A greater trauma was yet to follow:
in 1862–1863, ships raided the Pacific in search of cheap labour for mines, plantations
and households in Peru. Several of these visited Rapa Nui and at least 1400 people
were abducted or lured away and taken to Peru.9 Most of them died of smallpox; when
a few survivors were repatriated late 1863, they brought the disease with them. As a
result, the population of Rapa Nui dropped even further. The events of 1863 were fatal
for Rapa Nui culture, leading to the collapse of the structure of society and ultimately
to the loss of old customs and traditions (Knorozov 1965:391).
7
Walworth (2015b) gives four words uniquely shared between Rapa Nui and Rapa. However,
three of these (Rapa matu “to advance”, kakona “sweet-smelling”, reka “happy”) are also shared
with other EP languages, and the fourth (honi “peel”) is a shared semantic innovation rather than
a uniquely shared lexeme. Moreover, unique shared lexemes are not a strong indication of direct
contact: Rapa Nui uniquely shares two words (ua “war club”, maꞌa “to know”) with Rennell in
the Solomon Islands, even though direct contact between the two islands is very unlikely.
8
The causes of the deforestation of Rapa Nui (human or by rats?) and the question whether it led
to a socio-cultural collapse (traditionally dated around 1680) have been the subject of much
debate, see Flenley & Bahn (2002); Diamond (2005); Mulrooney et al (2007, 2009); Hunt (2007);
Mieth & Bork (2010); Boersema (2011).
9
In the course of these events, the name Rapa Nui may have emerged, see 1.1.2 above (Fischer
2005:91).
In 1870, the French trader/adventurer Dutrou-Bornier, acting for a Scottish company,

managed to acquire title to most of the island and started to convert it into a giant
sheep ranch. As the traditional power structure had collapsed, Dutrou-Bornier had free
rein. When the situation for the remaining Rapa Nui seemed hopeless, bishop Tepano
Jaussen of Tahiti formed the plan to evacuate all remaining inhabitants of the island;
only the limited capacity of the vessel come to fetch them forced 230 people to stay on
the island, while 275 left to settle in Mangareva and Tahiti. (In the 1880s, some of
them returned, bringing with them Tahitian elements which were subsequently
incorporated into the Rapa Nui language.) The number of people on Rapa Nui further
decreased to 111 in 1877, after which it started to rise slowly again, doubling by 1897
and again by 1934.
In 1888, Rapa Nui was annexed by Chile. Even so, the island remained a sheep ranch
under commercial control until 1953, when it passed under naval authority. During
much of that time, islanders were not permitted to leave the island (presumably
because of leprosy, an illness imported in the 1880s from Tahiti), so contact with the
outside world was largely limited to the few foreign residents and visitors to the island.
In 1966, Rapa Nui became a civil territory, a department (since 1974 a province)
within the 5th region of Chile, consisting of a single municipality (comuna). The Rapa
Nui people received Chilean citizenship. From 1960 on, Rapa Nui came out of its
isolation. More and more Rapa Nui started to travel to the Chilean mainland for
education and jobs; many of them settled there or emigrated to other countries. On the
other hand, tourists and other visitors started to arrive in great numbers after the
construction of the airport in 1967.10 More jobs came available in the public sector
(administration, education, health...), while the quickly expanding tourist industry also
started to provide a host of job opportunities in hotels and guest houses, the building
industry, retail and traditional crafts. As a result, over the past decades the island has
experienced rapid economic development, but also a large influx of non-Rapa Nui
residents (mainly from Chile). Tourism has continued to grow; currently the island
attracts more than 40,000 people annually.
1.2. Genetic affiliation
1.2.1. Rapa Nui in the Polynesian language family

Rapa Nui is a member of the Austronesian language family; its complete classification
according to the Ethnologue (Lewis et al 2015) is as follows: Austronesian, Malayo-
Polynesian, Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic,
Central-Eastern Oceanic, Remote Oceanic, Central Pacific, East Fijian-Polynesian,
Polynesian, Nuclear, East. The language has no dialects.
10
From 1970 on, Rapa Nui has been serviced by long-range jet airliners. As of October 2015,
there were eight weekly flights to/from Santiago and one flight to/from Tahiti.
Figure 1: Genetic classification of the Polynesian languages
Rapa Nui’s immediate relatives are the other Polynesian languages,11 which number
around 35. These languages are spoken within a triangle delineated by New Zealand in
the south-west, Hawaii in the north and Rapa Nui in the east; a number of Polynesian
groups (known as Outliers) are located outside this area.
11
See Krupa (1982) for a typological overview of Polynesian languages and Krupa (1973) for a
history of research. More recent overviews are available for larger groupings: Lynch, Ross &
Crowley (2002) for Oceanic, Blust (2013) for Austronesian.
The basic subgrouping of the Polynesian languages was established in the 1960s. While
earlier approaches used lexicostatistics and glottochronology to measure relative
distance between languages (see e.g. Elbert 1953, Emory 1963), in the mid-1960s
research started to focus on shared innovations: languages are likely to form a
subgroup when they have a significant number of phonological, lexical and/or
grammatical innovations in common. This resulted in a hypothesis which became the
standard theory for Polynesian subgrouping (see Pawley 1966; Green 1966; Marck
2000), and which is represented in Figure 1 (based on Pawley 1966, Clark 1983b,
Marck 2000). In this subgrouping, all but two languages belong to the Nuclear
Polynesian (NP) branch. NP is divided in two branches: Samoic-Outlier (SO) and
Eastern Polynesian (EP). Within EP, Rapa Nui forms a branch on its own, coordinate
with Central-Eastern (CE) languages. CE in turn branches into Tahitic (TA) and
Marquesic (MQ).12
Though there is a wide consensus on the basic tenets of this subgrouping, various
refinements and modifications have been proposed.13 I will mention a few which
directly or indirectly affect the position of Rapa Nui.
— Within SO, there is evidence for a subgroup consisting of the Northern Outliers
(NO), spoken in the northern Solomons (including the North Solomons province of
Papua-New-Guinea) such as Takuu and Luangiua. A slightly larger group has also been
suggested, consisting of the NO languages plus Kapingamarangi, Nukuoro and
Tuvaluan (“Ellicean”, see Howard 1981; Pawley 2009). Wilson (1985, 2012) discusses
a number of innovations shared between the Northern Outliers and EP: a thorough
restructuring and reduction of the pronominal system, as well as various other
grammatical and lexical innovations. This leads him to suggest a NO-EP subgroup; in
this hypothesis, the East Polynesians originated from the Northern Outliers, possibly
migrating through the Ellice and Line Islands.
— Marck (1996b, 2000) proposes a few refinements within CE languages: nuclear
Tahitic includes all Tahitic languages except New Zealand Maori; nuclear Marquesic
includes Marquesan and Mangarevan, but not Hawaiian.14
12
The evidence for EP and CE will be reviewed in 1.2.2 below.
13
One proposal generally rejected is that by Langdon & Tryon (1983), who propose a Futunic
subgroup including East Futunan, East Uvean, Rennell and Rapa Nui. The evidence for this
subgroup is scant (see Clark 1983b; Green 1985).
14
A different grouping is presented by Fischer (2001b), who proposes a subgroup on the basis of
doublets in Mangarevan, such as ꞌaꞌine “woman” ~ veꞌine “wife”. The first member of these
doublets has not participated in the sound change *faf > *vah, which is common to all CE
languages but does not occur in Rapa Nui (→ 1.2.2 below). According to Fischer, this constitutes
evidence for a Proto-Southeastern Polynesian substratum, a subgroup which predates the
differentiation of PCE into PTa and PMq, and which includes Rapa Nui. However, this analysis
has been questioned: the doublets can also be explained as an incomplete phonological change
(Rutter 2002), and even if they suggest a substratum in Mangarevan predating PCE, there is no
evidence that this branch includes Rapa Nui (Marck 2002).
— More recently, the validity of Tahitic and Marquesic as clear-cut subgroups has been
questioned. Walworth (2012) points out that the evidence for both subgroups is not
very strong, something which has been recognised before (see e.g. Green 1966; Marck
1996b). Neither subgroup is characterised by regular sound changes or morphological
innovations; the only evidence consists of lexical and semantic innovations (Green
1966) and sporadic sound changes (Marck 2000). Walworth suggests that there never
was a Proto-Marquesic or a Proto-Tahitic language; rather, both branches may have
developed through diffusion of features over certain geographical areas. She maintains
the status of Proto-CE, which will be discussed in the next section.
1.2.2. Evidence for Eastern Polynesian and Central-Eastern Polynesian

As Rapa Nui is the only language distinguishing EP from CE, it is worthwile to examine
the evidence for both groupings. This evidence was collected by Pawley (1966) and
Green (1985) and reviewed by Marck (1996b); while the former did not differentiate
between EP and CE for lack of data on Rapa Nui, the latter did take Rapa Nui into
account, though on the basis of limited data. Marck (2000) provided further evidence
on the basis of incidental sound changes. Here I will review the evidence adduced for
both subgroups in the light of data and analysis for Rapa Nui presented in this
grammar. In the list below, each proposed innovation is evaluated as valid (✓), invalid
for the subgroup under consideration (X), or questionable (??).
For EP, the following innovations have been suggested:

Morphology
1. The past tense marker i (non-EP languages have na, ne or ni): occurs in
Rapa Nui. ✓
2. The negation kāore/kore: occurs in Rapa Nui, though with limited use. ✓
3. pafa “perhaps”: probably reflected in Rapa Nui pēaha. ✓
4. Progressive e – ꞌana: occurs in Rapa Nui. ✓
5. afa “what”, against SO aa and TO haa: incorrect. *afa goes back to PPN
*hafa, the form afa/aha occurs in several SO languages. X
6. e aha – ai “why”: occurs in Rapa Nui; however, the same construction
occurs at least in Nukuoro as well. X
7. hei “future location”: only occurs in Tahitic languages; the supposed
Rapa Nui cognate he is a different lexical item. X
Lexicon
8. 157 entries in Pollex (2009) are reconstructed for PEP.
Sporadic sound changes (Marck 2000:131)
9. PNP *maŋawai > PEP *manavai “tributary water course”; Rapa Nui
manavai “rock garden”. ✓
10. PNP *salu > PEP *seru “to scrape”; Rapa Nui heru. ✓
The following innovations are considered characteristic for CE:

Phonology
11. Loss of the PPN glottal plosive: basically correct, though the glottal left
traces in some CE languages (Marck 2000:70f). In any case, loss of the
glottal happened several times independently in Polynesian languages
and is no strong evidence for subgrouping. ??
12. *f merges with *s medially and before round vowels: this is in fact an
EP innovation. The same happened in Rapa Nui, where*f and *s both
became *h in all environments (→ 2.2.1). X
13. *f > v before *-af: Rapa Nui haha “mouth” ~ PCE *vaha; Rapa Nui haho
“outside” ~ PCE *vaho. However, both Marquesan (haha/fafa “mouth”)
and Mangarevan (ꞌaꞌa “mouth”, ꞌaꞌine “woman”) have forms in which
the change did not take place (Elbert 1982:509, Wilson 2012:351f,
Fischer 2001b). ??
Morphology
14. tei “present position”: only occurs in Tahitic languages → PTa rather
than PCE. X
15. inafea “when” (past): this is part of a larger change *ana > *ina, which
only occurs in Tahitic languages (→ fn. 150 on p. 126), except
Marquesan inehea “when”. ??
16. The pronominal anaphor leila: reflected in Rapa Nui ira (→ 4.6.5.2).
Moreover, it also occurs in Samoan (Pawley 1966:45). X
17. Possessives starting in nō/nā: as I argue in fn. 288 on p. 277, these
probably date back to PEP; in Rapa Nui, they merged with Ø-
possessives. X
18. me “and, plus” (< PNP *ma): me indeed occurs in a range of CE
languages but not in Rapa Nui; however, the original ma/mā continues
in CE as well. mā occurs in Rapa Nui, but probably as a Tahitian loan
(→ fn. 162 on p. 140); this means that the shift ma > me is
indeterminate between EP and CE. ??
19. taua “demonstrative”: reflected in Rapa Nui tau (→ fn. 206 on p. 185). X
20. ānei “interrogative”: occurs in Tahitian and Pa’umotu, but I have not
found the supposed reflexes in Mangarevan and Hawaiian → PTa rather
than PCE.15 X
21. vai “who” (< PPN *ai). According to Wilson (2012:300), vai only
occurred by PTa; Hawaiian vai could be under Tahitian influence. X
22. vau “1sg” as variant of au. Only in Tahitian and Pa’umotu, and as a rare
variant in Hawaiian. ??
Syntax
23. Loss of ergative traces. However, Rapa Nui is fully accusative (→ 8.4.2),
so ergative traces may have been lost by PEP. X
15
Alternatively, ānei may reflect an earlier stage than PEP, as suggested by anii “question
marker” in Takuu (see Moyle 2011:23).
Lexicon & semantics

24. 553 entries in Pollex16 are reconstructed for PCE. Notice, however, that
given the fact that PCE is distinguished from PEP by a single language,
a lexeme reconstructed for PCE is not necessarily a PCE innovation: it
could also be a PEP lexeme that was lost in Rapa Nui, or for which
there are no data for Rapa Nui (cf. Geraghty 2009:445).17 In fact, the
Rapa Nui lexicon is known to show a high degree of innovation
(Langdon & Tryon 1983:45, Bergman 1963:36). ??
25. PPN *tafito “base” > PCE “ancient” (cf. Rapa Nui tahito “base”; cf. PPN
*tuai “ancient”, also reflected in Rapa Nui). ✓
26. PPN *kite “to see” > PCE “to know” (cf. Rapa Nui tikeꞌa “to see”; cf. old
Rapa Nui maꞌa “to know”, modern Rapa Nui ꞌite “to know” < Tah.) ✓
Sporadic sound changes (Marck 2000:41, 96f)
27. For PEP *hugovai > PCE *hugavai “parent-in-law”, reflexes of the PEP
form occur not only in Rapa Nui, but in Maori and Pa’umotu as well. X
28. PEP *kai > PCE *koi “sharp”, cf. Rapa Nui kaꞌi. ✓
29. PEP *taforaꞌa > PCE toforaꞌa, cf. Rapa Nui taꞌoraha (an irregular reflex,
but displaying the PEP vowel pattern). ✓
30. Marck (2000) gives four more PCE sporadic sound changes; as none of
the words in question occurs in Rapa Nui, these sound changes are
indeterminate between EP and CE. X
Summarizing:
• EP is supported by four morphological changes (1, 2, 3, 4), two sporadic
sound changes (9, 10), and a number of lexical innovations (8). In addition,
one phonological and two morphological changes attributed to CE are actually
EP innovations (12, 17, 19); the same may be true for one or two other
16
Lexical data for individual languages have mostly been taken from the lexical database
POLLEX (2009 version; Greenhill & Clark 2011).
17
In fact, for any language X in family A, there will be a number of proto-A reconstructions for
which there is no reflex in language X. This means that a subfamily B can be set up consisting of
all languages of family A except language X, however implausible such a subgrouping may be on
other grounds. For example, out of 710 EP+CE reconstructions, only 67 are represented in Rapa.
On the basis of lexical data alone, one could thus propose a subgroup – let’s call it North-Eastern
Polynesian – consisting of EP minus Rapa, with no less than 643 reconstructions, while EP itself
would be represented by only 67 reconstructions. “NEP” would thus seem to be even more
strongly motivated than CE. Even so, no one has ever proposed such a grouping. The small
number of Rapa reflexes can be explained by a small vocabulary (i.e. widespread loss) and lack
of data.
For both Rapa and Rapa Nui – and in fact for all EP languages – the total number of reflexes in
EP and CE reconstructions is roughly in proportion to the total number of reflexes in Pollex as a
whole.
A lexeme occurring in a branch of languages is likely to be an innovation of that branch if it can
be shown to replace a lexeme with the same meaning occurring in a higher-order branch.
morphological changes (16? 18?), one syntactic change (23?) and four
sporadic sound changes (30?).
• CE is supported by two semantic innovations (25, 26), two or more sporadic
sound changes (28, 29, 30?), and a number of lexical innovations (24). In
addition, it may be characterised by one or two phonological changes (11?,
13?) and possibly up to three morphological changes (15?, 18?, 22?).
We may conclude that both subgroups are reasonably well established, though on re-
examination the evidence for CE is considerably weaker than has been suggested so
far. This provides at least a partial solution to the challenge posed by newer theories of
settlement, according to which eastern Polynesia was colonized late and rapidly (→
1.1.2 above). In these scenarios, there is not much time for EP and CE to develop in
isolation, so a small number of innovations for both groups is expected.
The evidence still suggests that there is a CE subgroup within EP. However, the small
number of innovations and a possibly shorter chronology call into question the identity
of PCE: was there ever a community speaking PCE? In other words, did all the CE
innovations occur in a unified language, before subgroups (TA and MQ) and individual
languages started to diverge? Or did these innovations spread over the PCE area
through contact, possibly after the protolanguage had started to diverge into different
dialects? Walworth (2012) proposes that innovations in Tahitic and Marquesic were
not part of a unified protolanguage but spread by diffusion through different speech
communities. The data above suggest that the same is true for PCE.
This also means that the first colonizers of Rapa Nui did not necessarily leave an EP
homeland where PEP was spoken as a unified language. If Rapa Nui was settled from
southeast Polynesia, as is the growing consensus (→ 1.1.2), it is conceivable that the
language spoken in that area at the time Rapa Nui split off, was already starting to
differentiate from PEP towards a proto-Marquesic speech variety. This possibility is
suggested by the fact that Rapa Nui shares considerably more lexemes with Marquesic
than with Tahitic (Emory 1963:94; Langdon & Tryon 1983:42–44; Clark 1983b:424).
This scenario is not in contradiction with the standard theory (according to which
Marquesic and Tahitic languages together form the CE branch): it is altogether likely
that speech communities within Eastern Polynesia, especially those relatively close
together such as the Societies, the Tuamotus, Marquesas and Mangareva, remained in
close contact, which facilitated the diffusion of subsequent “CE” innovations. In other
words, CE innovations did not necessarily predate the onset of differentiation between
Tahitic and Marquesic.
1.3. The Rapa Nui language: typology and innovations
1.3.1. General typology

Rapa Nui is characterised by the following typological features, most of which are
shared by the Polynesian languages in general:
• The phoneme inventory is small: ten consonants, five short vowels and five
long vowels.
• Syllable structure is restricted to CV(ː). Moreover, there are strict metrical

constraints on phonological words.
• The basic constituent order is Verb – Subject – Object. Determiners and
adpositions precede the noun; adjectives, possessives (except pronominal
possessives) and relative clauses follow the noun.
• In the area of word classes, there is a basic distinction between full words and
(pre- and postnuclear) particles. There is a great freedom of cross-categorial
use of nouns and verbs, to the extent that the existence of lexical nouns and
verbs has been denied in some analyses of Polynesian languages.
• Verbs are preceded by a preverbal marker. These markers form a multi-
category paradigm, indicating either aspect, mood, subordination or negation.
• Rapa Nui is an isolating language, even to a greater degree than other
Polynesian languages, because of the loss of the passive suffix. There is no
agreement marking on verbs, nor number marking on nouns.
• In first person pronouns, there is a distinction between dual and plural, and
between inclusive and exclusive. Unlike other Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui
does not have a dual/plural distinction in second and third person pronouns.
• There are two semantic categories of possession. These are not structurally
different, but marked by a distinction between o and a in the possessive
preposition or pronoun.
• There is a general preference for nominal(ised) constructions (→ 3.2.5).
1.3.2. Innovations and losses in Rapa Nui

In the course of history, a number of developments took place in Rapa Nui which did
not take place in PCE (though they may have taken place independently in daughter
languages). In this section, only phonological and grammatical changes are listed;
lexical changes are not included.
1. Merger of *f and *s in all environments (→ 2.2.1). (This development also
took place independently in a number of CE languages: Mangarevan,
Hawaiian, Rapan, Rarotongan.)
2. Enforcement of strict metrical constraints, so that all word forms conform to a
metrical scheme (→ 2.3.2).
3. A large number of sporadic phonological changes, such as metathesis and
vowel shifts (→ 2.5.2).
4. Monophthongisation (sometimes with shortening) of a number of CVV
particles (→ 2.5.2 sub 7).
5. A copying strategy for prepositions around locationals (→ 3.6.2.2).
6. Extension of the second and third person dual pronouns to plurality (→
4.2.1.1).
7. Loss of the “neutral” set of possessive pronouns taku, tō, tana (Wilson 2012, cf.
4.2.2.1.1).
8. Loss of possessive pronouns starting with na- and no-; their function was taken
over by Ø-forms (→ fn. 288 on p. 277).
9. Development of definite numerals, formed by reduplication (→ 4.3.4).

10. Loss of the PPN numeral distributive prefix *taki- (→ fn. 169 on p. 144).
11. Possibly: merger of the numeral prefixes *hoko- and *toko- (→ fn. 170 on p.
145).
12. Development of certain sentential particles: deictic ꞌī and ꞌai, intensifier rā,
dubitative hō, asseverative ꞌō (→ 4.5.4).
13. Loss of the demonstrative determiners *teenei, *teenaa, *teeraa (→ fn. 219 on
p. 192; cf. Pawley 1966:44).
14. Development of the prepositions pē “like” (→ 4.7.8) and pe “towards” (→
4.7.5).
15. Development of the instrumental preposition hai, probably from the prefix hai-
(→ 4.7.9).
16. Emergence of the collective marker kuā/koā (→ 5.2).
17. Restriction of prenominal possessives to pronouns; full noun phrases as
possessives only occur after the noun (→ fn. 282 on p. 270).
18. Loss of the distinction between o- and a-possession in common nouns and
plural pronouns (→ 6.3.2).
19. Possibly a shift in marking of the Agent in nominalised constructions:
possessive agents are o-marked, against a-marking in other Polynesian
languages (→ fn. 299 on p. 290).
20. Development of the plural marker ŋā from a determiner into a particle co-
occurring with determiners (though there are traces of this development in
other EP languages as well) (→ 5.6.1.1).
21. Loss of certain headless noun phrase constructions (→ 5.7). For example,
headless relative clauses (including clefts) are excluded (→ 11.4.1, 9.2.6);
attributive clauses need a predicate noun (→ 9.2.7).
22. Extension of the use of the postverbal continuity marker ꞌana to the noun
phrase (→ 5.10).
23. Development of the nominal predicate marker he into an aspect marker (→
7.2.3).
24. Obligatory occurrence of the continuity marker ꞌana/ꞌā after the perfect aspect
marker ku/ko (→ 7.2.7).
25. Restriction of the postverbal anaphoric particle ai to the perfective aspectual i,
with extension in use from an anaphoric marker to a general postverbal
demonstrative (→ 7.6.5).
26. Development of the preverbal modifier rava “usually, given to” (→ 7.3.1).
27. Reduction of the set of directionals to mai “hither” and atu “away” (→ 7.5). A
third directional, iho, was reanalysed as an adverb (→ 4.5.3.1); others were
lost.
28. Emergence of a serial verb construction with repetition of the preverbal
marker (→ 7.7).
29. On the premise that PEP had accusative case marking: extension of the
agentive marker e from passive to active clauses (→ 8.2–8.4).
30. Emergence of a nominal actor-emphatic construction, besides a perfective and

an imperfective actor-emphatic (→ 8.6.3).
31. Restructuring of the negation system, with the development of ꞌina as neutral,
e ko as imperfective and kai as perfective negator, while taꞌe is relegated to
constituent negation and kore to noun negation (→ 10.5).
32. Possibly: development of bare relative clauses, i.e. without preverbal marker
(→ 11.4.5).
33. Development of the benefactive preposition mo into a preverbal purpose
marker (→ 11.5.1; cf. Finney & Alexander 1998:27).
34. Possibly: emergence of the preverbal irrealis marker ana (→ 11.5.2; NB
preverbal ana is used in certain contexts in Maori as well).
In recent times, the following developments took place:

35. Disappearance of the preposition copying strategy around locationals (→
3.6.2.2).
36. Replacement of numerals by Tahitian equivalents: for 1–7 in some contexts,
above 7 in all contexts (→ 4.3.1).
37. Restructuring of the quantifier system through borrowing and reanalysis of
Tahitian (and, to a lesser extent, Spanish) quantifiers (→ 4.4.1, 4.4.11).
38. Development of demonstrative determiners nei, nā and rā (→ 4.6.4).
39. Extension in use of the collective marker kuā/koā (→ 5.2).
40. Increased use of the existential verb ai in existential and possessive clauses (→
9.3.1, 9.3.3).
41. Extension of the use of agentive marker e (→ 8.3.1.5).
42. Incipient development of copula verbs (→ 9.6).
43. Emergence of exclamative constructions introduced with the prominence
marker ko (→ 10.4.2).
44. Introduction of conjunctions ꞌe “and” (→ 11.2.1) and ꞌo “or” (→ 11.2.2), as
well as ꞌātā “until” (→ 11.6.2.5), ante “before” (→ 11.6.2.4), pero “but”
(→11.2.1).
45. Introduction of modal verbs from Spanish: puē “can”, tiene que “must” (→
11.3.6).
1.4. Sociolinguistic situation
1.4.1. Influence from Tahitian and Spanish

Rapa Nui has undergone profound influence from two major sources: Tahitian and
Spanish. Tahitian started to exert its influence when Rapa Nui speakers who had
migrated to Tahiti in the 1870s started to remigrate in the 1880s (→ 1.1.3 above).
After 1889, contacts between Rapa Nui and Tahiti were scarce (Fischer 2005:141);
they slowly resumed in the mid-20th century. To this day, a few hundred Rapa Nui
live on Tahiti, and a weekly flight enables regular contact between the two islands.
The influence of Tahitian on modern Rapa Nui is striking. In my lexical database,

which contains 5833 lexical entries, 543 items are marked as (probably) of Tahitian
origin, and another 89 as possibly Tahitian. Many of these can be distinguished
phonologically, as the Tahitian and Rapa Nui consonant inventories are different,
especially in the distribution of the glottal plosive (→ 2.2.1). Others can be recognised
because of their semantics and/or recent introduction (see e.g. the discussion about
riro “to become” in 9.6.2). Tahitian vocabulary includes a number of very common
words, such as ꞌite “to know”, haꞌamata “to begin”, ꞌī “full”, hāpī “to learn”, māuruuru
“thank you” and the everyday greeting ꞌiorana.
One reason why Tahitian elements are easily adopted into the language, is their
“vernacular feel”. Tahitian words match the Rapa Nui phoneme inventory and word-
forming constraints, with a few exceptions (→ 2.5.3.2). As a result, Tahitian
borrowings are not perceived as intrusions; unlike Spanish borrowings, they are not
avoided in written language and formal styles.
On historical grounds it seems plausible to date the intrusion of Tahitian elements to
the 1880s (cf. Fischer 2001a:315), when Rapa Nui remigrated from Tahiti. This
remigration happened at the time when the population was at an all-time low, a
situation conducive to rapid language change. Moreover, in the same period Tahitian
catechists came to Rapa Nui, as well as foremen and labourers for the sheep ranch (Di
Castri 1999:101). According to Métraux (1971:32), by 1935 many Tahitian words had
entered the language; already in 1912, Knoche (1912:65) noticed that Tahitian had
exercised “einen grossen einfluss auf Sitten und Sprache der Insulaner”.
However, when we look at Rapa Nui texts from the 1910s–1930s (→ 1.6.2), the
scarcity of Tahitian influence is striking. The Tahitian numerals (→ 4.3.1) are not used,
except the occasional vaꞌu “eight” (though the original varu is much more common).
The Tahitian quantifiers taꞌatoꞌa and paurō “all” (→ 4.4.2, 4.4.3) do not occur either.
Certain Tahitian words are commonly used in older texts (ravaꞌa “to obtain”, ꞌī “full”,
manaꞌu “think”, ꞌaꞌamu “story”), but many words common nowadays occur rarely or
not at all in older texts: ꞌite “to know”, riro “to become”, ꞌonotau “epoch”, haꞌamata “to
begin”, māere “to be surprised”, māhatu “heart”, māuruuru “to thank; thanks”, nehenehe
“beautiful”, ꞌe “and”, nuꞌu “people”, and so on.18
This suggests that many Tahitian words common nowadays, only came into use after
the 1930s. The Tahitian influence noticed by Knoche and Métraux must have been less
pervasive than it is today. An alternative explanation would be, that the language of
the older texts is archaic and reflects a variety which was current before 1880, possibly
through verbatim transmission of old legends; after all, many of these texts represent
old traditions. This is not very likely, however: it would leave unexplained why certain
Tahitian words are very common, while many others – equally common nowadays –
do not occur at all. Neither would it explain why roughly the same picture emerges
from all corpora of older texts (Egt, Ley, Mtx and MsE), including a long text which
tells of post-1880 events (Ley-9-63, memories of catechist Nicolás Pakarati, recounted
18
Of these words, only ꞌite is found in Englert’s dictionary (first published in 1948). Notice,
however, that Englert does not include words known to be of recent origin.
by his widow).19 It is hard to conceive that scores of words borrowed 50 or 60 years

previously would have been completely avoided in traditional stories, while others
were freely used. Rather, the picture that emerges is one of two waves of Tahitian
intrusions: one in the 1870s and 1880s, followed by a much bigger one after 1960,
when intensive contacts between Rapa Nui and the outside world (including Tahiti)
were established.
The Spanish influence on modern Rapa Nui is likewise massive. This influence is not
noticeable in the older texts, even though Rapa Nui had been a Chilean territory for
almost 50 years by the time these texts were collected. Spanish influence only started
to make itself felt from the 1960s on, when Rapa Nui speakers acquired Chilean
citizenship, began to participate actively in government and politics, acquired jobs for
which proficiency in Spanish was a prerequisite, and increasingly took part in
secondary and tertiary education. Spanish is also the language of the media, the
predominant language of the Roman Catholic church, and the language of the many
continentales who moved to the island (ultimately resulting in a high proportion of
intermarriage). All of this led to a gradual incursion of Spanish elements into the
language.
The PLRN lexical database contains 201 lexemes of Spanish origin, but this only
represents words well entrenched in the language, often with adaptation to Rapa Nui
phonology (→ 2.5.3.1). In everyday speech, the number of Spanish words is much
higher. Most of these are not considered as part of the Rapa Nui lexicon but as foreign
intrusions, i.e. as instances of code mixing.
Code mixing is extremely common in modern Rapa Nui speech, involving single words,
phrases, sentences or longer stretches of speech; see Makihara (2001a; 2004; 2005a;
2007; 2009) for examples and discussion. In most of my corpus of modern Rapa Nui,
the amount of code mixing is considerably lower than in Makihara’s examples. This
can be explained by the fact that a large part of my corpus consists of text types for
which the use of Spanish is considered less acceptable: (a) traditional stories; (b)
written texts; (c) edited spoken texts.20 Moreover, traditional stories make less
reference to modern institutions and artifacts, so there is less need for the use of
Spanish elements.
Makihara (1998, 2009) signals a growing trend of purism, in which people attempt to
speak Rapa Nui free of Spanish influence. This happens especially in political
discourse, but is spreading to other domains.
The extent of Tahitian influence has led Fischer (1996c:47) to characterise modern
Rapa Nui as a “Rapanui-Tahitian hybrid”, a product of “language intertwining”
19
Only for a few words do the corpora differ mutually: ꞌati “problem” occurs in Mtx and Ley, but
not in MsE.
20
Another reason for the discrepancy may be that much of the PLRN corpus is slightly older
(1977–1990) than Makihara’s data (after 1990). However, relatively high amounts of code
mixing are found in some of the oldest (informal) texts in the PLRN corpus.
(2008a:151). However, while the lexicon of modern Rapa Nui is heavily influenced by
Tahitian, the grammar has not been affected to the same degree, as the following
chapters will make clear (cf. Makihara 2001a:194). Even in areas where massive
replacement by Tahitian terms has taken place, e.g. quantifiers (→ 4.4.11) and
numerals (→ 4.3.1), these terms have been reinterpreted into a “native” Rapa Nui
syntax.
The same is true for Spanish. Spanish has certainly influenced the grammar of Rapa
Nui, but Spanish borrowings have been integrated into Rapa Nui grammar without
transfer of their syntactic features. For example, the Spanish noun kampō “countryside”
(< campo) became a locational (→ 3.6.3.3); kā “each” (< cada) became a quantifier
compatible with plurality (→ 4.4.8.2). The modal verbs puē “can” and tiene que “must”
were borrowed (→ 11.3.6), but the third person singular of these verbs is used with all
persons and numbers, and they are used with Rapa Nui syntactic features like mo-
complements. On the other hand, certain Spanish semantic and syntactic features have
become common without borrowing of the lexical items: kē “several” (→ 4.4.8.1),
copular verbs (→ 9.6), the coordinating conjunction ꞌe “and” (→ 11.2.1), the
construction oho mo “to be about to” (→ 11.3.2.4), et cetera. These elements have
affected Rapa Nui grammar to a certain degree, but the same cannot be said of the
numerous Spanish words and phrases interspersed in everyday speech. The fact that
Spanish intrusions are avoided in certain types of discourse, confirms that these are
instances of code switching and belong to the domain of language use (parole), without
having profound effect on the linguistic system (langue) of modern Rapa Nui (cf.
Makihara 2001a:193).
1.4.2. Language use and vitality

As indicated in 1.2.1 above, Rapa Nui does not have dialects. On the other hand, there
is considerable idiolectal variation between the speech varieties of individual speakers
and of different families, e.g. in the use of certain lexical items and the degree of
Tahitianisation (cf. Fischer 2008a:154).
While Rapa Nui grammar has retained its distinctive character and has not become a
Rapa Nui-Tahitian and/or Rapa Nui-Spanish mix, the language is certainly endangered.
The factors mentioned above which led to Spanish influence on the language
(participation in Chilean civil life, education, jobs, immigration of continental
Chileans, intermarriage) also led to a gradual increase in the use of Spanish by Rapa
Nui people. From the 1960s on, Rapa Nui started to aspire to “being Chilean” (Fischer
2001a:315), something for which proficiency in Spanish was essential. As a result, it
became common for Rapa Nui to use Spanish, initially in interaction with continentales,
but then also between each other, both in public and at home. From the 1980s on, this
meant that many children – even those from two Rapa Nui parents – learned Spanish
as their first language. N. & R. Weber (1990c) found that the number of primary school
children who were fully proficient in Rapa Nui (either as first language or by being
bilingual) had decreased from 77% in 1977 to 25% in 1989. This can only partly be
explained from an increased proportion of children from continental or mixed
households. In 1997, a production/comprehension test among primary school children
living on the island showed that only 49 out of 558 children (9%) were fully bilingual;
an additional 80 (14%) had a reasonable level of comprehension and production in
Rapa Nui (a score of 4 or higher on a scale of 0–7); 329 (59%) had virtually no
proficiency at all (N. & R. Weber 1998).
This trend did not go unnoticed. Various measures were taken to enhance the chances
of survival of the language, many of these initiated or assisted by the Programa Lengua
Rapa Nui. One of these was the institution of an immersion program in the local
primary school, extending from kinder until year 4. This program has achieved a
varying degree of success (Makihara 2009). Other initiatives include the publication of
two series of textbooks (N. & R. Weber 1990a, b) and other educational materials, the
foundation of the Academía de la lengua and an annual Día de la lengua. At the same
time, the use of Rapa Nui in public domains increased, e.g. in politics (Makihara
2001a:204).
In 2011, a new survey was conducted using the same criteria for comprehension and
production as in 1997 (Calderón Haoa et al 2011). In this survey, the same persons
included in the 1997 survey were interviewed again (as far as they could be traced), as
well as young people in the age 5–19. The results were as follows: out of 1338
interviewees, 138 (10.3%) were fully bilingual; another 235 (17.6%) had a score of 4–
7 in comprehension and production; 721 (53.9%) had virtually no proficiency. This
means that proficiency in Rapa Nui had somewhat increased since 1997, despite the
fact that the proportion of children from a non-Rapa Nui background was higher than
in 1997.
Ultimately, the survival of Rapa Nui will depend on whether speakers succeed in
passing the language on to the next generation.
1.4.3. Orthography
Even though Rapa Nui has a small phoneme inventory (→ 2.2), in three areas an
orthographical choice needs to be made between various alternatives: the velar nasal
/ŋ/, the glottal plosive /ʔ/ and vowel length.
In old word lists and lexicons, such as Roussel (1908), neither the glottal plosive nor
vowel length is marked. In later sources, if the glottal plosive is marked, it is usually
written as an apostrophe, either straight (ꞌ) or curled (‘ or ’); a few sources (Fuentes
1960, Salas 1973) use the IPA glottal or a similar symbol (ʔ ? ˀ ).
Vowel length is represented in various ways: aa (Fuentes 1960, Salas 1973), â (Englert
1978, Conte Oliveros 1996), á (Du Feu 1996), or ā (Blixen 1972, Chapin 1978).
The velar nasal has been represented as ng (Métraux 1971 [1940], Blixen 1972, Conte
Oliveros 1996) or g (Roussel 1908, Chapin 1978). Engert was the first to use the ŋ
symbol, a practice adopted by Fuentes (1960), Salas (1973) and Du Feu (1996).
In the Programa Lengua Rapa Nui (PLRN), the following choices were made:
• In the typewriter era, /ŋ/ was written as g̈ (R. & N. Weber 1985); later this
was replaced by ŋ (N. & R. Weber 2005).
• The glottal plosive is represented by a straight apostrophe ꞌ.21

• Vowel length is represented by a macron over the vowel.
These choices are presented and discussed by R. & N. Weber (1985); N. & R. Weber
(2005).
Another issue concerns word boundaries: should the causative marker haka be
connected to the root (hakaoho “to cause to go”) or be treated as a separate word
(haka oho)? The same question applies to nominalisers like iŋa: vānaŋaiŋa or vānaŋa
iŋa “speaking”? In most Polynesian languages, these elements are connected to the
root, but in the PLRN orthography of Rapa Nui, they are written as separate words.22
Other grammatical elements are written as separate words as well: determiners, the
proper article a, prepositions, aspect markers et cetera. The same is true for phrasal
proper nouns, hence Rapa Nui, not Rapanui; Haŋa Roa (town); Te Moko ꞌa Raŋi Roa
(protagonist of a legend). On the other hand, certain lexical compounds are written as
a single word (→ 5.8.2; R. & N. Weber 1985:27).
One more choice which differs from the current practice in most Polynesian languages
concerns the orthography of reduplications. In most languages, these are connected to
the root; in Rapa Nui, they are separated from the root by a hyphen: riva-riva “good”,
tē-tere “to run (Pl)”, vānaŋa-naŋa “to talk repeatedly”. This applies even to lexical
reduplications, for which the base does not occur independently in Rapa Nui: nao-nao
“mosquito”, ꞌā-ꞌanu “to spit” (→ 2.6.3).
Over the years, the PLRN orthography has gained acceptance among the Rapa Nui
community, including teachers and members of the Rapa Nui Language Academy. It is
increasingly seen in publications (e.g. Gleisner & Montt 2014). In this grammar the
same orthography is used, with two exceptions:
• Reduplications are written as single words: instead of the PLRN orthography
riva-riva “good”, this grammar has rivariva. Use of the hyphen would create
confusion in interlinear glossing and violation of the Leipzig glossing rules,23
as the reduplicant does not have a “glossable” sense separate from the root.
• A few words separated in the PLRN orthography are a single word in this
grammar, as they have a non-composite sense. These words start with the
21
To prevent word processors from turning ꞌ into curly brackets (‘ or ’), which take up more
space and disrupt the visual unity of the word, a special font was used in the past containing a
symbol ꞌ. More recently, the development of Unicode has obviated the need for a special font; the
code point UA78C (“Latin small letter saltillo”) is now available for a symbol ꞌ which is not
confused with an apostrophe by word processors.
22
This not only serves to avoid long words like hakamāramarama “to cause to be intelligent” but
also prevents potential spacing conflicts: both haka and iŋa may be separated from the root by
certain particles or adverbs (→ (52) on p. 92; (97) on p. 327).
23
See http://grammar.ucsd.edu/courses/lign120/leipziggloss.pdf. Lehmann (2004) notices that
there is no satisfactory solution for hyphens that do not correspond to morpheme breaks, as in
vis-à-vis.
causative marker haka, followed by a root which does not occur in Rapa Nui
or which has a totally unrelated meaning. This affects the following words:
hakaꞌou “again”, hakaroŋo “to listen”, hakarē and hakarere “to leave”,
hakameꞌemeꞌe “to mock” and hakatiu “to watch, wait”.
1.5. Previous work on the language
1.5.1. Lexicon
A good number of early visitors to the island gathered a short word list of the
language. The first of these was compiled by Don Francisco Antonio de Agüera during
the Spanish expedition in 1770 (Ross 1937, Corney 1908), followed by the German
botanist Johann Forster, part of Cook’s expedition in 1774 (Schuhmacher 1977).
Father Hippolyte Roussel, who stayed on the island in the late 1860s, compiled a
dictionary which was published posthumously.24 It contains almost 6,000 Spanish
lemmas with a total of about 1,800 unique Rapa Nui words; unfortunately it is heavily
contaminated by Mangarevan and Tahitian vocabulary (Fischer 1992) and therefore
far from reliable. Other early vocabularies include Philippi (1873), Geiseler (1883, see
also Ayres & Ayres 1995), Thomson (1889, Spanish translation 1980), Cooke (1899)
and the short dictionary by Martínez (1913). The extensive vocabulary in Churchill
(1912) is based on Roussel’s dictionary and some of the other vocabularies.
Father Sebastian Englert, who served on the island as parish priest from 1935 until his
death in 1969, was the first person to study the language in depth. His dictionary
(published in Englert 1948 and revised in Englert 1978) is an invaluable resource for
the language as it was spoken in the first half of the 20th century. Another extensive
dictionary is Fuentes (1960). Recent dictionaries include Fedorova (1988), Conte
Oliveros (2000), Hernández Sallés et al (2001) and Hotus Chavez (2008). Publications
on specific lexical domains include Gunckel (1968) and Rauch & Ramirez (1996) on
flora, Pinochet Carte (1980) on mollusks, Randall & Cea Egaña (1984) on fish, and
Bierbach & Cain (1996) on religion.
Over the past years, a number of phrase books for the wider public have been
published: Haoa Rapahango & Liller (1996), Hotus Tuki (2001) and Pauly & Huke Atán
(2008).
1.5.2. Grammar and sociolinguistics

The first grammar of Rapa Nui was written by Father Sebastian Englert (included in
Englert 1948, revised version 1978). It is relatively short but remarkably accurate.
Other grammar sketches and concise grammars include Fuentes (1960), Chapin
(1978), Munro (1978), Fedorova (1988, Russian), Conte Oliveros (1996) and Rubino
(1998). The latter is a reordering of material from Du Feu (1996).
24
The French original was published in Roussel (1908), a Spanish translation in Roussel (1917);
the latter was republished in Foerster (2013), with a critical introduction by Bob Weber.
The most extensive grammar is Du Feu (1996), published in the Descriptive Grammars
series.25
Several theses, articles and unpublished papers have been written on specific aspects of
the language.
The phonology of Rapa Nui is described in Du Feu (1985), Guerra Eisman et al
(1993), Salas (1973) and R. & N. Weber (1982). An important landmark in Rapa Nui
linguistics was the discovery that Rapa Nui preserves the PPN glottal plosive, a
phoneme which has disappeared in all other EP languages. The glottal plosive was
largely ignored in early descriptions, though Englert’s dictionary registers it in many
words. Its phonemic status was brought to light by Ward (1961, 1964) and Blixen
(1972).
The noun phrase is described in Du Feu (1987) in broad outline. Another paper on the
noun phrase is Gordon (1977).
The verb phrase is discussed by R. Weber (1988, Spanish version 2003), who offers a
thorough analysis of aspect marking. Papers by Fuller (1980) and Wittenstein (1978)
deal with the directional markers mai and atu. Chapin (1974) analyses the use of the
postverbal particle ai, which is difficult to define in Rapa Nui.
Grammatical relations in Rapa Nui have been the subject of several studies,
especially Agent marking. The supposedly ergative traits of the case system have
drawn the attention of several linguists26 (Alexander 1981a, 1981b, 1982; Finney &
Alexander 1998; Finney 2000, 2001). N. Weber (1988, Spanish version 2003) argues
against an ergative analysis.
Other grammatical topics have been addressed by Du Feu (1994 – modality; 1995 –
interrogatives), Mulloy & Rapu (1977 – possession), Johnston (1978 – reduplication),
McAdams (1980 – nominalisation), Silva-Corvalán (1978 – relative clauses), Smith
(1980 – sentence structure), Stenson (1981 – negation).
Sociolinguistic aspects (language use and vitality) are discussed by R. & N. Weber
(1984); N. & R. Weber (1990c, 1998), Gómez Macker (1977, 1979) and Haoa Cardinali
(2012). Makihara (1998, 1999, 2001a, 2001b, 2004, 2007, 2009) has studied the use
of Rapa Nui and Spanish in spoken language. Other studies on the influence of Spanish
on modern Rapa Nui are included in Stolz, Bakker & Salas Palomo (2008).
25
This grammar suffers from some serious flaws, as pointed out in reviews by Mosel (1997) and
N. & R. Weber (1999). It follows the Descriptive Grammars questionnaire closely rather than
presenting material in categories relevant to the language. Moreover, the analysis presented is
often unclear, incomplete or incorrect. Some of the examples adduced are unnatural or even
incorrect, while the glosses are often inadequate.
26
According to Mosel (1997:182), “The most striking feature of Rapanui is that it shows traces of
ergativity and hence similarities with West Polynesian languages”.
1.6. About this grammar
1.6.1. A corpus-based study

This grammar is based on the analysis of a large corpus of Rapa Nui texts, in addition
to observations and discussion/elicitation sessions during the time when I lived on
Easter Island (November 2007 – December 2010). In addition to grammatical research,
I developed a comprehensive lexical database (hitherto unpublished) based on all
available lexical sources and text materials (2008–2010), and carried out an exegetical
check of the Rapa Nui translation of the New Testament (2005–2013).
A corpus-based approach has several advantages (cf. McEnery & Wilson 1996:12): it is
based on actual, natural data, which are not biased by the linguist’s interest; a large
corpus includes data from a wide range of speakers; it enables discourse analysis; the
data are verifiable; and finally, a large corpus allows statistical analysis. Moreover, the
corpus used for this grammar allows diachronic analysis (see below). Two possible
disadvantage of corpus-based research are, that less common phenomena are harder to
analyse, as they are rare in texts (Chapin 1978), and that the corpus only shows what
is possible, not what is impossible (Biggs 1974:412). These problems were overcome to
a certain degree (a) by using a large corpus (over 500,000 words), and (b) by
supplementing corpus analysis with personal observations and elicitation/discussion
sessions with a speaker of the language. The corpus is described in 1.6.2 below.
All texts in the corpus were digitised and converted to the accepted Rapa Nui
orthography (→ 1.4.3), with consistent marking of glottal plosives and vowel length.
The corpus has been formatted as a Toolbox database, which is linked to the lexical
database mentioned above.
The analysis in the following chapters is based on the corpus as a whole. For certain
topics (especially aspect marking and clause structure & case marking), a subcorpus of
29 texts was analysed in more detail (c. 58,000 words; → fn. 308 on p. 300, fn. 377 on
p. 360).
This grammar also has a comparative component: for many grammatical elements
and constructions, the historical derivation and occurrence in related languages is
discussed, mostly in footnotes. Comparative data are mainly taken from languages for
which a thorough description is available. Data from Eastern Polynesian languages
(Tahitian, Maori, Hawaiian, etc.) are of primary importance; sometimes, reference is
made to non-EP languages (Samoan, Tongan, Tuvaluan etc.).
Finally, this grammar has a diachronic dimension. The corpus includes texts from the
past 90 or 100 years, a period during which the language has changed considerably;
this offers a certain historical perspective which has been taken into account in the
analysis.
This grammar is written within the tradition of “basic linguistic theory”, the approach
which has become common in descriptive linguistics and which eclectically employs
concepts from both traditional linguistics and various theoretical frameworks (Dryer
2001, 2006; Dixon 2010a, b, 2012).
1.6.2. The corpus

The corpus used as data for this grammar contains two subcorpora: older texts (c.
1910–1940, 124,500 words) and newer texts (c. 1977–2010, 399,000 words). In
addition, there is a small collection of texts from the early 1970s (14,500 words). This
section gives a description of the different parts of the corpus. The texts in the corpus
are referenced with three-letter abbreviations in this grammar; a full listing is given in
Appendix B. In this grammar, the term “older Rapa Nui” is used for features only
found in pre-1940 texts; features only occurring after 1970 are labelled “modern Rapa
Nui”. These labels are used for convenience, without implying that the pre-1940 texts
reflect the pre-contact language sometimes referred to “Old Rapa Nui”.
The corpus contains a wide variety of texts. Narrative texts – both spoken and written
– are the largest category. Other genres include speeches, conversations, radio
interviews, poetry, newspaper articles, procedural texts (e.g. descriptions of traditional
customs and techniques) and expository texts (e.g. episodes of the history of the
island). The sources are as follows:
1. In the first decades of the 20th century, a number of Rapa Nui men wrote down a
cycle of traditions in what came to be known as Manuscript E (MsE).27 The manuscript
was published and translated by Thomas Barthel (Barthel 1978) and recently
republished in Rapa Nui with a Spanish translation (Frontier 2008).
2. In the 1930s, a large number of legends and other stories was collected by Father
Sebastian Englert. Many of these were included in Englert (1939a, b, c); the full
compilation was published posthumously in Englert (1980 with Spanish translation;
2001 with English translation).28 A few other texts were included in Englert (1948).
3. The Swiss ethnologist Alfred Métraux, who visited the island in 1934–1935,
included a large number of stories in his ethnography (Métraux 1971 [1940]): some in
Rapa Nui with translation, others in translation only. For the latter, the original text
was preserved in his notebooks (Métraux 1935). These notebooks were eventually lost
(see Fischer 2008b, 2009), but a photocopy was preserved; I transcribed these and
added them to the corpus.
27
MsE is one of six manuscripts (labeled A–F) discovered during the Norwegian archeological
expedition in 1955; see Barthel (1965), Horley & López Labbé (2014). MsE is by far the most
extensive of the six; the others mainly contain lists and fragmentary material. Barthel (1978:298)
considers MsE as a copy of an original written before 1914. Recently, a set of photographs of a
hitherto unpublished manuscript were discovered; the ms. was written in the same hand as MsE
and is now labelled Manuscript H (Horley & López Labbé 2014; 2015).
28
Despite the late date of publishing, most – possibly all – of these texts were collected in the
1930s. Many were published (sometimes with minor variations) in Englert (1939a, b, c); all of
these were written in 1936. Of the stories not included in these publications, the majority were
transmitted by the same narrators mentioned in Englert (1939a, b, c): Mateo Veriveri, Juan
Tepano and Arturo Teao. Other stories were told by the wife and sons of the catechist Nicolás
Ure Potahi (1851-1927).
Many of the texts in Englert (1939b) are not included in Englert (1980); these are not included in
the corpus, as I only discovered this publication in November 2015.
4. In the 1970s, Rapa Nui texts were published by Fritz Felbermayer (1971, 1973,
1978) and Olaf Blixen (1973, 1974).
5. In 1977, SIL linguists Robert and Nancy Weber started the Programa Lengua Rapa
Nui (PLRN), a collaboration between the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
and SIL International, which aimed at language preservation, education and
documentation. They started collecting texts, recording and transcribing stories by
notable storytellers, commissioning written texts, transcribing radio emissions, et
cetera. Many new texts were written and published during two writer’s workshops in
1984 and 1985; the texts from the first workshop were republished in Paté Tuki et al
(1986). Other texts were added to the corpus during the preparation of a series of
school books (N. & R. Weber 1990a, b). Over time, many more texts were added, for
example texts by Rapa Nui authors for which the Webers acted as linguistic
consultants, such as Cuadros Hucke (2008) and Pakarati Tuki (2010). Details about the
texts are listed in Appendix B.
6. Finally, the largest single text in Rapa Nui is the translation of the New Testament,
as well as portions of the Old Testament. This translation (as yet unpublished) was
made by a number of Rapa Nui speakers, with exegetical and linguistic advice from
Robert & Nancy Weber. In 2006–2012, the New Testament was meticulously checked
for naturalness by a team of Rapa Nui speakers. In this grammar, the Bible translation
is used as a secondary resource, especially to illustrate phenomena for which few or no
clear examples are available otherwise.
Not included in the corpus are a number of other Rapa Nui texts:
• The oldest surviving Rapa Nui text is the catechism translated by Father
Hippolyte Roussel in 1868 (Roussel 1995). Roussel, who had worked in the
Tuamotus and on Mangareva, used a language heavily influenced by the
language varieties spoken in those islands.
• Songs, chants and recitations have been handed down from the past (see e.g.
Campbell 1970; Barthel 1960); these are often syntactically fragmentary and
difficult to interpret. See Fischer (1994) for an interpretation of an old chant.
• A distinctive corpus is formed by the kōhau rongorongo, a number of wooden
tablets inscribed by a script unique to Rapa Nui. Several attempts at
interpretation have been made (Barthel 1958; Fischer 1997), but the script has
not been definitively deciphered so far (Davletshin 2012).29
• Gleisner & Montt (2014) include a number of stories and descriptive texts (c.
36,000 words); this corpus came to my attention when this grammar was
nearly finished. Another recent collection is Tepano Kaituoe (2015), a
bilingual edition of 75 notebooks of Rapa Nui text by Uka Tepano Kaituoe
(1929–2014).
29
Several scholars have suggested that rongorongo was developed after the Rapa Nui witnessed
writing in 1770, when Spanish explorers drew up a deed of cession in which the island was
handed over to the Spanish crown (Emory 1972; Fischer 1996b, 1997)
1.6.3. Organisation of this grammar

This grammar is organised as follows.
Chapter 2 deals with the phonology of Rapa Nui. The following topics are discussed in
turn: phonemes (with special attention to the glottal plosive), syllable and word
structure, stress, intonation, phonological processes, and reduplication.
Chapter 3 deals with nouns and verbs. In many analyses of Polynesian language, the
existence of lexical nouns and verbs is denied; rather, the two categories are defined
syntactically (“a noun is any word preceded by a determiner”). Arguments are given to
show that this approach obscures various differences between nouns and verbs, and
that the distinction between both should be maintained. A classification of nouns is
proposed, as well as a classification of verbs. Adjectives (a subclass of verbs) and
locatives (a subclass of nouns) are discussed.
Other word classes are discussed in chapter 4: pronouns, numerals, quantifiers,
adverbs, demonstratives and prepositions. Not treated in this chapter are words
exclusively occurring as particles in the noun and/or verb phrase, such as determiners
and aspect markers.
The noun phrase potentially contains a large number of elements; these are discussed
in chapter 5. Two determiners are discussed extensively: the article te (which marks
referentiality, not definiteness or specificity) and the predicate marker he. Possessive
relationships are also discussed in this chapter; possessives can be marked with o or a,
depending on the relationship between possessor and possessee. Another area
discussed here is compounding, and the difference between compounding and
modification.
Chapter 6 deals with possessive constructions. Possessors occur as modifiers in the
noun phrase, as predicates of nominal clauses, and in various other constructions. A
common feature in Polynesian is the distinction between o- and a-marked possessors;
this is discussed in detail.
Chapter 7 discusses the verb phrase. A major topic is the use of aspect markers, a set
of five preverbal particles. Other common verb phrase particles include directionals
and postverbal demonstratives. Finally, a section is devoted to serial verbs, a
construction not found in other Polynesian languages.
Some Polynesian languages are accusative, others are (partly) ergative; at first sight,
Rapa Nui does not seem to fit either pattern. In chapter 8 on the verbal clause, I show
that Rapa Nui is accusative, and that case marking of Agent and Patient is governed by
an interplay of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. A passive construction is
shown to exist, even though it is less obvious than in related languages. Other topics in
this chapter include non-canonical case marking, constituent order, comitative
constructions and causatives.
Nonverbal clauses are common in Rapa Nui; these are discussed in chapter 9. Two
major types are classifying and identifying clauses, respectively. Existential clauses can
be verbal or non-verbal. The chapter closes with an unusual feature in Rapa Nui
(compared to other Polynesian languages): the emergence of copula verbs in
classifying clauses.
Chapter 10 deals with mood (imperatives, interrogatives, exclamatives) and negation.
Constructions involving multiple clauses are discussed in chapter 11: coordination,

relative clauses, clausal complements and adverbial clauses.
Appendix A provides illustrative interlinear texts. Appendix B lists the texts in the
corpus used as data for this grammar.
This grammar does not contain a separate section on discourse issues. Instead,
discourse-based analysis has been applied to a number of phenomena in different
sections of the grammar: pre- and postnominal demonstratives (→ 4.6), aspect marking
(→ 7.2), directional particles (→ 7.5), subject and object marking (8.3–8.4), non-
canonical subject marking and non-standard constituent orders (→ 8.6).
2. Phonology
2.1. Introduction
As this grammar is primarily based on corpus research, it does not include a complete
phonology; rather, what follows is a relatively brief phonological sketch. The following
topics are discussed:
• the phoneme inventory (2.2);
• phonotactics: syllable structure (2.3.1), word structure (2.3.2) and
cooccurrence restrictions (2.3.3);
• suprasegmentals: word and phrase stress (2.4.1) and intonation (2.4.2);
• phonological processes: regular phonological processes (2.5.1), lexicalised
sound changes and alternations (2.5.2) and the phonological treatment of
borrowings (2.5.3).
Rapa Nui is one of the few Polynesian languages in which the glottal plosive is a
contrastive phoneme; it is discussed in detail in 2.2.4–2.2.5. The discussion will show
that while the glottal plosive is clearly contrastive in lexical words, in prenuclear
particles the situation is different.
Phonological processes such as metathesis and vowel shifts have profoundly affected
the lexicon of Rapa Nui, perhaps more so than in other Polynesian languages. These
processes are described and illustrated in 2.5.2.
Finally, 2.6 deals with reduplication. Rapa Nui has two types of reduplication; first the
form, then the function of each type is discussed.
The research for this grammar does not include formal acoustic analysis (though for
certain topics a speech corpus was used). This means that the pronunciation of
phonemes is only indicated in general terms (2.2.1–2.2.2). Likewise, the treatment of
intonation is limited to general statements. A full analysis of the phonetics of Rapa Nui
has never been carried out so far.
2.2. Phonemes
The phoneme inventory of Rapa Nui consists of 10 consonants and 10 vowels (5 short
and 5 long).
2.2.1. Consonants
The consonant inventory of Rapa Nui is as follows:
Table 1: Consonant inventory
bilabial labiodental alveolar velar glottal

voiceless plosive p t k Ɂ
nasal m n ŋ
voiceless fricative (f) (s) h
voiced fricative v
flap r
/p/ is a voiceless unaspirated bilabial plosive.

/t/ is a voiceless unaspirated alveolar plosive.
/k/ is a voiceless unaspirated velar plosive. Before front vowels /e i/ it is somewhat
fronted towards the palatal position.
/Ɂ/ is an unaspirated glottal plosive. It is sometimes realised as creaky voice on the
surrounding vowels. It is not unusual for the glottal plosive to be elided; this happens
especially in rapid speech and/or between identical vowels (e.g. toꞌo “take”, nuꞌu
“people”). Elision of the glottal plosive is more common with certain speakers than
with others.
/m/ is a voiced bilabial nasal.
/n/ is a voiced alveolar nasal.
/ŋ/ is a voiced velar nasal.
/h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative. Between vowels, it may become voiced in rapid
speech.
/v/ is a voiced labiodental fricative. In rapid speech it may become a labiodental
approximant [ʋ].30
/r/ is a voiced alveolar flap [ɾ], not a trill [r].
The remaining two consonants only occur in loanwords:
/f/ is a voiceless labiodental fricative.
/s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.
Even in loanwords, /f/ and /s/ are often changed to native phonemes (→ 2.5.1 below).
In this grammar, all phonemes are written in accordance with standard Rapa Nui
orthography (→ 1.4.3), i.e. /Ɂ/ is written as ꞌ, /ŋ/ as ŋ.
All consonants are contrastive both word-initially and between vowels. The following
minimal sets show contrastivity for groups of similar consonants.
— Bilabials and labiodental: p, m, v
pā “to encircle” mā “plus” vā “to resonate”
ꞌapa “part” ꞌama “to burn” ꞌava “liquor”
30
Guerra Eisman et al. (1993:14) notice that a few of their consultants tend to pronounce it as a
bilabial fricative. However, Fischer (2001a:317f), quoting – among others – R. & N. Weber
(1982), confirms that despite pervasive Spanish influence on the language, /v/ is still a
labiodental.
Chapter 2: Phonology 29
— Alveolars: t, n, r
tō “to rise (sun)” nō “just” rō “EMPH”
pota “leaf vegetable” pona “to tie a net” pora “reed floater”
— Velars and glottals: k, ŋ, ꞌ, h

kau “to swim” ŋau “to bite” ꞌau “smoke” hau “cord”
haka “CAUS” haŋa “to want” haꞌa “cooked leaves” haha “mouth”
— Glottal versus Ø
ono “six” ꞌono “rich”
uru “enter” ꞌuru “breadfruit”
moa “chicken” moꞌa “to respect”
hau “cord” haꞌu “hat”
ui “generation” ꞌui “to ask” uꞌi “to watch”
ao “to serve food” ꞌao “dance paddle” aꞌo “speech”
These examples show that the glottal plosive is contrastive word-initially; however,
this does not mean that it is contrastive phrase-initially (→ 2.2.5).
— Plosives: p, t, k, ꞌ
pā “to encircle” tā “to tattoo” kā “to kindle” ꞌā “CONT”
tapa “side” tata “to wash” taka “round” taꞌa “your”
— Nasals: m, n, ŋ
mao “fine, OK” nao “temple” ŋao “neck”
tumu “tree” tunu “to cook” tuŋu “to cough”
mama “limpet” mana “power” maŋa “branch”
— Fricatives: v, h
vī “stubborn” hī “to fish”
ava “ditch” aha “what”
heve “perchance” hehe “cooked sweet potato”
— v versus u (notice that the segmental difference in these pairs also implies a
difference in syllable structure: ꞌa.va.hi versus ꞌa.u.a.hi → 2.3.1)
ꞌavahi “to split” ꞌauahi “chimney”
rava “sufficient” rāua “they”
vaka “boat” ꞌuaka “rod”
— h versus Ø
ai “exist” hai “INST” ahi “fire”
vai “water” vahi “to separate”
tui “string” tuhi “to point out
ŋ is relatively rare word-initially. Only about 1/6 of its token occurrences in the text
corpus are word-initial, and 2/3 of these concern the plural marker ŋā. (Likewise, of
all occurrences of ŋ in the lexicon, less than 1/6 is word-initial.)
The consonant correspondences between Rapa Nui and its ancestors (PPN, PNP and
PEP) are given in the following table (from Marck 2000:23f). The consonants of PCE
and Tahitian are also included, not only because CE languages are Rapa Nui’s closest
relatives (→ 1.2.1), but also because Rapa Nui borrowed extensively from Tahitian (→
1.4.1; 2.5.3.2).
Table 2: Derivation of consonant phonemes
PPN *p *t *k *m *n *ŋ *ʔ *f *s *h *w *l *r
PNP *p *t *k *m *n *ŋ *ʔ *f *s Ø/*h *w *l *l
PEP *p *t *k *m *n *ŋ *ʔ *f *s31 Ø/*h *w *r *r
Rapa Nui p t k m n ŋ ʔ h h Ø v r r
PCE *p *t *k *m *n *ŋ Ø/(ʔ) *f *s Ø/*h *w *r *r
Tahitian p t ʔ m n ʔ Ø f/h h Ø v r r
As this table shows, the PPN glottal plosive was retained in Rapa Nui but lost in PCE
(though it is sporadically retained in some words in CE languages, see Wilson
2012:335). This means that Rapa Nui is the only EP language where it was preserved.
The phonemic status of the glottal is discussed in more detail in 2.2.4 below.
PEP *f and *s became h in all environments in Rapa Nui. In fact, *f merged with *s in
all EP languages, either in some or in all environments.32 One change which occurs in
all CE languages but not in Rapa Nui, is *faf- > *vah-: PPN/PEP *fafa “mouth” >
Rapa Nui haha, PCE *vafa; PNP/PEP *fafie “firewood” > Rapa Nui hahie, PCE *vafie
(→ 1.2.2 pt. 13).
PPN *h is lost in most languages. In some NP languages (including some EP
languages), PPN *h is reflected as s or h in a few words (Marck 2000; Rutter 2001
argues that some of these actually reflect PPN *s rather than *h). In Rapa Nui, it is
reflected as a glottal plosive in a few words (→ 2.5.2 sub 4, cf. Davletshin 2015).
2.2.2. Vowels
The vowel inventory of Rapa Nui is as follows:
31
PPN *s was still present in PEP and PCE, but Penrhyn is the only EP language to retain it; in all
others, *s became h, as in Rapa Nui.
32
In Hawaiian and Rapa Nui, *f > h in all environments; in Mangarevan, Rapan and Rarotongan,
*f > ꞌ in all environments; in Tahitian and Maori, *f > h medially and before round vowels,
though not without exceptions (see Harlow 1998).
Table 3: Vowel inventory
front central unrounded back

unrounded rounded
short long short long short long
high i iː u uː
mid e eː o oː
low a aː
In this grammar, vowel length is represented by a macron over the vowel, in

accordance with standard Rapa Nui orthography.
The vowel system was inherited without change from PPN. All vowels are contrastive
in word-initial, -medial and -final position. Below are minimal sets of two or more
contrastive short vowels.
a e i o u
a “towards” e “IPFV” i “at” o “POSS”
haka “CAUS” heka “soft” hika “make fire by huka “stubborn”
friction”
hono “patch” honu “turtle”
hara “sin” hare “house” ha-hari “to comb” haro “to pull” haru “to grab”
heruri “distressed” heruru “noise”
hoꞌe “one” hoꞌi “in fact” hoꞌo “buy/sell”
karaŋa “shouting” kareŋa “property” karoŋa “eyelids”
hahaꞌu “to tie” hahuꞌu “fish sp.”
māhina “moon” māhuna “pimple”
Vowel length is contrastive. Some examples of monosyllabic minimal pairs:

ki /ki/ “to” kī /kiː/ “to say”
ka /ka/ “IMP” kā /kaː/ “to kindle”
ꞌo /ʔo/ “lest” ꞌō /ʔoː/ “really”
ꞌi /ʔi/ “at” ꞌī /ʔiː/ “full”
Notice that in all these pairs the short-vowel word is a prenuclear particle, while the
long-vowel word is a lexical word or postnuclear particle. As a result, the two words
will never occur in an identical context.
For bisyllabic words, most minimal pairs concern final vowels; in these cases, the
length distinction also implies a difference in stress (→ 2.4.1): haꞌi /ˈhaɁi/ “to
embrace” versus haꞌī /haˈɁiː/ “to wrap up”. Other examples include:
mata /ˈmata/ “eye” matā /maˈtaː/ “obsidian”
pua /ˈpua/ “flower” puā /puˈaː/ “to touch”
ruru /ˈruru/ “bundle” rurū /ruˈruː/ “to tremble”
huhu /ˈhuhu/ “to strip” huhū /huˈhuː/ “to move, sway in the wind”
There are a few pairs of words which only differ in vowel length in the
antepenultimate (hence unstressed) syllable; these words are distinguished by vowel
length only.
momore /moˈmore/ “harvest”
- mōmore /moːˈmore/ “cut”
-
rurū /ruˈruː/ “tremble” rūrū /ruːˈruː/ “to shake something”

-
vavā /vaˈvaː/ “to resonate”

- vāvā /vaːˈvaː/ “to insult”
-
(redup. of vā) (< Tah. vāvā)
2.2.3. Phoneme frequencies

In the text corpus, totalling over 1.6 million segments, the token frequency of each
segment is as follows:33
Table 4: phoneme frequencies
consonants vowels
h 6.0% a 17.9%
k 5.6% ā 2.1%
m 3.5% e 11.3%
n 3.2% ē 0.5%
ŋ 1.6% i 9.4%
p 2.0% ī 0.5%
r 5.7% o 8.2%
t 8.2% ō 1.0%
v 1.0% u 5.6%
ꞌ 6.2% ū 0.5%
56.9% of all segments are vowels (52.3% short, 4.6% long), 43.1% are consonants.
The most common phonemes, in descending order of frequency, are a e i t o ꞌ h. If
corresponding short and long vowels are considered as instances of the same vowel
(i.e. figures for a and ā are added up), the order is a e i o t ꞌ u h. The least common
phonemes, in ascending order of frequency, are ū ē ī ō v ŋ.
33
Counts are based on written data, so elision (e.g. of the glottal plosive) is not taken into
account. The corpus also contains 10,600 non-Rapa Nui characters, such as s and l (both around
2000x), which occur in borrowings and proper names. These do not affect the overall
percentages.
Alternatively, phoneme frequencies could be based on a list of lexemes. However, as the PLRN
lexical database collates data from all lexical sources, contains a relatively high proportion of
words occurring in one or two older sources (especially Roussel 1908) which were never part of
the language.
2.2.4. The glottal plosive

As indicated above, Rapa Nui is the only Eastern Polynesian language which preserved
the PPN glottal plosive. The glottal was lost various times in the history of Polynesian;
apart from Rapa Nui, it was preserved only in Tongan, Rennell-Bellona, East-Uvean
and East-Futunan. Within Eastern Polynesian, the presence of the PPN glottal is one of
the features distinguishing Rapa Nui from the Central-Eastern languages.
The glottal plosive was not recorded in early lexical sources: neither in word lists by
Philippi (1873), Geiseler (1883), Thomson (1889), Cooke (1899), nor in the lexica by
Roussel (1908, 1917), Churchill (1912) and Martínez (1913). Métraux, who stayed on
the island in 1934–1935, explicitly mentions that “so far as I can trust my ear there is
no trace of the glottal stop on Easter Island” (1971:32).
Englert (1978:16), who lived on the island from 1935 until 1968, did notice the
significance of the glottal plosive: he lists minimal pairs, where the presence or
absence of the “hiato” changes the meaning of the word. All of the glottals he noticed
occur word-medially between non-identical vowels (e.g. vaꞌe “foot” versus vae
“choose”).
The first linguist to fully recognise the glottal plosive as a phoneme in Rapa Nui was
Ward (1961; 1964). Ward compared occurrences of the glottal plosive with cognates in
other Polynesian languages that retain the PPN glottal, and concluded that the glottal
in Rapa Nui corresponds to the original PPN glottal (apart from Tahitian borrowings,
see below). An example is Rapa Nui hōꞌou “new”; Tongan, East-Futunan, East-Uvean
foꞌou, Rennell hoꞌou, but Hawaiian and Tahitian hou. Around the same time, Bergmann
(1963:4) included the glottal in his phoneme inventory of Rapa Nui, though he
suggested that it has disappeared in the modern language.
The adoption of the glottal as a full-fledged consonant phoneme was confirmed in later
phonological analyses: Blixen (1972), Salas (1973), R. & N. Weber (1982) and Guerra
Eisman et al (1993).34 Despite Métraux’ and Bergman’s assertions to the contrary, in
current Rapa Nui the glottal stop is consistently present. Only a minority of speakers
(especially those for whom Rapa Nui is not their first language) tend to elide it
frequently.
While most instance of the glottal plosive in Rapa Nui correspond to the PPN glottal, a
second source for the glottal plosive is Tahitian. Rapa Nui borrowed extensively from
Tahitian (→ 1.4.1); this includes words containing glottals, like hoꞌo “buy/sell”, ꞌaꞌamu
“story”, ꞌānoꞌi “to mix” and haꞌari “coconut”. The fact that the glottal was already part
of the phoneme system doubtlessly facilitated the adoption of these words without
elision of the glottal (→ 2.5.3.2).
34
According to Marck (2000:24, 69), the Rapa Nui glottal was lost in the environment a__a;
however, this is based partly on sources with defective orthography, such as Fuentes (1960) (e.g.
RN *haaki “to inform” < PNP *faꞌaki; the actual Rapa Nui form is hāꞌaki), partly on Tahitian
loans (RN tane “male” < Tahitian tāne, cf. PNP *taꞌane). See also Davletshin (2015).
2.2.5. The glottal plosive in particles

As shown in 2.2.1 above, the glottal plosive is contrastive both word-initially and after
vowels. Now all examples given there concern full words (→ 3.1), i.e. content words;
full words in natural speech are usually preceded by a particle, e.g. an aspectual or a
determiner. They hardly ever occur at the start of a prosodic phrase.
Words which do occur at the start of prosodic phrases are prenuclear particles, such as
aspect markers and prepositions. In the standard Rapa Nui orthography, some of these
are written with a glottal: ꞌe “and”, ꞌa “of”; others do not have a glottal: e “AG; IPFV”, o
“of”.
The question is, whether there is a real phonetic distinction between the presence and
the absence of a glottal in these particles. To answer this question, I analysed the
pronunciation of eight particles – four with orthographic glottal, four without – in an
oral text corpus, spoken by a number of speakers of different genders and age groups.35
For each occurrence, I determined:
— whether or not the particle is pronounced with a glottal;
— whether or not the particle occurs at the start of a prosodic phrase, indicated by a
pause or an intonational break.
This yields the following statistics:
Table 5: Pronunciation of glottals in particles

a e “AG; i o
“toward” IPFV” “at” “of” total
with [ʔ]: phrase-initial 43 189 138 70 440 30.1%
33.0%
non-initial 3 21 5 13 42 2.9%
without [ʔ]: phrase-initial 1 17 15 0 33 2.3%
67.0%
non-initial 245 188 321 191 945 64.7%
ꞌa ꞌe ꞌi ꞌo “bec-
“of” “and” “at” ause of” total
with [ʔ]: phrase-initial 4 153 133 25 315 75.0%
81.2%
non-initial 3 7 13 3 26 6.2%
without [ʔ]: phrase-initial 0 3 1 0 4 1.0%
18.8%
non-initial 21 1 50 3 75 17.9%
This table shows that particles written with a glottal are indeed overwhelmingly
pronounced with a glottal (81.2%), while particles written without glottal are
predominantly pronounced without glottal (67.0%). However, this effect is largely due
to the distribution of these particles. At the start of a prosodic phrase, most Rapa Nui
35
The corpus consists of Bible passages used for the dubbing of a Biblical movie. These texts
were rehearsed recitation, partly read from paper, which may favour a pronunciation in line with
the orthography; however, the passages were practiced until pronounced smoothly and naturally,
which should have mitigated the “orthography effect”.
speakers almost automatically pronounce initial vowels with a sharp onset, i.e. a non-
phonemic glottal plosive. As the table shows, phrase-initial particles are
overwhelmingly pronounced with a glottal: 440+315 against 33+4 without glottal,
i.e. 755 out of 792 (95.3%). On the other hand, non-phrase-initial particles tend to be
pronounced without a glottal: 945+75 against 42+26 with glottal, i.e. 1020 out of
1088 (93.8%). The fact that this strongly correlates with the presence or absence of the
written glottal, is because certain particles happen to occur much more frequently after
boundaries than others. For example, the conjunction ꞌe “and” is almost always
preceded by a pause, while the proper article a is very often preceded by a preposition,
hence non-initial. In other words, the glottal is not phonemic in these particles; it just
tends to be pronounced phrase-initially and omitted otherwise.
The following example illustrates this. The first line represents the orthography, the
second line is a broad phonetic transcription. | indicates a prosodic phrase break,
_ represents a vowel onset without glottal.
(1) Te nuꞌu e rerehu rō - ꞌi te riꞌariꞌa. ꞌI rā hora he takeꞌa
-
[ te nuʔu | ʔe rerehu roː _i te riʔariʔa | ʔi raː hora he takea

ART people IPFV faint EMPH at ART afraid at DIS time NTR see
i te Poki o te Taŋata ka topa mai ꞌi ruŋa i te raŋi
_i te poki _o te taŋata | ka topa mai | ʔi ruŋa _i te raŋi |
ACC ART child of ART man CNTG descend hither at above at ART heaven
ꞌi ruŋa i a ia te pūai ꞌe te ꞌanaꞌana o te ꞌAtua. -
ʔi ruŋa _i _a ia | te puːai ʔe te ʔanaʔana _o te ʔatua ]

at above at PROP 3SG ART power and ART glory of ART God
“The people will faint from fear. At that time they will see the Son of Man
descending in heaven, on him the power and glory of God.” (R630-13.010)
As this fragment shows, the preposition ꞌi “in” is pronounced with glottal after a pause
(3x), but without a glottal within a prosodic phrase (line 1). The conjunction ꞌe “and”
is pronounced with glottal after a pause (line 3), but so is the imperfective marker e
(line 1). The preposition i is never pronounced with glottal in this fragment, but then,
it does not occur phrase-initially. The same is true for the proper article a and the
possessive preposition o.
This example also shows that the orthography is accurate as far as glottals in content
words are concerned: glottals are usually pronounced where they are written, both
word-medially (nuꞌu, riꞌariꞌa) and word-initially (ꞌAtua). The same is true for longer
-
particles (which do not occur in this example), such as the postverbal markers ꞌā
“CONT” and ꞌai “SUBS”; these are consistently pronounced with glottal.
We may conclude that the glottal is not contrastive in prenuclear particles. The glottal
is a phonetic reality only to the extent that particles occur post-pausally.36 This does
36
Cf. Clark (1976:20ff): particles fail to follow the normal correspondences, which “is probably a
result of their typically phrase-initial position”. He points out that there is a universal tendency
to insert a glottal after a pause, so “glottal stop in such position is of dubious value”. He gives
(continued on next page...)
not mean that the use of the glottal symbol in these particles is without justification: it
helps the reader to distinguish possessive ꞌa from the proper article a, and the
conjunction ꞌe from the many particles e. Yet one should keep in mind that the
distinction is in a sense superficial. This is especially important in the case of the
prepositions ꞌi and i, which are etymologically a single preposition (→ 4.7.2).
2.3. Phonotactics
2.3.1. Syllable structure

The syllable structure of Rapa Nui is (C)V(ː). The syllable contains a single short or
long vowel, optionally preceded by one consonant. A syllable cannot contain two or
more vowels. This means that all sequences of non-identical vowels are disyllabic,
even those often analysed as diphthongs in other Polynesian languages: words like kai
“to eat” and mau “really” do not contain a diphthong, but two syllables.
In older descriptions of Rapa Nui, such as Englert (1978), Fuentes (1960) and Salas
(1973), certain VV sequences are analysed as diphthongs; for example, Englert
(1978:16) mentions ai, au and oi.37 This is understandable, as phonetically it is often
impossible to distinguish two separate syllable nuclei in sequences like ai and au. Even
so, there are several reasons to consider all VV sequences as disyllabic.38
— Reduplication data. If kai “to eat” would constitute a single syllable, it would be
impossible to produce the reduplication kakai “to eat (Pl)” (→ 2.6.1.1). In prosodic
-
terms: if kai is a single syllable, the reduplication base ka- does not constitute a
prosodic unit; rather, it consists of an onset and a partial nucleus. On the other hand, if
kai is disyllabic, kakai can be analysed as copying (the segmental content of) the first
-
syllable of the root.

— Stress patterns. As discussed in 2.4.1 below, when the final syllable of a word is
short, the penultimate syllable is stressed. This happens regardless the occurrence of
consecutive vowels: even when the antepenultimate + penultimate vowel would be
likely candidates for diphthongisation, the penultimate vowel receives stress.39 Some
examples:
several examples of initial particles which have an initial glottal stop in Tongan (a language
which has preserved the PPN glottal), no glottal stop in Rennell (idem), but a glottal stop in
Tahitian (which does not retain the PPN glottal).
For this reason, it is difficult to reconstruct the protoform of phrase-initial particles; there is some
discussion whether the PPN possessive markers were a or ꞌa, and o or ꞌo (see Fischer 2000b,
Lichtenberk 2002, Wilson 1982, Lynch 1997).
37
In other Polynesian languages the diphthong inventory may be different. For example, in
Tahitian, all VV sequences in which the first vowel is more open, are considered diphthongs
(Acad.tah. 1986:5). The same is true in Maori (Harlow 2007a:69).
38
The first three of these are also mentioned by R. & N. Weber (1982).
39
In this area, the difference with Tahitian is especially obvious. While cognates of the first four
items occur in Tahitian as well (rāua and maika are shared cognates, māuiui and haraoa were
-

rāua /raːˈua/ “3PL”

maika /maˈika/ “banana”
māuiui
- /ˌmaːuiˈui/ “sick”
haraoa /ˌharaˈoa/ “bread”
i a ia /ˌiaˈia/ “3SG.ACC”
If, for example, ai in maika would be a diphthong, it would be impossible for i to
receive stress; rather, the stress pattern would be [ˈmaika].
— If some VV sequences are considered as bisyllabic, for reasons of symmetry it is
satisfactory to treat all such sequences in the same way.40
— Finally, metrical constraints on word structure suggest that VV sequences are
bisyllabic, unlike long vowels. This is discussed in the next section.
2.3.2. Word structure

The phonological structure of words in Rapa Nui can be described using concepts from
metrical theory (Kager 1995, Hayes 1995). Words and phrases are organised in
metrical units; in ascending order: morae (µ), syllables (σ), feet (F) and prosodic
words. The following constraints apply:
1. Short vowels form a monomoraic (light) syllable; long vowels form a
bimoraic (heavy) syllable.
2. Onset consonants are non-moraic, i.e. the presence or absence of a
consonant does not affect the weight of the syllable.41
3. All morae are parsed into trochaic feet (i.e. a strong mora followed by a
weak mora).
4. A foot cannot span a syllable boundary.42
5. All non-initial feet are bimoraic. Only the initial foot of the word can be
degenerate, i.e. monomoraic.43
These constraint are inviolable and apply to all words, including reduplications,
compounds and borrowings. This means that all words in the language conform to a
borrowed from Tahitian), the pronunciation in Tahitian is markedly different because of

diphthongisation and stress shift: [ˈraːᵘa ˈmaⁱɁa ˈmaːᵘiᵘi faˈraːᵒa].
40
Van den Berg (1989:24) makes the same observation for Muna. Similarly, Rehg (2007:127)
points out that the wide range of diphthongs in Hawaiian (as opposed to e.g. English) suggests
that they are VV sequences rather than occupying a single V slot (though in his analysis, they are
not bisyllabic).
41
Coda consonants, which occur in some borrowings, are non-moraic as well. Coda consonants
can occur in any non-final syllable, including the penultimate: torompo “spinning top”, aserka
“chard”, ramienta “tool”. If these consonants were moraic, the penultimate syllable would be
heavy, while the final syllable is light. They would thus violate the *...HL constraint formulated
below.
42
This condition was formulated as a universal constraint by Hayes (1995:50).
43
An alternative would be to state that the initial mora can be left unparsed. However, the fact
that initial syllables sometimes receive secondary stress, suggests that they are in fact parsed into
a degenerate foot. Cf. Kager’s (1995:370) principle of exhaustivity, which requires all syllables of
a word to be parsed.
single rule: a heavy syllable is never followed by an odd number of morae.44 In other
words, when heavy syllables are followed by light syllables, the latter always occur in
pairs; patterns such as the following do not occur:
*HL *LHLH *HLLL *HLLLH
The following table lists all occurring word patterns. Certain patterns are common,
while others are rare of nonexistent. Foot boundaries are indicated by dots. Column 2
gives the number of morae, column 3 lists the frequency of each pattern.45
Table 6: Metrical word structures
pattern µ count examples

L. 1 45 te “article”, i “PFV”, ki “to”
LL. 2 1237 ai “exist”, ꞌana “cave”, eꞌa “go out”, haha “mouth”, kope
“person”, nui “big”, paru “paint”, tau “pretty”
H. 2 87 ū “milk”, pō “night”, hū “burn, roar”, rō “EMPH”, hai “INST”
L.LL. 3 1010 ꞌaꞌamu “story”, makenu “move”, mauku “grass”, ho-hopu
“bathe (Pl)”; borrowings: kamita “shirt”, rivuho “drawing”
L. H . 3 54 kurī “cat”, maŋō “shark”, pahī “ship”, raꞌā “sun”; borrowings:
kampō “inland”, panā “empanada”
LL.LL. 4 1290 haŋupotu “youngest child”, huŋavai “parent-in-law”, manavai
“rock garden”, takaure “fly”, tea-tea “white”
LL. H . 4 70 hatatū “gizzard”, keretū “pumice”, raupā “leaf”; borrowings:
koropā “crowbar”, Kiritō “Christ”
H .LL. 4 453 ꞌāriŋa “face”, kūmara “sweet potato”, hī-hiŋa “to fall (Pl)”;
borrowings: hāmara “hammer”, kānato “basket”
H.H. 4 69 ꞌāpī “new”, kōpū “belly”, hāhā “to touch”; borrowings: kāpē
“coffee”, ꞌātā “until”
L.LL.LL. 5 101 hakanonoŋa “fishing zone”, oromatuꞌa “priest”, pipihoreko
“cairn, rock pile”; borrowings: ꞌetaretia “church”, sanaoria
“carrot”
L.LL. H . 5 10 pipirimā “Gemini”, mairepā “northwest wind”; borrowing:
ꞌepikipō “bishop”
L. H . H . 5 3 ꞌanīrā “later today”
LL.LL.LL. 6 35 ꞌaŋataiahi “yesterday”, paka-pakakina “to explode.RED”,
taureꞌa-reꞌa “young person”
LL.LL. H . 6 5 ꞌau-ꞌauē “to cry.RED”, maꞌuꞌaurī “prison”, kere-keretū “pumice”
LL. H .LL. 6 5 manupātia “wasp”, haꞌamāꞌore “shameless”
44
In other Polynesian languages a similar tendency operates, though usually in a weaker form.
For example, in Samoan, the penultimate vowel in trisyllabic words cannot be long (Hovdhaugen
1990:102).
45
Counts are based on the PLRN lexical database (→ 1.6.1). All words in the database are
included, including obsolete words (the length of which cannot be ascertained, though Englert’s
lexicon often records length accurately), as well as words which may never have been genuine
Rapa Nui words, but which occur in less reliable sources such as Roussel (1908). Homonyms are
counted separately.
pattern µ count examples

LL. H . H . 6 4 ꞌaŋarīnā/ꞌaŋanīrā “earlier today”
H .LL.LL. 6 130 hānautama “pregnant”, pōꞌauahi “hell”, vānaŋa-naŋa “to
talk.RED”, vāna-vanaŋa “to talk.RED”
H .LL. H . 6 1 tātaurō “cross”
H . H .LL. 6 16 ꞌāpārima “dance”, mātāmuꞌa “ancestors”, tōtōamo
“trumpetfish”; borrowings: ꞌōpītara “hospital”, pērīkura
“movie”
H.H.H. 6 12 pātōtō “to knock”, tōtōā “to hurt, harm”, hāꞌūꞌū “to help”46
L.LL. H .LL. 7 1 mata-matāika “hail”
LL. H .LL.LL. 8 1 haꞌamāuru-uru “to thank”
H .LL. H .LL. 8 1 tōuamāmari “yellow”
H . H . H .LL. 8 4 māmārūꞌau “grandmother”, mōrīꞌārahu “kerosene”
This table shows that words containing up to six morae are common. Longer words are
rare; in fact, all 7–8 mora words are either reduplications or compounds (e.g.
tōuamāmari < tōua “yolk” + māmari “egg”).
Below are examples of the metrical structure of hānautama “pregnant”, keretū “pumice”
and mauku “grass”. (Feet are indicated by round brackets; the strong mora within the
foot is marked as x, the weak mora as a dot.)
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
| \ | | | | | | | \ | | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| / | | | | | | | / | | |
ha na u ta ma ke re tu ma u ku
feet: (x .) (x .) (x .) (x .) (x .) (x) (x .)
The absence of certain structures follows straightforwardly from these constraints. For
example, the Tahitian word tāne “man, male” was borrowed into Rapa Nui, but with
shortening of the first vowel: tane. The form *tāne (with the non-attested pattern *HL)
would involve either a degenerate foot at the end of the word (violating constraint 4),
a foot spanning a syllable boundary (violating constraint 3), or an unparsed syllable
(violating constraint 2). These alternatives are illustrated below.47
46
Most of these have identical final and penultimate syllables, but for none of them there is clear
evidence that they are reduplications.
47
Finney (1999:171) notes that in most Polynesian languages, words can end in V1V1CV. In that
case, speakers “tend to treat the antepenult and the penult as a foot, a single long syllable, even
though that violates the normal [process of right-to-left foot formation]”. We may conclude that
Rapa Nui differs from other Polynesian languages in that the constraints on foot formation
impose absolute constraints on word formation.
*σ σ *σ σ *σ σ
| \ | | \ | | \ |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| / | | / | | / |
ta ne ta ne ta ne
feet: (x .) (x) (x) (x .) (x .)
We may conclude that the prosodic shape of words is determined by a set of non-
violable metrical constraints. Once these constraints are established, a number of other
issues can be addressed:
— Minimal words
Content words minimally consist of one bimoraic foot: pō “night”, kai “to eat”, hare
“house”, oho “to go”. Postnuclear particles are minimally bimoraic as well (in fact,
most of these are bimoraic): nō “just”, era “distal”, mai “hither”. The same is true for
particles occurring in isolation, such as ꞌina “NEG” and ꞌī “IMM”. Only prenuclear
particles may be monomoraic: te “ART”, e “IPFV”, ki “to”.
— Vowel sequences
In the previous section, several reasons were mentioned to analyse sequences of two
non-identical vowels as disyllabic sequences rather than diphthongs. The conditions on
metrical structure provide another argument for a disyllabic analysis. As pointed out
above, (C)Vː(C)V words such as *tāne do not occur in Rapa Nui, a fact which can be
explained by metrical constraints ruling out *HL patterns. On the other hand however,
(C)V1V2(C)V words are common: mauku “grass”, hauꞌa “smell”, maika “banana”, koia
“with”, paihi “torn”, taote “doctor”, et cetera. Now if au, ai, oi and ao would be
monosyllabic (i.e. diphthongs), these words would have an HL pattern, and it would be
unclear why these words are possible while tāne is not. On the other hand, if these
sequences are disyllabic, these words have a LLL pattern just like makenu “to move”
and poreko “to be born”, a pattern which is metrically well-formed and which is in fact
very common.48
— Common and uncommon patterns

For words consisting of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6 morae, all possible patterns are attested. (Longer
words are very rare overall.) Even so, some patterns are more common than others.
In general, light syllables are more common than heavy syllables. Patterns with an LL
foot in a given position in the word are much more common than patterns with a H
foot in the same position, e.g. L.LL (1010) versus L.H (54); LL.LL (1290) versus LL.H
(70) or H.LL (453). The only exception is H.LL.LL (130), which is more common than
LL.LL.LL (35).
48
Following a similar reasoning, Anderson & Otsuka (2006) conclude that long vowels in Tongan
must be disyllabic, as they may span a foot boundary.
H syllables are more common word-initially than word-finally. Not counting

monosyllabic H words, there are 686 words with initial H, against 228 words with
final H. Medial H is also relatively uncommon; it mainly occurs when the preceding or
following syllable is also H. Of all 329 three- and four-foot words (the only ones in
which medial H is possible), 164 have initial H, 47 have one or two medial H, while
35 have final H.
The patterns listed above, as well as etymological data, suggest that there is a tendency
to avoid degenerate feet.49 Lengthening an initial vowel turns a degenerate foot into a
complete bimoraic one. If the reconstructed forms in Pollex are correct, the initial
syllable was lengthened in words such as hōꞌou “new” (PPN *foꞌou), ꞌūnahi “fish scale”
(PPN *ꞌunafi), hōhonu “deep” (PEP *fofonu) and pūꞌoko “head” (by metathesis from PEP
*upoko). In longer words this tendency is even stronger: there are more H.LL.LL words
in the lexicon (130) than L.LL.LL (101).50 Certain reduplication patterns show a
tendency to lengthen L.LL.LL to H.LL.LL (→ 2.6.1.2). On the other hand, the pressure
toward whole feet is not sufficiently strong to prevent the occurrence of many
hundreds of LLL words; in fact, this is the third most common pattern overall.
Another issue related to metrical structure is stress assignment. This will be discussed
in 2.4.1.
2.3.3. Cooccurrence restrictions

1. Between vowels
As discussed above, all sequences of non-identical vowels are possible. This is
illustrated in the following table:
Table 7: Examples of VV sequences

V1: V2: a e i o u
a (hā “breathe”) hae “savage” hai “INST” hao “to plant” hau “more”
e mea “gill” (hē “CQ”) hei “headdress” heo “collarbone” heu “half-breed”
i hia “how many” hiero “radiance” (hī “to fish”) hio “strong” hiu “moth larva”
o hoa “friend” hoe “paddle” hoi “horse” (hō “DUB”) hou “to drill”
u hua “bear fruit” hue “vine” huī “lineage” uo “type of tattoo” (hū “to burn”)
Not all VV sequences are equally common, however. The text corpus contains 90,700
disyllabic VV sequences; their relative frequencies are as follows:
49
Englert (1978:17) already notices the tendency to lengthen antepenultimate vowels. Cf. Kager
(1995:399): languages employ various strategies to avoid degenerate feet, such as lengthening
and reparsing.
50
In actual language use the difference is even more marked: many of the L.LL.LL words in the
lexicon are borrowings, some of which only occur in older sources such as Roussel (1908) and
which are no longer (or never were) in use.
Table 8: Frequencies of VV sequences

V1: V2: a e i o u
a 1.1% 31.2% 1.8% 12.0%
e 1.8% 6.8% 0.5% 0.4%
i 6.4% 0.8% 2.2% 0.7%
o 4.8% 4.4% 1.7% 6.0%
u 12.5% 0.9% 4.0% 0.04%
As this figure shows, sequences of a high and a low vowel in either order (ai, au, ia,
ua) are much more common than those containing a mid vowel or consisting of two
high vowels. The former four sequences together account for 62.1% of the total, while
the other fourteen sequences account for 37.9%. uo hardly occurs at all. eo and eu are
rare, as well as iu, ie51 and ue.
VVV sequences are common as well: māua “we (dual excl.)”, pūai “strong”, tāea “to
throw a lasso”, tōua “egg yolk”, tūai “ancient”.
2. Between vowels and consonants

Any consonant can be followed by any vowel, with one exception: the syllable vu is
extremely rare. Apart from the loanword vuto “sweet” (< Sp. dulce), it only occurs in
vuhi (and its reduplication vuhivuhi) “to whistle”, a word not occurring in the text
-
corpus.52
vo is not very common either; it occurs in eight lexical entries, such as vovo “dear girl”
and voꞌu “to shout”.
3. Between consonants
As discussed in 2.3.1 above, consonants are always separated by a vowel; contiguous
consonants do not occur. (The only exceptions occur in loanwords, see 2.5.3.1 below.)
Even so, there are a few co-occurrence restrictions between consonants in adjacent
syllables.
— The co-occurrence of a homorganic nasal + stop (in that order) within a root is
very rare, though not completely excluded. The co-occurrence of homorganic stop +
nasal is somewhat less rare, though by no means common. The data are as follows:
mVp- The only example is māpē “kidney”.
pVm- Only in borrowings such as pamu “pump; to fumigate” and in a few
rare words such as pōmiti “thunderstruck”.
51
Most of the occurrences of ie are due to Spanish influence. While ie is quite rare in Rapa Nui
words (apart from some proper names), it is very common in Spanish and often occurs in
loanwords: fiesta, noviembre, tiene...
52
De Lacy (1997) reports similar restrictions in Maori, where *wu, *wo, *whu and *who do not
occur.
nVt- Does not occur word-initially. Non-initially, the only example is

ꞌonotau “epoch”, as well as borrowings such as kānato “basket” (<
Sp. canasto)
tVn- Is common: tano “correct”, tono “push”, tunu “cook” etc.
ŋVk- Does not occur.
kVŋ- Word-initially, the only examples are koŋokoŋo “to grunt” and
-
kuŋukuŋu “hoarse”, both of which occur in one lexigraphical source

-
only. Non-initially, the only example is kokoŋo “mucus”.53
— Davletshin (2015) mentions a constraint against the occurrence of glottal stops in

adjacent syllables of bimoraic words.54 This is confirmed by my data: both in the
lexicon and the text corpus there are no words of the shape ꞌVꞌV, with the exception of
ꞌeꞌe, the name of the glottal plosive.
2.4. Suprasegmentals
2.4.1. Stress
Metrical structure as described in 2.3.2 above allows a simple description of word
stress: the final foot of the word is prominent. This results in the following pattern:
• When the final syllable of the word is long, it is stressed. Being a heavy
syllable, it contains a whole foot.
• When the final syllable of the word is short, the penultimate syllable is
stressed. The penultimate and the final syllable constitute the final foot; as the
foot is trochaic (i.e. the first mora is strong), the penultimate receives stress.
The strong morae of the other feet receive secondary stress. This results in a rhythm of
alternating strong and weak morae. Some examples:
pō /ˈpoː/ “night”
noho /ˈnoho/ “to sit, stay”
maŋō /maˈŋoː/ “shark”
mauku /maˈuku/ “grass”
pāpaꞌi /ˌpaːˈpaʔi/ “to write”
haŋupotu /ˌhaŋuˈpotu/ “youngest child”
keretū /ˌkereˈtuː/ “pumice”
hānautama /ˌhaːˌnauˈtama/ “pregnant”
Not all non-final feet have the same level of stress. For example, when the initial foot
is degenerate, either the initial or the second syllable may be slightly more prominent:
53
Non-initial kVŋ- is not uncommon in forms containing the nominalizer –ŋa, such as pikoŋa
“hiding place”, but here the two consonants are separated by a morpheme break.
54
This constraint does not operate in words having more than two morae: glottals in adjacent
syllables occur in bisyllabic words with long vowels (ꞌīꞌī “slightly spoiled (food)”, ꞌuꞌū “to
- -
groan”), and in trisyllabic words (ꞌaꞌaru “to grab”, haꞌiꞌa “Malay apple”).
-
oromatuꞌa /ˌoromaˈtuʔa/ “priest”

vanavanaŋa
- /ˌvanavaˈnaŋa/ “to chat”
vanavanaŋa
- /vaˌnavaˈnaŋa/ “to chat”
More study is needed to determine which factors determine levels of lower-order

stress.
In connected speech, phrase stress is more conspicuous than word stress. Stress is
assigned at the level of the prosodic phrase, according to the same rule as word stress:
the final foot of the phrase is prominent. In other words, stress falls on the phrase-final
syllable if it is long, and on the penultimate syllable otherwise. Prosodic phrase breaks
usually coincide with breaks between syntactic constituents, but not all syntactic
phrases constitute a separate prosodic phrase.
In the examples below, prosodic phrase breaks are represented by |.
(2) E ˌai rō ˈꞌā |e ˌtahi ˌoromaˈtuꞌa | te ˌꞌīˌŋoa ko ˌTahaˈria.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM one priest ART name PROM Zechariah
[ʔeˌairoːˈʔaː ʔeˌtahiˌoromaˈtuʔa teˌʔiːˌŋoakoˌtahaˈria]
“There was a priest named Zechariah.” (R630-01.002)
(3) E ˌhaꞌaˌtura rō ˈꞌana | ki tāˌꞌana ˈroŋo | ˌꞌe ki tāˌꞌana ˌhaka ˌtere ˈiŋa.
IPFV respect EMPH CONT to POSS.3SG.A message and to POSS.3SG.A CAUS run NMLZ
[ʔeˌhaʔaˌturaroːˈʔana kitaːˌʔanaˈroŋo ˌʔekitaːˌʔanaˌhakaˌtereˈiŋa]
“They obeyed his word and his law.” (R630-01.002)
(4) ˈMatu | ki ˌoho tāˌtou ki Vēˈrene |
come_on HORT go 1PL.INC to Bethlehem
[ˈmatu kiˌohotaːˌtoukiveˈrene
ki ˌuꞌi i te ˌmeꞌe ˌhaka ˌꞌite mai ˈena.
to look acc art thing caus know hither med
kiˌuʔiteˌmeʔeˌhakaˌʔitemaiˈena]
“Come, let’s go to Bethlehem, to see the thing announced (to us).” (R630-
02.008)
(5) ˌKi a ˌkōˈrua, | ki te ˌnuꞌu ˌhakaˌroŋo ˈmai, | ˌꞌī a ˌau he ˌkī ˈatu...
to PROP 2PL to ART people listen hither IMM PROP 1SG NTR say away
[ˌkiaˌkoːˈrua kiteˌnuʔuˌhakaˌroŋoˈmai ˌʔiːaˌauheˌkiːˈatu]
“To you, to the people listening, I tell you...” (R630-04.063)
As these examples show, primary stress always falls on the final foot of the prosodic
phrase, whether this is a lexeme (oromatuꞌa in (2)), a continuous marker (ꞌā in (2)), a
nominaliser (iŋa in (3)), a postnuclear demonstrative (ena in (4)), or a directional (mai
in (5)). All other feet potentially receive secondary stress. However, secondary stress is
not always conspicuous, especially on or near long vowels, when two contiguous
syllables both contain a strong mora.
Not all secondary stresses are equally strong, though this has not been indicated in the
examples above. A more refined analysis is needed to determine how different levels of
non-primary stress are assigned. Two factors that seem to play a role are:
1. semantic or pragmatic prominence. The nucleus of the phrase (often the only
lexical word) tends to get relatively heavy secondary stress, especially the
syllable that would be stressed according to the word stress rules; e.g. in
haꞌatura in (3) and haka ꞌite in (4), the second foot receives more stress than
the first. The deictic particle ꞌī in (5) is relatively prominent as well.
2. linear distance. Feet immediately preceding the main phrase stress are not
heavily stressed. This means that the stressed syllable of content words may
not receive a high degree of stress if it is immediately followed by the phrase
stress: in hakaroŋo in (5), the initial syllable receives more stress than the
penultimate one, despite the word stress on the latter.
2.4.2. Intonation
This section describes a number of intonation patterns in declarative and interrogative
clauses. Examples are given from basic sentences, i.e. monoclausal sentences with
standard constituent order. A full treatment of intonation would require precise
acoustic analysis and is outside the scope of this grammar.55
Intonation in declarative clauses is characterised by a peak on the stressed syllable of
the predicate. Subsequently, the pitch may gradually drop:56
(6) He aŋi ꞌā tā-------ꞌau.

NTR certain CONT POSS.2SG.A
“You are right.” (R630-05.036)
55
Intonation in imperative clauses is not illustrated. Imperative clauses tend to show a high rise,
followed by a gradual decline. This means that the intonation pattern is superficially identical to
the intonation of declarative clauses. A more precise analysis could reveal subtle differences
between declarative and imperative intonation, e.g. in the shape or timing of the rise.
56
Intontation graphs were created using Speech Analyzer 3.1 (SIL International, 2012). In the
examples, syllables bearing phrase stress are underlined.
(7) He māere te nuꞌu ꞌi tū meꞌe era.

NTR surprised ART people at DEM thing DIS
“The people were amazed about that.” (R630-07.038)
The final constituent may show a second peak, as on poki era in the next example:
(8) He ora ia tū po----ki era.

NTR live then DEM child DIS
“Then the child was alive.” (R630-06.016)
Alternatively, the sentence may end in a high plateau. In the next example, there is a
high rise on the second (stressed) syllable of pāhono; the pitch remains on this level
throughout the final syllable.57
(9) Ko tano ꞌā taꞌa pā-----hono.

PRF correct CONT POSS.2SG.A answer
“Your answer is correct.” (R630-07.015)
57
The example is from a younger male speaker. Data from a range of speakers could show if this
is pattern is limited to certain age groups.
In polar questions (→ 10.3.1), there is usually a high rise on the stressed syllable of
the first constituent; after that the pitch is low or falling, but on or just before the final
stressed syllable the pitch quickly goes up. After a quick rise it tends to drop somewhat
in post-stress syllables, but not all the way back to the previous low level.
Below are two examples. In both cases there is a rise on the first constituent. The last
stressed syllable of the sentence also exhibits a sharp rise; in (10) this rise is higher
than the first one, while in (11) it is somewhat less high.
(10) ¿Ko koe mau ꞌā te meꞌe era mo tuꞌu mai?

PROM 2SG really IDENT thing DIS for arrive hither
ART
“Are you really the one who was to come?” (R630-05.019)
(11) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō kōrua meꞌe mo kai?

NEG really 2PL thingfor eat
“Don’t you have something to eat?” (R630-15.041)
Content questions (→ 10.3.2) are characterised by a high rise on the stressed syllable
of the question constituent, followed by a sharp drop. There may be a moderate rise on
the final stressed syllable, but the question may also end in a low pitch. Here are two
examples. Both exhibit a high rise on the stressed syllable of the interrogative
constituent; (12) has a falling pitch at the end of the question, while (13) has a rise to
mid-range pitch.
(12) ¿Ko ai mau te kope nei?

PROM who really ART person PROX
“Who is this person?” (R630-05.063)
(13) ¿He aha ia te meꞌe mo aŋa?

PRED what then ART thing for do
“What should (we) do then?” (R630-03.007)
2.5. Phonological processes
Rapa Nui is poor in morphology; as a consequence, morpho-phonological processes are

uncommon. The only exception is found in the area of reduplication (→ 2.6.1). This
section describes phonological processes which are not morphologically conditioned.
Section 2.5.1 discusses three regular phonological processes: word-final devoicing, pre-
stress lengthening and elision.
Other phonological processes are lexically determined and result in lexical items
having a different form than expected on the basis of cognates, or having two or more
alternate forms; these are discussed in 2.5.2. Finally, 2.5.3 deals with the (more or less
regular) phonological adaptation of borrowings.
2.5.1. Regular processes

This section discusses three regular phonological processes, i.e. processes which are
not limited to certain lexical items. All three are optional. Two processes, word-final
vowel devoicing and pre-stress lengthening, take place in certain well-defined
phonological contexts. For a third process, elision, no specific conditions can be
formulated without extensive further analysis.
2.5.1.1. Word-final vowel devoicing

Word-final short (hence unstressed) vowels are optionally devoiced after voiceless
consonants. This happens especially at the end of an utterance, or at least the end of a
prosodic phrase.58
In a stretch of careful speech by different speakers (about 7,400 words), I counted 80
instances of word-final devoicing. 75 of these occur at the end of a prosodic phrase, 72
of which occur at the end of an utterance. All vowels undergo the process: a (19x), e,
(15x), i (9x), o (12x) and u (25x). Devoicing occurs after all voiceless consonants: p
(2x), t (24x), k (17x), ꞌ (27x), f (1x, a foreign name), h (9x). It never occurs after voiced
consonants or in non-final syllables.
Some examples: tahataha [tahaˈtahḁ] “edge”; taŋata [taˈŋatḁ] “person”, viꞌe [ˈviɁe̥]
-
“woman”; ꞌariki [Ɂaˈɾiki ̥] “king”, mōꞌoku [moːˈɁoku]̥ “for me”, oho [ˈoho]̥ “go”.
2.5.1.2. Pre-stress lengthening

Occasionally, a short vowel immediately preceding the main phrase stress is
lengthened. I have noticed this phenomenon especially with the contiguity/imperative
marker ka: ka tanu [kaːˈtanu] “bury”; ka pure [kaːˈpure] “pray”, ka tuꞌu [kaːˈtuɁu]
“arrive”. The phenomenon occurs with other particles as well: the proper article a in
ki a ia [kiaːˈia] “to him”; the negator e ko in e ko pau [ekoːˈpau] “does not run out”, the
exhortative marker e in e ꞌite [eːˈɁite] “(you must) know”.
A possible explanation for this lengthening is the preference for whole feet; this
preference is noticeable on the word level (→ 2.3.2) and could be operative on the
phrase level as well. This would explain why (ka)F (pure)F – with a degenerate initial
foot – is lengthened to (ka:)F (pure)F. However, this does not explain the lengthening of
a in (ki a)F (ia)F and ko in (e ko)F (pau)F, which already have two complete feet.
2.5.1.3. Elision
It is not uncommon for phonemes or whole syllables to be elided. Guerra Eisman et al.
(1993:45–47) give examples of elision of almost all consonants and vowels in a spoken
speech corpus, such as o Rapa Nui [oˈrapaːi] “of Rapa Nui”; ꞌina e tahi [inaˈtai] “not
one”; meꞌe rivariva [meːriːˈriːa] “a good thing”. They do not indicate if any conditions
-
on elision can be formulated; answering this question would require careful analysis of
a corpus of spoken texts by different speakers, including different speech styles. Such
an analysis lies outside the scope of the present investigation.
58
Vowel devoicing occurs in other Polynesian languages as well: Maori (Harlow 2007a:76; Bauer
1993:556); Niuafoꞌou (Tsukamoto 1988:23-25; De Lacy 2001), Tongan (Feldman 1978:137). The
conditions under which devoicing occurs in these languages, are different from those in Rapa
Nui. In general, high vowels are affected more than low vowels.
2.5.2. Lexicalised sound changes

Even though there are regular sound correspondences between Rapa Nui and its
protolanguages (→ 2.2.1–2.2.2), there is a considerable number of words for which
Rapa Nui has an irregular reflex of the protoform, i.e. where sound changes have been
at work. This includes numerous lexical items for which Rapa Nui has two or more
alternate forms. These processes are productive: the same patterns can be observed in
recent borrowings. Davletshin (2015), who illustrates these processes in detail, points
out that they should be labeled “incomplete” rather than “sporadic” or “irregular”:
they are not completely unpredictable, but follow certain patterns.
Below is an overview of these sound changes. The etymology is given where known.
1. Metathesis is very common (cf. Du Feu & Fischer 1993:166), mostly between onset
consonants of adjacent syllables, occasionally between vowels of adjacent syllables,
and very occasionally between whole syllables. It is especially common between the
antepenultimate and penultimate syllable of trisyllabic words, but may occur in any
pair of adjacent syllables. The consonants affected are often similar, e.g. two plosives
(t/k), or two glottal consonants (ꞌ/h).
— Consonants:
haꞌi “to embrace” < PPN *ꞌafi “to hold or carry under the arm”
haꞌiꞌa “Malay apple” < Tah. ꞌahiꞌa
kōtini “sock, stocking” < Eng. “stocking”; Thomson recorded tokin in 1889
(1980:157)
ŋaroꞌa “perceive” < PPN *roŋo + -ꞌa
takoꞌa “also” < PPN *katoa
tikeꞌa “to see” < PPN *kite + -ꞌa.
Alternates within Rapa Nui:
ꞌarīnā / ꞌanīrā “later today”
ꞌavahata / ahavata / haꞌavata “box”
ꞌavai / vaꞌai “to give”
rava / vara “usually”
ravaꞌa / varaꞌa “to obtain” (< Tah. roaꞌa)
— Vowels:
hariu / harui “to turn”
nokinoki / nikoniko “to meander”
- -
— Whole syllables:
kia-kia “seagull sp.” < PPN *aki-aki
— Sometimes the pattern is more intricate:
taꞌoraha < PNP *tafolaꞌa shows metathesis between ꞌ and *f in non-adjacent
syllables
hōŋaꞌa “nest” < PPN *ofaŋa (Ø C1 C2 > C1 C2 ꞌ); cf. PCE *kōfaŋa
2. Vowel changes are common. Most of these occur either in Tahitian borrowings or as
variants alongside the original form. Most of these involve a single degree of height
(a/e, a/o, e/i, o/u), but other alternations occur as well.
— a/e:
hatuke / hetuke “sea-urchin” (< PEP *fatuke)
māria “calm (sea)” < PPN *mālie; Thomson recorded marie in 1889
(1980:155)
taupeꞌa “porch” < Tah. taupeꞌe
— a/o:
ꞌauhau / ꞌouhou “to pay” (< Tah. ꞌauhau)
koraꞌiti / koroꞌiti “slowly; softly”
ravaꞌa / rovaꞌa “to obtain” (< Tah. roaꞌa)
— e/i:
eŋo-eŋo / iŋo-iŋo “dirty”
pāꞌeŋa / pāꞌiŋa “side”
pēꞌiku / pīꞌiku “sugarcane fibers”
— o/u:
kāhui / kāhoi “bunch” (< PEP *kāfui)
ku / ko “PRF” (< PPN *kua)
tautoru “to help” < Tah. tauturu
— i/u:
miritoni / miritonu “seaweed sp.”
rīpoi / rīpou “well made”
pōꞌiri / pōꞌuri “to get dark” (see 4 below)
— a/i:
takeꞌa / tikeꞌa “to see” (< PPN *kite + -ꞌa)
3. The liquid r alternates with either a glottal or zero in a number of words.59

— glottal/r: especially in final syllables.
kioꞌe “rat” (< PNP *kiole)
tikeꞌa / tikera “to see” (< PPN *kite + -ꞌa)
ŋoriŋori / ŋoꞌiŋoꞌi “tiny”
- -
hatuꞌa / hatura “cinch, belt” (< PEP *fātuꞌa)

— Ø/r:
emu “to drown” < PPN *lemo
ꞌōhiohio / ꞌōhirohiro “whirlwind” (cf. PPN *siosio)
- - -
As these examples show, in those cases where the etymology is known, the r is usually
– but not always – secondary.
4. Glottals are sometimes added, occasionally deleted.

— Added glottals:
kaꞌikaꞌi “sharp” < PNP *kai60
-
ꞌohi “stem” < PPN *osi
59
In Marquesan, r > ꞌ is a regular – though not exceptionless – change (Clark 2000a).
60
This word does not have a glottal in other glottal-preserving languages. The same is true for
PPN *osi and *pao below.
paꞌo “to chop” < PPN *pao

haꞌataꞌahinu / haꞌatāhinu “to administer the last rites” (< Tah. faꞌatāhinu)
pōꞌiri “darkness” is probably a borrowing from Tah. pōiri, with an inserted
glottal by analogy of the synonym pōꞌuri (< PPN *pōꞌuli).
taꞌutini < Tah. tauatini, with glottal inserted possibly by analogy of taꞌu “year”
In some words, a glottal plosive reflects PPN *h:
maŋeo / maŋeꞌo “sour, bitter” < PPN *maŋeho61
ꞌīŋoa “name” < PPN *hiŋoa
ꞌai/ai “who” < PPN *hai (→ fn. 483 on p. 464)
ꞌaŋahuru “ten” < PPN *haŋafulu
— Deleted glottals:
benefactive prepositions mo (< PPN *moꞌo) and mā (< PPN *maꞌa); the
glottal was retained in the pronominal forms mōꞌoku, māꞌana etc (→ 4.2.3).
Glottal elision is especially common in borrowings from Tahitian:
pē “gone” < Tah. peꞌe
hāpī “to learn” < Tah. haꞌapiꞌi
haꞌamaitai “to bless” < Tah. haꞌamaitaꞌi
5. In a few cases, h alternates with glottal or zero:

aŋa “to make, do, work” < PPN *saŋa (the regular reflex would be *haŋa)
ꞌia / hia “yet”
6. Some words exhibit shifts between different nasal consonants, mostly between n
and ŋ:62
ꞌaŋa- “recent past” < PPN *ꞌana- (→ 3.6.4)
tiŋaꞌi “to kill” < PNP *tinaꞌi
tumu / tuŋu “cough” (< PEP *tuŋu)
norinori / ŋoriŋori “tiny”
- -
nako “fat, marrow” < PPN *ŋako

kona “place” < PPN *koŋa “fragment, part, place”63
In the last two examples, ŋ dissimilated to n in the vicinity of k.
7. A number of particles exhibit monophthongisation of a VV cluster, resulting in a

single short or long vowel:
ku “PRF” < PPN *kua
nō “just” < PPN *noa
61
PPN *h was lost in most languages. In the case of *maŋeho it was not preserved in any other EP
language, so the PEP form may have been *maŋeo. Interestingly, the Hawaiian reflex is maneꞌo,
with a glottal as in Rapa Nui.
62
Blixen (1972:10) notices a few cases of n > ŋ after i, though none of them are certain, e.g.
mahiŋo “people with common bond” ~ Tongan mahino “distinguished”.
63
Notice that kona, with n rather than ŋ, is also found in Mangarevan (“bed; dwelling”); cf. also
PNP *kona “nook, corner”.
rō “EMPH” < PPN *roa

hē “CQ” < PPN *hea (→ fn. 487 on p. 468)
tū “demonstrative” < older Rapa Nui tou < tau (→ 4.6.2.1)
ki “purpose marker” < PPN *kia (→ 11.5.3)
Another possible example is ꞌo “lest” <? PPN *ꞌaua “neg. imperative” (→ fn.
524 on p. 532).
The opposite process occurs in toa “sugarcane” < PPN *tō, and roe “ant” < PPN *rō
(though cf. Pa’umotu rōe).
8. Some words with identical vowels in the penultimate and final syllables have a
reduced variant in which the final consonant is elided:
kūmara / kūmā “sweet potato”
rovaꞌa / rovā “to obtain”
pūtītī / putī “blistered”
ꞌana / ꞌā “continuity marker”
2.5.3. The phonology of borrowings

As discussed in 1.4.1, Rapa Nui has incorporated numerous borrowings, especially
from Tahitian and Spanish. It is well known that borrowings are often adapted to the
phonological structure of the recipient language, both in phoneme inventory and in
phonotactics (Tent & Geraghty 2004; Matras & Sakel 2007). The degree of adaptation
may vary within a language,64 depending for example on:
• the speech style and situation (formal or informal, oral or written);
• the speaker (younger or older, more or less educated);
• the status of the borrowing (spontaneous versus codified/integrated
loanwords);
• language attitudes (purism).65
This also happens in Rapa Nui, as illustrated below. Borrowings from Spanish and from
Tahitian will be discussed separately. Rapa Nui has also incorporated some words from
other European languages (English, French); these follow the same general principles
as borrowings from Spanish.
64
See Sakel (2007:17); Mosel (2004) on Samoan; Fischer (2007) and Makihara (2001a) on Rapa
Nui.
65
Puristic attitudes are widespread in Polynesian languages, especially where languages are
perceived as endangered. This may lead to the rejection of borrowings (see Harlow 2004:154 on
Maori), or increased adaptation of borrowings to the recipient language phonology. In Tahitian,
there is a tendency to remove formerly accepted non-Tahitian consonants from European
borrowings; in Rapa, Tahitian borrowings are consciously adjusted to the Rapa phonological
system (Kieviet & Kieviet 2006; Walworth 2015a).
2.5.3.1. Borrowings from Spanish

This section deals with codified borrowings, loanwords which are commonly used and
have become part of the language. Codified borrowings should be distinguished from
spontaneous borrowings, such as the following:
(14) Cincuenta matahiti o te hāipoipo, paꞌi.
-
cincuenta year of ART marry in_fact

“The wedding was fifty years ago, in fact.” (R415.498)
Spontaneous borrowings are instances of code switching, even though they involve just
a single word (cf. Fischer 2007). They are inserted without phonological adjustments.
Codified borrowings, on the other hand, tend to be adapted to Rapa Nui phonology to
a greater or lesser degree. This adaptation does not follow hard and fast rules; the
same word may be adjusted in various degrees and various ways. For example,
“olvida” (“forgets”) may be pronounced as orvida, orvira, orovida or orovira (Makihara
2001a:195). This means that the adjustments described below may or may not apply in
individual cases, depending on the factors mentioned above.
1. On the phoneme level, no adjustments are needed in vowels quality, as both Rapa
Nui and Spanish have a five-vowel system.
In the area of consonants, on the other hand, the two languages are considerably
different. Many Spanish consonants do not occur in Rapa Nui; these tend to be
adjusted to Rapa Nui phonology.
a. Voiceless plosives and nasals do not need adjustment.
b. The treatment of voiced plosives can be explained from their pronunciation in
Chilean Spanish. Word-initially and after consonants, they are pronounced as plosives.
After vowels, they are pronounced as voiced fricatives, which tend to be very weak in
Chilean Spanish: they often become approximants or almost disappear. In connected
speech, word-initial voiced plosives after a vowel are pronounced as fricatives as well.
In Rapa Nui, Spanish g is consistently adjusted to k; d is usually either adjusted to r or
elided (the latter only after vowels); b is either adjusted to v (word-initially) or elided
(word-initially before u; after vowels).
g>k karapone “barn” < Sp. galpón; rēkaro “present, gift” < Sp. regalo
d>r rivuho “drawing” < Sp. dibujo; ꞌīrea “idea” < Sp. idea
d>Ø kā “each” < Sp. cada; revaura “yeast” < Sp. levadura; noverā “news”
< Sp. novedad
b>v vata “dress” < Sp. bata; veteraka “beetroot” < Sp. betarraga
b>Ø ueno “OK” < Sp. bueno; suerekao “sub-delegate” < Sp. subdelegado
c. The fricative s (also spelled c before i/e and z before a/o/u) is either maintained or
becomes t; j (= velar fricative [x]) becomes k or h. f is maintained or changed to p.
s>s resera “foolishness” < Sp. lesera; siera “sawfish” < Sp. sierra
s>t tapatia “sandal” < Sp. zapatilla; kamita “shirt” < Sp. camisa
j>h rivuho “drawing” < Sp. dibujo; hākima “muzzle” < Sp. jaquima
j>k Kāpone “Japan” < Sp. Japón; karo “jug” < Sp. jarro
f>f asufre “sulphur” < Sp. azufre
f>p kāpē “coffee” < Sp. café
d. The affricate ch ([tʃ]) becomes a plosive t or a fricative s:
ch > t tarakī “beef jerky” < Sp. charqui; Tire “Chile” < Sp. Chile
ch > s supeta “pacifier” < Sp. chupeta
e. Concerning liquids, Spanish rr (= trill [r]) and r (= flap [ɾ]) both become r, which
is a flap in Rapa Nui. l is likewise adjusted to r:
rr > r karetia “wheelbarrow” < Sp. carretilla; karo “jug” < Sp. jarro
l>r rēkaro “present, gift” < Sp. regalo; Tire “Chile” < Sp. Chile
f. Spanish ll, which is a voiced palatal approximant [j] or fricative [ʝ] in Chilean
Spanish, becomes i: kaio < callo “callus”, kameio < Sp. camello “camel”. After i it is
elided: tapatia < Sp. zapatilla “slipper”.
2. Borrowings are also adjusted to the phonotactics of Rapa Nui; this affects the
syllable structure and stress pattern.
a. Final consonants are not allowed. This is resolved by adding a final vowel, which is
either e or identical to the previous vowel: ꞌavione “airplane” < Sp. avión; kōrore
“colour” < Sp. color; tampuru “drum” < Sp. tambor. Alternatively, the final consonant
is elided; this happens especially with consonants such as d and s/z, which have a
weak pronunciation postvocalically in Chilean Spanish: noverā “news” < Sp. novedad;
kapatā “foreman” < Sp. capataz.
b. Consonant clusters are disfavoured. Word-initial consonant clusters are not allowed,
with the exception of pr-. Some clusters are allowed word-medially, especially
homorganic nasal + plosive: kampō “countryside” < Sp. campo; atrasao “delayed” <
Sp. atrasado; rentara “apron” < Sp. delantal.
Clusters can be resolved by vowel epenthesis: ꞌaramā “army” < Sp. armada; karesone
“underwear” < Sp. calzón; kurua “crane” < Sp. grúa, parata “silver” < Sp. plata.
Another strategy is consonant elision; this is especially common with nasals or
continuants preceding another consonant: ꞌātā “until” < Sp. hasta; rito “ready” < Sp.
listo; matakia “butter” < Sp. mantequilla; tēnero “calf” < Sp. ternero.
c. Long words are somewhat disfavoured; some words are shortened by elision of an
unstressed syllable: apenti “appendix” < Sp. apéndice; tafate “dish” < Sp. azafate;
rentara “apron” < Sp. delantal; pīnere “longline fishing” < Sp. espinel.
d. Sometimes, vowels are lengthened. This may serve to keep the stress in the same
position: kāˈpē (not *ˈkape) “coffee” < Sp. caˈfé; noveˈrā “news” < Sp. noveˈdad; pāˈrē
“wall” < Sp. paˈred. However, there are also cases where no adjustments are made to
prevent stress shift: pērīˈkura “movie” < Sp. peˈlícula.
In other cases, lengthening may serve to avoid degenerate feet, conforming the word to
a preferential metrical pattern (→ 2.3.2). For example, the antepenultimate vowel is
lengthened in mūseo “museum” < Sp. museo.
In yet other words, the reasons for lengthening are unclear. In four-syllable words,
there is a tendency to lengthen the first two vowels, creating a HHLL pattern: ꞌōpītara
“hospital” < Sp. hospital; ꞌāpōtoro “apostle” < Sp. apóstol. This happens even though
LLLL is a common pattern in the language (→ 2.3.2). Lengthening may even shift the
stress with respect to the Spanish original: karaˈpā “tent” < Sp. ˈcarpa; Kiriˈtō “Christ”
< Sp. ˈChristo.
2.5.3.2. Borrowings from Tahitian

Most borrowings from Tahitian do not need any phonological adjustment: all Tahitian
phonemes are also part of the Rapa Nui phoneme inventory, with the exception of f (→
2.2.1). In fact, borrowings from Tahitian are often not perceived as borrowings at all.
In some words, f is retained (fata “altar”< Tah. fata), but more commonly, it becomes
h: haraoa “bread” < Tah. faraoa; hauhaꞌa “value”< Tah. faufaꞌa.
Some long vowels are shortened: hohoꞌa < Tah. hōhoꞌa “image”. Shortening may serve
to avoid an illicit metrical pattern: tane < Tah. tāne “male” (→ 2.3.2).
Glottals are usually preserved, but in a number of words, they are elided: hāpī “to
learn” < Tah. haꞌapiꞌi; haꞌamaitai < Tah. haꞌamaitaꞌi “to bless”.
Occasionally, vowels are modified: haꞌamuri “to worship” < Tah. haꞌamori; manaꞌu “to
think” < Tah. manaꞌo; mareti “plate” < Tah. merēti (→ 2.5.2 sub 2).
Even when the phonemic content of Tahitian borrowings is exactly retained,

borrowing may involve phonotactic shifts, especially because Rapa Nui differs from
Tahitian in diphthongisation and stress placement (see fn. 39 on p. 36): māuiui -
[ˌmaːuiˈui] “sick” < Tah. māuiui [ˈmaːᵘiᵘi]; pāpaꞌi [ˌpaːˈpaɁi] “to write” < Tah. pāpaꞌi
[ˈpaːpɁaⁱ]; haraoa [ˌharaˈoa] “bread” < Tah. faraoa [faˈra(ː)ᵒa] (< Eng. “flour”).
2.6. Reduplication
Reduplication is a process whereby all or part of the root is copied and prefixed or
suffixed to the root. The copied part of the root is called the base; the copy is called
the reduplicant. In the following example, the root is placed between brackets; the
base is underlined, while the reduplicant is in bold:
taŋi > ta[taŋi]

taŋi “to cry” tataŋi “to cry (plural)”
-
In Rapa Nui orthography the reduplicant and the root are separated by a hyphen, a
practice not adopted in this grammar (→ 1.4.3).
Reduplication is very common in Rapa Nui, just as it is in Polynesian languages in

general. It occurs with many verbs (including adjectives) and is productive, to the
extent that it is even applied to borrowings.66 Nouns are generally not reduplicated,
though a nominal root may be reduplicated to form a denominal verb, while a few
verbal roots are reduplicated to form a deverbal noun (→ 2.6.2.2 below).
The patterns of reduplication will be discussed in 2.6.1, while 2.6.2 deals with the
functions of reduplication. 2.6.3 briefly discusses reduplications for which the base
form does not exist independently.
2.6.1. Patterns of reduplication

Although there is a wide variety of reduplication patterns, all of these can be reduced
to two types:
1. Monomoraic reduplication: the initial mora is prefixed to the root.
2. Bimoraic reduplication: the initial two morae are prefixed to the root, or the final
two morae are suffixed to the root. With bimoraic roots, this results in complete
reduplication; with longer roots, it results in partial reduplication.67
These two patterns will be referred to as type 1 and 2, respectively. They will be
discussed in turn in the following subsections. They are analysed using concepts from
prosodic morphology (McCarthy & Prince 1995, 1996; Inkelas & Zec 1995), which
allows segmental content and prosodic structure to be subject to distinct processes
and/or constraints. This allows reduplication to be described in terms of prosodic
structure (i.e. feet, syllables and morae), even though the segmental content affected
does not necessarily coincide with prosodic constituents, and may vary in size and
shape.
2.6.1.1. The morphology of type 1 reduplication

Type 1 reduplication occurs with a good number of bisyllabic verbs, as well as a few
trisyllabic verbs and – to my knowledge – one quadrusyllabic verb.68
The following table illustrates the different patterns in terms of light (L) and heavy (H)
syllables. Each pattern will be discussed below.
66
Bob Weber (p.c.) once heard someone commenting at the telephone exchange that the line was
engaged all the time: ko okuokupao ꞌā (< Sp. ocupado “occupied, engaged”). Makihara
-
(2001a:198) gives an example of kamikamiare (kamiare “to change” < Sp. “cambiar”).
-
67
This means that there is no principled distinction between full and partial reduplication; cf.
Blust (2001:39). (Davletshin 2015 does take a full/partial distinction as primary.)
68
Possibly type 1 reduplication also occurs with a few monosyllabic verbs: kīkī “to say
-
repeatedly” can be analysed as reduplication of the initial mora + secondary lengthening.

However, the function of this form (iterative, not plural) suggests that this is a case of type 2
reduplication. The same is true for other reduplicated monosyllabic roots.
Table 9: Patterns of type 1 reduplication

(a) LL >LLL ꞌara “to wake up” ꞌaꞌara “to wake up (plural)”
-
eke “to mount” eeke “to mount (plural)”69

-
haꞌi “to embrace” hahaꞌi “to embrace (plural)” -
rahi “much” rarahi “important” -
rehu “to forget” rerehu “to faint”-
turu “to go down” tuturu “to go down (plural)”

-
(b) LL >HLL mate “to die” māmate “to die (plural)” -
piko “to hide” pīpiko “to hide (plural)”

-
tere “to run” tētere “to run (plural)”

-
(c) LLL >HLL haꞌuru “to sleep” hāꞌuru “to sleep (plural)”
haꞌere “to walk” hāꞌere “to walk (plural)”
tahuti “to run” tāhuti “to run (plural)”
(d) LLLL >LLLLL paŋahaꞌa “heavy” papaŋahaꞌa “heavy (plural)” -
As these examples show, for most bisyllabic words the reduplicant is a short syllable,
i.e. it is an exact copy of the first syllable of the root.70 For some verbs, however, the
vowel of the reduplicant is lengthened. The choice between the two patterns is
lexically determined: there is no difference in function between both patterns, nor is
there a phonological motivation for the choice.
Both patterns can be accounted for by stating that type 1 reduplication adds one mora
to the root. This mora must be integrated to the prosodic structure, which means that
an additional foot is added to the word. This is illustrated in the following structure:71
F F F
| \ | | \
σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ
| | | | |
ra hi ra [ra hi]
The initial foot only has one mora, i.e. it is degenerate. Word-initial degenerate feet
are allowed in Rapa Nui, but there is pressure towards a pattern of whole feet (→
2.3.2). For some words, this leads to the addition of a second mora to the initial foot,
which is filled by spreading the first vowel:
69
When the root is vowel-initial, the reduplication contains a bisyllabic VV-sequence, which is
not merged to a single long vowel.
70
As discussed in sec. 2.3.2, the first syllable of bisyllabic words is always short.
71
For sake of conciseness, the PrWd level is not included in the structure trees in this section.
F F F
| \ | | \
σ σ σ σ σ
| | | \ | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ
| | | / | |
hi ŋa hi [hi ŋa]
For trisyllabic roots, a mora is added to the existing degenerate foot; no additional
foot is needed. Moreover, no segmental content needs to be added, as the additional
mora can be filled by spreading the initial vowel of the root:72
F F F F
| | \ | | \
σ σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | \ | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| | | | / | |
ha ꞌe re ha ꞌe re
The only example of a quadrusyllabic word shows the same mechanism at work: a
mora is added, resulting in an additional degenerate foot, which is filled with a copy of
the initial syllable of the root: paŋahaꞌa > papaŋahaꞌa.
-
We may conclude that, even though the surface result of reduplication is quite
different for trisyllabic roots than for bisyllabic roots, both can be analysed as
involving the same process: addition of a single mora to the root. Another indication
that both groups of words involve the same type of reduplication, is that in both cases
the most common function of reduplication is plurality: hāꞌere is the plural of haꞌere,
just like tuturu is the plural of turu. This will be discussed in more detail in 2.6.2.1
-
below.
2.6.1.2. The morphology of type 2 reduplication

Type 2 reduplication has the following features:
1. Two morae at the edge of the root are copied: either the initial two morae are
reduplicated as a prefix, or the final two morae are reduplicated as a suffix.
2. With trisyllabic LLL- and HLL-roots, suffixing is far more common; with
quadrusyllabic roots and trisyllabic LLH roots, only prefixing occurs.
3. If the first vowel of the root is short, it is lengthened when the reduplicant is
suffixed, as in (d) below.
72
With bisyllabic roots, spreading of the vowel (rahi > *rāhi) is not possible, as the resulting
long vowel would cross a foot boundary, creating an impossible prosodic pattern (→ 2.3.2).
4. If the first vowel of the root is long, it is shortened when the reduplicant is
prefixed, as in (e) below. In this case, the reduplication base consists of the
first two short syllables, rather than the initial long syllable.
The following patterns of type 2 reduplication are attested:
Table 10: Patterns of type 2 reduplication

(a) H>HH pā “to fold” pāpā “to fold repeatedly”
-
kī “to say” kīkī “to say repeatedly”

-
(b) LL>LLLL hoa “to throw” hoahoa “to throw various things”
-
riva “good” rivariva “good” -
(c) L L L, prefixing haꞌere “to walk” haꞌehaꞌere “to stroll”-
>LLLLL manaꞌu “think” manamanaꞌu “to think repeatedly” -
(d) L L L, suffixing haꞌere “to walk” hāꞌereꞌere “to stroll” -
>HLLLL tiŋaꞌi “to kill” tīŋaꞌiŋaꞌi “to kill several people” -
(e) H L L, prefixing māꞌea “stone” maꞌemaꞌea “stony, rocky” -
>LLLLL vānaŋa “to talk” vanavanaŋa “to converse, chat” -
(f) H L L, suffixing vānaŋa “to talk” vānaŋanaŋa “to converse, chat” -
>HLLLL pāhono “answer” pāhonohono “argumentative” -
(g) L L H, prefixing ꞌauē “to cry out” ꞌauꞌauē “to cry repeatedly”
-
>LLLLH
(h) L L L L, prefixing tokerau “wind” toketokerau “windy” -
>LLLLLL
These patterns are united by a single feature: the addition of a foot to the word, which
is filled in some way by copying two morae from the root. The different patterns are
discussed in turn below.
(a–b) For bimoraic words – whether mono- or bisyllabic –, prefixing and suffixing
yield the same result. In both cases the whole root is copied, resulting in a two-foot
word. Below are examples of reduplications of H and LL words (here prefixing is
assumed, cf. fn. 75 on p. 62):
F F F F
| | | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ σ
| \ | \ | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| / | / | / | /
pa [pa] ho a [ho a]
(c–f) For threesyllabic LLL and HLL words, the pattern is more intricate. The relevant
data are repeated here:73
Table 11: Type 2 reduplication of threesyllabic roots
root prefixing suffixing

LLL c. L L L L L d. H L L L L
haꞌere haꞌehaꞌere
- hāꞌereꞌere
-
HLL e. L L L L L f. H L L L L
vānaŋa vanavanaŋa - vānaŋanaŋa-
As this table shows, regardless the length of the root vowels, in prefixing forms all
vowels are short, while in suffixing forms the first vowel is long. These data can be
accounted for by the following constraints:
Non-violable:
1. The reduplicated word contains three feet, i.e. one foot more than the base.
2. The reduplicant consists of either the first two syllables of the root, which
are prefixed, or the final two syllables of the root, which are suffixed.
3. Only the first vowel of the root may be long, and only if it is word-initial.
Violable:
4. All feet are complete.
4 is a general soft constraint in Rapa Nui (→ 2.3.2) which can be fulfilled – if possible
– by vowel lengthening. But in type-two reduplications, the data show that the
possibilities of lengthening are limited (constraint 3): only the first vowel of the root
may be lengthened (hāꞌereꞌere), not the first vowel of the reduplicant (*hāꞌehaꞌere).
- -
Moreover, the first root vowel is lengthened only word-initially, not when it is
preceded by the reduplicant (*haꞌehāꞌere).74 When vowel lengthening is not possible,
-
73
The same patterns of lengthening and shortening also occur in Maori; Meyerhoff & Reynolds
(1996:148) give examples of patterns d–f.
74
An alternative option to account for haꞌehaꞌere would be, to assume that the boundary of the
-
root coincides with a foot boundary, so that the initial foot is complete, while the second foot is
degenerate:
(i) (haꞌe)F [ (ha)F (ꞌere)F ]
But this would mean assuming an otherwise unattested pattern containing a non-initial
degenerate foot. Moreover, it would raise the question why the root-initial vowel of vanavanaŋa
-
(based on the foot vānaŋa) is short, rather than long; one would expect:
(ii) *(vana)F [ (vā)F (naŋa)F ]
Another reason not to adopt this analysis, is that some speakers put secondary stress on the
second vowel: [haˌʔehaˈʔere]. This suggests a foot structure where the second syllable is
prominent, i.e. foot-initial:
(iii) (ha)F (ꞌe-ha)F (ꞌere)F.
Pattern (i) is proposed for derivations like haapai > hapahapai in Maori by Meyerhoff and
-
Reynolds (1996:161); in their analysis, *hapahaapai would violate a correspondence constraint

which requires that every element in the reduplicant has a correspondent in the base. Notice that
the initial foot is degenerate, in accordance with the following non-violable constraint
in the language (→ 2.3.2):
5. All non-initial feet are complete; the initial foot may be degenerate.
Though 3 may seem to be somewhat arbitrary, it corresponds to a general tendency in

Rapa Nui: the statistics in sec. 2.3.2 show that long vowels are much more common
word-initially than in other positions; moreover, they are very rare when surrounded
by short vowels. (*haꞌehāꞌere would correspond in prosodic structure to manupātia
-
“wasp”, one of the few LLHLL words.)75
The constraints under discussion result in the following structures for LLL words:
F F suffixing: F F F
| | \ | | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | \ | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| | / | / | | | |
ha ꞌe re [ha ꞌe re] ꞌe re
prefixing: F F F
| | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ
| | | | |
ha ꞌe [ha ꞌe re]
For HLL words the situation is identical, except that the root consists of two complete
feet. Interestingly, the length of the initial vowel is not carried over into the
reduplication. This is somewhat surprising, as in other cases long vowels remain long
under type 2 reduplication (see (a) above and (g) below).
Maori is metrically different from Rapa Nui: degenerate feet are disallowed, and main stress falls
on the leftmost foot.
75
These constraints may explain why suffixing is much more common with these words than
prefixing, even though in other cases where prefixing and suffixing can be distinguished (type 1
reduplication; type 2 for quadrumoraic words) only prefixing occurs: suffixing allows the initial
vowel to be lengthened (constraint 3), so the word consists of three whole feet (satisfying
constraint 4); on the other hand, prefixing results in a degenerate foot. In general, prefixing
reduplication is much more common in Polynesian, and in Austronesian in general (Finney
1999).
F F suffixing: F F F
| | \ | | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
| \ | | | \ | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| / | / | / | | | |
va na ŋa [va na ŋa] na ŋa
prefixing: F F F
| | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ
| | | | |
va na [va na ŋa]
(g–h) Finally, the reduplication of quadrumoraic words (LLH words like ꞌauē “cry”,
LLLL words like tokerau “wind”) is illustrated below. In both cases, a complete foot is
added, which is filled segmentally by copying the first two syllables of the root:
F F F F F F
| \ | \ | | \ | \ | \
σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ σ
| | | | | \ | | | | | |
µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ µ
| | | | | / | | | | | |
ꞌa u [ꞌa u ē] to ke [to ke ra u]
Occasionally, type 1 and type 2 reduplication are applied in sequence: the result of
type 1 reduplication serves as the base of type 2 reduplication. This is only attested
with a few LL roots; the process can be described as follows:
µ1 µ2 > µ1 [µ1 µ2] > µ1 µ1 [µ 1 µ1 µ2]
The result is a form in which the initial syllable of the root is repeated four times. A
few examples:
ꞌuri “black” > ꞌuꞌuꞌuꞌuri “black (many things)”
- - -
tea “white” > tetetetea “white (many things)”

- - -
kikiu76 “to shriek, squeak” > kikikikiu “to shriek again and again”
- - - -
76
The root kiu does not occur in isolation. However, kiukiu does occur, hence kikiu can be
- -
analysed as a reduplication.
2.6.2. Functions of reduplication

The basic function of type 1 reduplication of a verb is expressing plurality of its S/A
argument; the basic sense of type 2 reduplication is repetition or intensity.77 However,
in both cases exceptions and lexicalised meanings are not uncommon. Both types are
2.6.2.1. Type 1: plurality

The sense of type 1 reduplication is lexically determined. For most verbs, it indicates a
plural (i.e. more than one) S/A argument. Some examples:
(15) He totopa
- o mātou ki raro.
NTR PL:descend
of 1PL.EXC to below
“We went down.” (R157.040)
(16) Te aŋa o koā Eugenio he pīpiko nō ꞌi roto i te rāua hare.
-
ART do of COLL Eugenio PRED PL:hide just at inside at ART 3PL house
“Eugenio and his friend used to hide inside their house.” (R231.279)
(17) Ka nonoho kōrua ka uunu
- - ꞌi raꞌe i te kōrua ū.
IMP PL:sit 2PL IMP PL:drink
at first ACC ART 2PL milk
“Sit down (pl.) and first drink your milk.” (R334.117)
Most verbs do not have a plural form at all.78 For those verbs that do have a plural
form, its use is not obligatory – in other words, the base form is not limited to singular
argument. In (18) the basic form tuꞌu is used, even though a plural form tutuꞌu exists. -
(18) He tuꞌu mai tou ŋā uka era.

NTRarrive hither DEM PL girl DIS
“Those girls arrived.” (Blx-3.053)
Some type 1 reduplications have a different sense; this is lexically determiners, hence
unpredictable.
hati “to break (intr.)” hahati “to break (tr.)”

-
more “to be cut, wounded” momore “to harvest, pick; to break”

-
puhi “to blow” pupuhi “to shoot (with a weapon)”

-
rehu “to be forgotten” rerehu “to faint”

-
rahi “much” rarahi “important”

-
As this list shows, for a few of these verbs the base form is intransitive, while the
reduplicated form is transitive. Here is a pair of examples:
77
The same is true in Polynesian languages in general, see Finney (1999).
78
The lexical database includes 56 plural forms with type 1 reduplication, on a total of over 3500
verbs and adjectives.
(19) He more ꞌino Rau Nui ꞌi te māꞌea.

NTR cut bad Rau Nui at ART stone
“Rau Nui was badly wounded by the stone.” (Fel-64.081)
(20) Ki oti he oho he momore i
- te tarake.
when finish NTR go NTR RED:cut ACC ART corn
“After that, he goes and picks corn.” (R156.013)
2.6.2.2. Type 2: iterativity and intensity

Like type 1 reduplication, type 2 mainly affects verbs, though unlike type 1, there are
some examples where a noun is involved; the latter mostly concerns cases of
denominal verbs (see 6 below). However, only for verbs is reduplication productive. Its
function depends largely on the nature of the verb.79
1. Type 2 reduplication often adds an element of repetition to the event expressed by

the verb:
rei “to step” reirei “to step repeatedly, to trample; to sew

-
with a sewing machine”

tumu “to cough” tumutumu “to cough repeatedly” -
rapu “to gesture” rapurapu “to make repeated gestures”

-
ŋaeꞌi “to move” ŋāeꞌieꞌi “to move back and forth”

-
eꞌa “to go out, make a trip” eꞌaeꞌa “to make various trips”
-
For some verbs, reduplication indicates repetition of the parts or stages making up the
event, rather than the event as a whole:80
hore “to cut” horehore “to cut with various movements”

-
kokoti “to cut”

- kotikoti “to cut repeatedly; to cut with scissors”
-
paꞌo “to chop” paꞌo-paꞌo “to make various chopping

movements, to chip away (e.g. at a tree)”
2. Repetition of the event may imply a distributive reading, involving different

participants: the event happens repeatedly, each time affecting a different Patient or
Recipient, or performed by a different Agent.
hono “to patch” honohono “to put various patches”

-
79
Johnston (1978), after a detailed lexical study, concludes that reduplication in Rapa Nui
indicates 1) repetition; 2) quantification (of the subject); 3) duration; 4) the degree of vigour in
which the action is carried out. I have not found any case where (3) is the sole factor involved;
whenever reduplication may be taken as indicating duration, this is usually by virtue of
iterativity. “quantification” may involve either the subject (usually with type 1, but occasionally
with type 2) or the object; see this section, sub 2.
80
Haji-Abdolhosseini et al (2002), describing reduplication in Niuean, use the term “phase
repetition”.
naꞌa “to hide” naꞌanaꞌa “to hide several things”

-
ohu “to shout” ohuohu “to shout (various people)”

-
poreko “to be born” pōrekoreko “to be born (different children, at

-
different times)”
vahi “to divide” vahi-vahi “to divide in various parts; to divide
among various people”
With plural Agents, the sense of the verb may seem to be similar to a type 1
reduplication. However, the type 2 reduplication still refers to a series of separate
events: each Agent performs the action individually (possibly at different times), not as
a group. In the following example, tuꞌutuꞌu expresses multiple events of arriving, i.e.
-
different ships arriving at different occasions. The plural tutuꞌu (type 1) would imply -
that different ships arrived in a single event.

(21) Mai te taŋata nei i haꞌamata ai i tuꞌutuꞌu
- mai ai te pahī papaꞌā.
from ART man PROX PFV begin PVP PFV arrive:RED hither PVP ART ship foreign
“Starting with this man (=the explorer Jacob Roggeveen), foreign ships
started to arrive (on Rapa Nui).” (R111.014)
The choice between mere repetition and a distributive reading results to some degree
from the semantics of the verb. Transitive verbs are more likely to have a distributive
sense: repetition of a transitive event will often affect different objects. However, the
precise meaning of the reduplication is not lexically specified, but may vary depending
on the context. The two examples below show different uses of type-2 reduplication of
uꞌi “to look”. While in (22) uꞌiuꞌi has an iterative sense, in (23) it is distributive (and
-
effectively reciprocal).
(22) Pē rā ꞌā e uꞌiuꞌi
- era a tuꞌa koiꞌite e tute rō mai
like DIS IDENT IPFV look:RED DIS by back perhaps IPFV chase EMPH hither
e tū ꞌamahiŋo era ko Makoꞌi.
AG DEM evil_person DIS PROM Mako’i
“Like that he kept looking behind him, to see if he was followed by that
wicked Mako’i.” (R214.038)
(23) He uꞌiuꞌi
- ia te ꞌāriŋa a totoru.
-
NTR look:RED then ART face PROP RED:three

“The three looked at each other.” (R313.005)
3. With many adjectives, reduplication signifies increased intensity:
piro “rotten” piropiro “completely rotten”

-
ꞌehu “blurry” ꞌehuꞌehu “very blurry, barely visible”

-
tea “light in colour” (moana tea = light blue) teatea “white” -
ꞌuri “dark in colour” (meamea ꞌuri = dark red) ꞌuriꞌuri “black”

- -
However, reduplication of an adjective does not always imply intensity: rivariva -
“good”, not “very good”. See 5 below.

4. For some verbs, the sense of the reduplicated form is lexicalised and unpredictable,
even though it is obviously related to the meaning of the root.
ꞌomo “to smoke” ꞌomoꞌomo “to suck” -
manaꞌu “to think” mānaꞌunaꞌu “to be worried” -
taka “to roll up” takataka “round” -
poto “short (in size)” potopoto “short (in distance)” -
roa “distant” roaroa “tall” -
haŋu “to breathe” haŋuhaŋu “to pant” -
In some cases the meaning of the reduplication, even though lexicalised, is clearly
derived from an iterative sense. In the case of mānaꞌunaꞌu the specialised sense “to be -
worried” developed from the iterative sense “to think much”. (In fact, manaꞌu rahi
“think much” is used with a similar sense.)
5. For certain words, the reduplicated form is more common than the root. In these
cases, the simple form is often limited in use. This is especially common with
adjectives (→ 3.5.1.2): nuinui “big” is much more common than nui “big”, which is
-
used in limited contexts. For other words, the simple form is not in use at all; these are
discussed in section 2.6.3 below.
6. A number of reduplications are denominal verbs or adjectives:
māmari “egg; biceps” māmamamari “to build muscles” -
ŋutu “mouth” ŋutuŋutu “to talk excessively, to be talkative”-
pia “starch” piapia “starchy”

-
tore “stripe” toretore “striped” -
vai “water” vaivai “moist, wet”

-
A few reduplications are deverbal nouns:
poko “hollow” pokopoko “hollow place, basin” -
toke “to steal” toketoke “to steal frequently; thief”

-
7. Finally, reduplication may have an attenuative function, implying a certain

weakening. Iterativity may mean that the event – or a phase of the event – takes place
repeatedly, but each time to a small extent:
mate “to die, be extinguished” matemate “to flicker” -
ꞌua “to rain” ꞌuaꞌua “to drizzle”

-
taŋi “to cry” taŋitaŋi “to cry intermittently”

-
tere “to run, travel” teretere “to tack (in sailing)”

-
hiŋa “to fall” hiŋahiŋa “to totter, stagger (to fall a little
-
again and again)”

vānaŋa “to talk” vānaŋanaŋa / vanavanaŋa “to chatter, do small - -
talk”
With adjectives, the reduplication may indicate a weaker, “more or less” sense. I have
found this sense only with one adjective; it is probably not accidental that in this case,
an intensified sense (“very cooked”) does not fit in well with the semantics of the
word.
mata “ripe; cooked” matamata “half-ripe; half-cooked”

-
2.6.3. Reduplications without base form

There are a number of type 2 reduplications for which the base does not occur on its
own. Most of these are either nouns or adjectives with a bisyllabic base: hiohio -
“strong”, kutakuta “foam”, rairai “thin, flat”, naonao “mosquito”, rohirohi “tired”,
- - - -
tokotoko “walking stick”. Examples with a trisyllabic base are māuruuru “to thank;
- -
thank you” and māuiui “sick”. Sometimes there is evidence that the simple form did
-
exist in Rapa Nui: paka “dry” is found in older texts, but in modern Rapa Nui only
pakapaka is used. Other forms (e.g. naonao and māuruuru) were borrowed as a whole
- - -
from Tahitian.
Some of these reduplication-only forms have a plural of type 1, based on the root:
kaokao “narrow”, kakao “narrow (Pl)”; kaꞌikaꞌi “sharp”, kakaꞌi “sharp (Pl)”.81
- - - -
There are also verbs which have the shape of a type 1 reduplication (σ1 σ1 σ2), but for
which the non-reduplicated form does not occur: ꞌaꞌaru “to grab”, totoi “to drag”, nēneꞌi
- - -
“to defecate”, nonoꞌi “to ask, beg”. For some of these, it is clear that the base form was
-
known in the past: neꞌi “defecate” occurs in Englert’s dictionary, toi is found once in an
older text, but neither is used nowadays. For other verbs such as ꞌaꞌaru, the base form
-
is not attested at all. Even so, they are treated as reduplications in the accepted
orthography (i.e. they are written with a hyphen), because a type 2 reduplication of
the same base does exist with a typical type 2 sense such as iterativity. For example,
while there is no simple form *ꞌaru, there is a type 2 reduplication ꞌaruꞌaru “to grab -
several things”; hence, ꞌaꞌaru is considered a type 1 reduplication and written with a
-
hyphen (ꞌa-ꞌaru).
In fact, most words with identical first and second syllables can be considered
reduplications for one of the reasons above. Exceptions are e.g. ꞌaꞌamu “story” (neither
*ꞌamu nor *ꞌamuꞌamu is attested), rarama “inspect” (there are no related lexemes *rama
-
or *ramarama), and tātara “to make a speech” (there are no related lexemes *tara or
-
*taratara in Rapa Nui, though PPN *tala “to talk; story” has reflexes in many other
-
languages).
2.7. Conclusions
The preceding sections have given an overview of Rapa Nui phonology. The phoneme
inventory of Rapa Nui is small (10 consonants, 5 short and 5 long vowels) and closely
81
Interestingly, this leads to a situation where the plural is shorter than the corresponding
singular (cf. Blust 2001:40).
reflects the phoneme inventory of Rapa Nui’s protolanguages. The glottal plosive is
contrastive in lexical words, both word-initially and word-medially, but acoustic
analysis shows that it is not contrastive phrase-initially. This means that it is not
contrastive in certain prenuclear particles; the latter tend to have a glottal only when
they occur at the start of a prosodic phrase.
The syllable structure of Rapa Nui is (C)V(ː). There are no (C)V1V2 syllables: sequences
of non-identical vowels are analysed as disyllabic. One argument for this is stress
assignment: the second vowel of a VV sequence may be stressed, which shows that it
does not form a syllable with the preceding vowel. Another argument is word
structure. Rapa Nui has a strict constraint on the metrical structure of words: long (i.e.
heavy) syllables cannot be followed by an odd number of morae; in other words, the
penultimate syllable cannot be long when the final syllable is short. This means that a
word like mauku “grass” must be trisyllabic, as a long penultimate syllable mau- would
be metrically impossible.
Stress – both on word and phrase level – falls on the penultimate mora; in connected
speech, stress is assigned on the phrase level. Interestingly, all postnuclear elements
are (minimally) bimoraic, which avoids a possible conflict between word and phrase
stress.
Two phonological processes which are regular but optional, are word-final vowel
devoicing and pre-stress lengthening. The former is especially common.
A wide range of sporadic sound changes can be detected in the lexicon, resulting either
in variants within Rapa Nui, or between Rapa Nui and its parent languages. Metathesis
is rampant; other sound changes especially affect vowels, glottals and the liquid /r/.
Borrowings – especially from Spanish – tend to be adjusted to the phonology of Rapa
Nui, but in various ways and to varying degrees. Some non-native phonological
features are more liable to be accepted (hence not adjusted) than others, especially
certain word-medial consonant clusters and the fricative /s/.
Finally, this chapter deals with reduplication. Two basic types can be distinguished:
monomoraic (expressing plurality) and bimoraic (expressing repetition or intensity).
Reduplication may be full or partial, but there is no principled distinction between the
two: whether all or part of the root is reduplicated, simply depends on the size of the
root.
Depending on the prosodic shape of the root, various processes of lengthening and
shortening take place; these can be explained by metrical constraints, most of which
correspond to general phonological tendencies in the language.
Further research could throw more light on the following areas:

• the pronunciation of vowels (formant frequencies);
• the phonetic correlates of stress (loudness, pitch);
• levels of stress (especially on phrase level);
• intonation patterns.
3. Nouns and verbs
3.1. Introduction: word classes in Rapa Nui
This chapter and the next deal with the description of word classes. In this area, the
most basic distinction in Rapa Nui – as in other Polynesian languages – is that between
full words and particles.82 Full words occur in the nucleus of a phrase and mostly form
large, open classes (though certain types of full words, such as locationals, are closed
classes). Particles are a closed class: they can be exhaustively listed. They occur in
fixed positions before or after the nucleus, and most of them are highly frequent.
In Rapa Nui, full words and postnuclear particles have a minimal length of two morae;
prenuclear particles may be one mora.
Pro-forms have an intermediate status between full words and particles. Like full
words, they occur in the nucleus of a phrase and can be preceded and followed by
particles. Unlike full words, they do not have a lexical meaning, and like particles, they
form a closed class. Pro-forms include personal, possessive and benefactive pronouns,
as well as interrogative words.
Two other intermediate categories are the negator ꞌina and the numerals. Both of these
form a closed class, yet they function as phrase nuclei, as they can be followed by
postnuclear particles, while numerals are also preceded by a particle.
Full words can be divided into word classes (parts of speech) on the basis of
grammatical and semantic criteria. Some word classes can be defined by a single
unambiguous criterion. These include the following:
• Locationals (→ 3.6), a subclass of nouns, are immediately preceded by
prepositions and do not take articles.
• Proper nouns (→ 3.3.2) are preceded by the proper article a.
• Cardinal numerals (→ 4.3.1) are preceded by one of the numeral particles e,
ka and hoko.83
For verbs and common nouns the situation is much less clear. In section 3.2, the
distinction between nouns and verbs is discussed, and various aspects of their
interaction are explored.
The remainder of this chapter discusses other issues concerning nouns (3.3) and verbs
82
Buse (1965) uses these same terms for Rarotongan. Biggs (1961) uses the terms “bases” and
“minor morphemes” for Maori; in Biggs (1973) the latter term has been replaced by “particles”.
Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992:71) distinguish full words, particles, proforms and interjections in
Samoan.
83
By contrast, quantifiers (→ 4.4) cannot be grouped together as a word class on the basis of
distributional criteria, as different quantifiers show a different distribution.
(3.4).84 Section 3.5 discusses adjectives, a subclass of verbs, while 3.6 discusses
locationals, a subclass of nouns. Other – minor – word classes will be discussed in
chapter 4.
3.2. Nouns and verbs
There are three types of nouns in Rapa Nui: common nouns, proper nouns and
locationals. Proper nouns and locationals are easily distinguished from other types of
nouns and from other word classes, as indicated above. For common nouns, the
distinction with other parts of speech – especially verbs – is less obvious. This section
deals with the noun/verb distinction in Rapa Nui; in this discussion, “noun” should be
read as a shorthand for “common noun”. Section 3.2.1 deals with the question whether
there is a distinction between nouns and verbs in Rapa Nui. The next subsections
(3.2.2–3.2.4) deal with words and constructions having features of both nouns and
verbs. 3.2.5 brings together evidence for a general tendency in Rapa Nui to maximise
the nominal domain.
3.2.1. The noun/verb distinction

Polynesian languages are known to be very flexible in use of nouns and verbs: many
words seem to be used both as nouns and verbs. This is also true for Rapa Nui. In (1)
below, poki “child” occurs in a noun phrase (preceded by the article te) which is
subject of the clause; in (2), it occurs in a verb phrase (preceded by the imperfective
marker e) which is the clause predicate:
(1) He pōrekoreko te ŋā poki ꞌi Tāhai.
-
NTR born:RED ART PL child at Tahai

“Children were born in Tahai.” (Ley-4-08.10)
(2) Mai te hora era ōꞌoku e poki nō ꞌana...
from ART time DIS POSS.3SG.O IPFV child just CONT
“From the time when I was a child...” (R539-1.614)
Likewise, in the following examples, ꞌaꞌamu is first used as a noun “story” (in a noun
phrase functioning as clause subject), then as a verb “to tell” (in a verb phrase
functioning as clause predicate):
(3) ¿He parautiꞌa te ꞌaꞌamu nei?
PRED truth ART story PROX
“Is this story true?” (R616.608)
(4) He ꞌaꞌamu ia e mātou i te ꞌati taꞌatoꞌa nei o tātou o Rapa Nui.
NTR tell then AG 1PL.EXC ACC ART problem all PROX of 1PL.INC of Rapa Nui
“We told about all the problems we have on Rapa Nui.” (R649.238)
84
See also chapters 5 and 7 on noun and verb phrases, respectively.
Chapter 3: Nouns and verbs 73
Like all Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui has hundreds of words which, like ꞌaꞌamu, are
defined both as a noun and a verb (These will be discussed in more detail in section
3.2.2). Moreover, there is no inflectional morphology in the language which would
facilitate distinguishing nouns from verbs. It is therefore not surprising that the
existence of a lexical noun/verb distinction in Polynesian languages has been denied.85
In such an approach, the terms “noun” and “verb” are used in a purely syntactic sense:
whatever occurs in the nucleus of a noun phrase is a noun, whatever occurs in the
nucleus of a verb phrase is a verb. Such a distinction is workable as there is a strict
distinction between nominal and verbal phrases,86 a distinction which also applies in
Rapa Nui.
Nevertheless, I will argue that there are good reasons to maintain a lexical distinction
between noun and verbs. That is, words are defined as noun or verb in the lexicon.
This does not mean that all occurrences of these words are completely and
unambiguously nominal and/or verbal. Lexical verbs very commonly enter into
constructions which have certain nominal features; less frequently, lexical nouns are
used in constructions with certain verbal features (as in (2) above). Moreover, many
words are specified as both noun and verb in the lexicon, as ꞌaꞌamu in (3)–(4) above.
3.2.1.1 lists reasons to maintain a lexical distinction between nouns and verbs. In
addition, several reasons are given why a syntactic approach to the noun/verb
distinction is unsatisfactory. 3.2.1.2 proposes a definition of nouns and verbs in terms
of prototypes. This approach maintains a lexical distinction between noun and verbs,
while at the same time recognising that the two cannot always be unambiguously
distinguished.
3.2.1.1. Reasons to maintain a lexical noun/verb distinction

1. Despite the flexibility in the use of nouns and verbs, the large majority of noun
phrases have a nucleus denoting an entity, while an overwhelming majority of verb
phrases have a nucleus denoting an event. While all action words can be used in
nominal phrases, many entity words are never used in verb phrases, or only in very
specific, uncommon contexts. For example, the word oho “go” is very often preceded
by the imperfective marker e, but the word taŋata “man” is never preceded by this
particle in the text corpus. Other words, like ꞌaꞌamu in (3)–(4) above, are commonly
used both as noun and as verb, but with a different sense. Somehow generalisations
like these should be accounted for in the grammar. To assume one large class of words,
which can be indiscriminately slotted into noun or verb phrases, does not do justice to
actual usage.
85
See e.g. Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992) for Samoan, Lazard & Peltzer (1991, 2000) for Tahitian,
and Elbert & Pukui (1979) for Hawaiian. A similar approach recognises a large class of “generals”
(Biggs 1961) or “universals” (Biggs 1973), besides smaller classes of (pure) nouns and verbs. See
e.g. Buse (1963a, 1965) for Rarotongan, Tchekhoff (1979) for Tongan and Biggs (1961, 1973) for
Maori. See Vonen (2000) for an overview of the different approaches.
86
In some languages the distinction is not as strict. Moyse-Faurie (2005:168) points out that in
Futunan, aspect markers and articles may co-occur.
2. Another reason not to abandon the notion of nouns and verbs in the lexicon, is that
the semantic relationship between nouns and verbs is not always predictable. In other
words, it is not always possible to derive the nominal and verbal meanings of a word
from an underlying acategorial sense. This will be illustrated in section 3.2.2. This
could be accounted for by analysing nouns and verbs of the same form as homophones
(i.e. separate lexical items, approach 3), but in that case the relationship between
corresponding nouns and verbs is lost: under the homophone analysis, a lexical item
used in a noun phrase is unrelated to an identical-sounding item with a related
meaning in a verb phrase. This is unsatisfactory from a semantic point of view, for
even though the relation between nominal and verbal senses may be unpredictable, the
senses are always clearly related.
3. A third argument that the apparent freedom of use does not imply the absence of
lexical categories, comes from a rare phenomenon: very occasionally, words from other
(minor) word classes are used as a noun or verb. For example, a pronoun may occur in
the nucleus of a verb phrase as in (5); demonstrative particles may be the nucleus of a
verb phrase, as in (6):87
(5) ¿Ko ꞌite ꞌā kōrua he aha i mātou ai?
PRF know CONT 2PL what PFV 1PL.EXC PVP
PRED
“Do you know what we did?” (Notes N. Weber)
(6) —¿Ku oti ꞌā? —¡Ko era ꞌā taꞌa meꞌe.
PRF finish CONT PRF DIS CONT POSS.2SG.A thing
“—Is it finished? —I’m done (lit. something like “there is your thing”).”
(R230.105)
These words belong to well-defined categories (pronouns, demonstratives), so it is

clear that they are not acategorial; yet they occur in a noun phrase or verb phrase. This
suggests that the absence of a strict boundary between word classes can be explained
by freedom of cross-categorial use rather than the absence of lexical categories.
We may conclude that the distinction between lexical nouns and verb should be
maintained. In addition, there are a number of reasons why the syntactic approach to
nouns and verbs common in Polynesian linguistics is unsatisactory. In this approach,
nounhood and verbhood depends wholly on syntactic criteria: a word is a noun when
it is the nucleus of a noun phrase, and a verb when it is the nucleus of a verb phrase.
This can be further reduced to a single criterion: a word is a noun when preceded by a
determiner, and a verb when preceded by an aspect marker.88 There are syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic problems with this assumption.
87
Postverbal era ꞌā indicates a finished action (sometimes equivalent to a perfect or pluperfect).
88
For examples of this approach, see Biggs (1973:19); Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992:76); Lazard &
Peltzer (2000:21).
— Syntactic. The presence of a determiner does not necessarily mean that the phrase
is entirely nominal. The nucleus of such a phrase may control verbal arguments:89 in
(7) below, the subject of vānaŋa has the agent marker e; in (8), runurunu is followed by -
a direct object marked with the accusative marker i.

(7) I oti era te vānaŋa e te viꞌe...
PFV finish DIS ART speak AG ART woman
“When the woman had finished speaking...” (Egt-01.095)
(8) He turu mai ia ki te hare hāpī koia ko te runurunu mai
-
NTR go_down hither then to ART house learn COMIT PROM ART gather:RED hither
i te rāua tūava.
ACC ART 3PL guava
“They went down to school, while picking (lit. with the picking) guavas.”
(R211.012)
The phrase may also contain other VP elements like directionals, such as mai in (8).
These elements do not appear in “ordinary” noun phrases, i.e. phrases headed by
entity words like taŋata “man” or hare “house”. In conclusion, a phrase introduced by a
determiner may still have certain VP characteristics.
— Semantic. Despite the presence of a determiner, the nucleus may have a verbal
sense, referring to an event rather than an entity. Even though it is preceded by a
determiner, the verb may therefore have a different meaning from a “real” noun with
the same form.90 This can be illustrated with the word vānaŋa, which may denote an
action “to talk”, or an entity “word, spoken utterance”. In (9) vānaŋa denotes an event
and occurs in a verb phrase (preceded by the aspect marker e); in (10) it denotes an
entity and occurs in a noun phrase (preceded by the article te):
(9) E vānaŋa rō mai ꞌā paurō te mahana ki a au.
IPFV speak hither CONT every ART day
EMPH to PROP 1SG
“Every day he speaks to me.” (R655.018)
(10) Ka taiꞌo pūai te ŋā vānaŋa nei: raŋi, rano, rapu.
IMP read strong ART PL word PROX raŋi rano rapu
“Read the following words aloud: raŋi, rano, rapu.” (R616.147)
Clearly, in (9) vānaŋa is a verb, while in (10) it is a noun. So far, so good. In (7) above
however, vānaŋa denotes an event, even though it is preceded by a determiner. It
serves as the complement of oti, a verb which commonly takes a nominalised event
word as complement. Thus, te vānaŋa in (7) is not nominal in the same way as te ŋā
vānaŋa nei in (10). Notice that this semantic difference correlates with certain syntactic
differences: in (10), vānaŋa is preceded by the plural marker ŋā, a noun phrase
89
Waite (1994), working in a generative framework, captures this insight by proposing that D
(=determiner) in Maori can take not only NP complements, but VP and AdjP as well. This means
that a verb may occur in a nominal context (DP) while retaining its verbal character.
90
The same point is made by Besnier (2000:511) for Tuvaluan.
element; in (7) it is followed by a subject marked with the agentive e, something to be

expected of a verb.
— Pragmatic. In some constructions, a nominal phrase is syntactically not a clause
predicate, yet it expresses an event and functions as a predicate pragmatically. This
happens in the nominalised actor-emphatic construction, in which the actor is
expressed as a possessive, while the event is expressed in a noun phrase (→ 8.6.3).
Syntactically these constructions are nominal clauses with the nominalised verb as
subject; pragmatically, however, they express an event with the verb as nucleus. One
example:
(11) ꞌĀꞌana te haka tere i te henua.
POSS.3SG.A ART CAUS run ACC ART land
“He (was the one who) governed the country.” (R370.005)
Constructions such as (11) are only found with event words, not with entity words. If
the underlined phrases were regarded as noun phrases because of the presence of the
article, they would be undistinguishable from “normal” noun phrases, which never
enter into this construction.
We may conclude that event words preceded by determiners may have either a
nominal sense and nominal function, or a verbal sense and verbal function (possibly
with verbal syntactic trappings). This suggests that we should make a distinction
between lexical nominalisation, which turns a verb into a true noun, and syntactic
nominalisation, in which a verb is used as nucleus of a noun phrase, while retaining
its verbal meaning and other verbal characteristics, such as the possibility to take
verbal arguments. The examples above show that both occur in Rapa Nui: (10) is an
example of lexical nominalisation, while (7) is an example of syntactic nominalisation.
These processes will be discussed in sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3, respectively.
3.2.1.2. Prototypicality
As discussed in the previous section, a phrase which seems to be a noun phrase
because of the presence of a determiner, may yet have a strongly verbal character. It
may contain certain VP elements, while certain NP elements are excluded; it may
function as a predicate; it may denote an event rather than an entity.
The nominal and a verbal domain are not divided by a sharp boundary in Rapa Nui.
Rather, “verbness” and “nounness” can be conceived of as a continuum, defined in
terms of prototypes: at one end there are constructions which are entirely nominal
(prototypical nouns), at the other end there are constructions which are entirely verbal
(prototypical verbs). In between is a range of constructions which share characteristics
of both.91
91
See Payne (1997:34ff) for discussion of prototypicality in word classes. Croft (2000) defines
word classes as unmarked combinations of a pragmatic function and a lexical semantic class:
As the discussion above has made clear, prototypical nouns and verbs cannot be
defined solely on the basis of lexical meaning, nor solely on the basis of syntactic
properties. Rather, a prototypical form combines syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
characteristics. I suggest the following definitions:
A prototypical verb is a word which
• denotes an event or action;
• functions as the predicate of the clause;
• occurs as head of a verb phrase. A prototypical verb phrase has an aspect or
mood marker and may contain various other elements, expressing for example
aspectual nuances, degree and direction;
• governs canonical arguments such as subject and/or direct object.
A prototypical noun is a word which
• denotes an entity;
• is used as a referring expression;
• occurs in a noun phrase. A prototypical noun phrase contains a determiner
and may contain various other elements with quantifying, deictic and
anaphoric functions;
• may take a possessor to express various relations with a dependent noun.
This approach enables us to account for flexibility in use, while at the same time
maintaining the basic noun-verb distinction: taŋata “man” can be defined as a noun,
even though it occasionally occurs in a verb phrase; the latter is simply a case of non-
prototypical use.
Between prototypical nouns and prototypical verbs lies a whole range of non-
prototypical constructions, as illustrated above. Any attempt to divide this area up by
drawing a line separating the “noun area” from the “verb area” is arbitrary. However,
for practical reasons I will use the term “verb” for any word which which is lexically
(i.e. semantically) a verb, and “noun” for any word which is lexically a noun.92 Thus,
in the examples above, the underlined lexical item in (1)–(3) and (10) is called a noun,
while the underlined word in (9) and (11) is called a verb. vānaŋa is a verb when it
denotes the action “to talk”, whether it occurs in a prototypical VP or in a phrase that
also has nominal properties. When vānaŋa denotes an entity “word, utterance”, it is a
noun. As these two senses are obviously related, the relation between the two can be
defined as polysemy (one lexical item having two related but not identical senses)
rather than homophony (two unrelated lexical items which happen to share the same
phonological form).
word class pragmatic function semantic class

noun reference to an object
adjective modification by a property
verb predication of an action
Other combinations are possible: an object word may be used in predication (predicate
nominals), action words may be used as modifier (e.g. participles), et cetera. Croft reserves the
terms “noun” and “verb” for the unmarked combinations, i.e. prototypical nouns and verbs.
92
NB A verb followed by a nominaliser is called a verbal noun (→ 3.2.3).
Now this semantic criterion is sometimes problematic: with non-concrete words

especially, it is not always obvious whether a notion should be classified as an event or
an entity. Take for example natural phenomena: without considering syntax, should
“rain” be classified as an event (“it rains”) or an entity (“the rain falls”)? Is “flood” a
thing or an event? The same is true for abstract nouns (haŋa “to love; love”; manaꞌu “to
think; thought”). For some words, therefore, additional syntactic criteria are needed to
assign them to a word class. Now the presence of a determiner is not a very strong
criterion, as discussed above. There are other syntactic criteria, however:
• Verbs may be modified by VP elements (→ chapter 7 and 3.2.3.3): apart from
aspect/mood markers, there may be degree modifiers, the constituent negator
taꞌe, directionals.
• Verbs may take arguments which are marked as subject, object or oblique.
• Nouns may be modified by NP elements (→ chapter 5): quantifiers, numerals
and a plural marker.
• Nouns may take a possessor.
These criteria, together with the semantics of the word, usually point into the same
direction: an entity word is usually modified by NP elements and may take a possessor;
an event word is usually modified by VP elements and may take canonical arguments.
In other words, nouns and verbs tend to show prototypical behaviour.93 The principal
exception is the use of the article in certain contexts which are otherwise entirely
verbal in both meaning and syntax. (This shows, once more, that the presence of the
article is a very weak criterion for nounhood.)
In two cases, there are morphological clues for noun- or verbhood.
1. The causative prefix haka (→ 8.12) turns a root into a verb. There are a few cases
where haka + root is lexicalised as something else than a verb (e.g. hakaꞌou “again”,
hakanonoŋa “fishing zone”), but the vast majority of haka forms are verbs. However,
like all verbs, they may take on certain nominal roles and function as a noun phrase
head: see e.g. (29) below.
2. The nominalising suffix, usually haŋa or iŋa (→ 3.2.3), turns a root into a noun. As
discussed in 3.2.3.1, the resulting forms have a more nominal sense than non-suffixed
verb forms, and are used in nominal contexts.
In the following sections, the area between prototypical nouns and prototypical verbs
is further explored. Section 3.2.2 discusses lexical noun/verb pairs; section 3.2.3
discusses syntactic nominalisation; section 3.2.4 briefly discusses the use of nouns in
verbal contexts.
93
Croft (2000:96) points out that the meaning of words tends to shift towards the unmarked
sense associated with their syntactic use: action words used in referring expressions tend to
denote an object typically associated with the activity (e.g. “learn+NOM” > “school”); object
words used as a predicate tend to denote an action typically associated with the object (e.g.
“baggage+V” > “to pack”).
3.2.2. Lexical noun/verb correspondences

Many words in Rapa Nui are used both as nouns and as verbs, without any difference
in form but with a difference in meaning. As discussed in the previous section, these
are best considered as cases of polysemy, a single lexical item having both a nominal
and a verbal sense.
First a note on terminology. Common terms like “nominalisation” and “deverbal noun”
indicate that a noun is derived from a verb. While this is often the case, for other
words the verb is derived from the noun, or the direction of derivation is
undetermined. As the verb and the noun are identical in form, there are no
morphological clues for the direction of derivation. For this reason the neutral term
“noun/verb correspondences” is used here.
Section 3.2.2.1 explores the semantic relationships between these homophonous
noun/verb pairs.94 Section 3.2.2.2 discusses the – much rarer – derivations involving a
nominalising suffix.95
3.2.2.1. Homophonous noun/verb pairs

1. In many cases, the noun denotes a concrete entity (an object or person), while the
verb denotes an activity in which this entity plays a certain role. Different semantic
relationships can be discerned:
1a. The noun indicates a physical object, while the verb denotes an action performed
with that object as instrument: “to use N, to do something with N”. Examples: hiahia -
“saw;96 to saw”; hoe “paddle; to paddle”; harihari “comb; to comb hair”.

-
Sometimes the verb is more specific in sense than the noun: ramaN “torch”, ramaV “to
fish with a torch” (a fishing technique done at night). In other cases the noun is more
specific: raŋoV “to support”, raŋoN “stretcher, handbarrow”; haŋuhaŋuV “to pant, breathe
-
heavily”, haŋuhaŋuN “bellows; forge”.

-
1b. The noun denotes the product or result of the action, often a concrete object.
Examples: hohoꞌa “to take a picture; a picture”; taka “to roll up; a roll, spool”; tūtia “to
sacrifice; offering”; tarakī “to dry meat; dried meat”.
94
To obtain the data for this section, I listed all words in my lexical database that have both a
nominal and a verbal definition. As this database incorporates data from all previous dictionaries
and word lists of Rapa Nui, it includes many doubtful definitions, translational equivalents for
which it is not clear that the word is actually used in that particular sense. Besides, the lexical
resources include many words not attested in the text corpus, either because they are obsolete or
because the corpus is limited in size. This leaves just over 200 words that are attested in the
corpus in both verbal and nominal senses; it is from these words that the data in this section are
taken.
95
Apart from the nominalising suffix and the causative prefix, there are no productive derivative
affixes in Rapa Nui. The lexicon does show traces of derivative suffixes, but in all cases the word
was certainly or probably borrowed or inherited as a whole. For example, tāmiti “to salt, cure” is
obviously related to miti “salt”, but tāmiti was probably borrowed from Tahitian, where tā-
frequently occurs as (non-productive) factive prefix.
96
English definitions not preceded by “to” are nouns.
One of the senses may be more specialised: pūN “hole”; pūV has the underlying basic
sense “to make a hole, pierce, perforate” but is only used in several specific senses: “to
hit with a bullet, to hook a fish, to dig out tubers”. paraV has a wide range of senses:
“to decay, ripen, rot, rust”, while paraN only means “rust”.
1c. Similar to the preceding cases are verbs of speaking, where the corresponding
noun expresses the utterance produced by the action of speaking: vānaŋa “to speak;
word, utterance”; ꞌaꞌamu “to tell; story”; reoreo “to lie; a lie”. This category also
-
includes manaꞌu “to think; thought”. It seems that all words in this semantic domain
can be both verb and noun; however, the semantic relationship may be idiosyncratic:
pureV “to pray”, pureN “prayer” but also “mass”.
Notice that the nominal sense of these words is not just “the act of performing X”: one
can expose a lie or print a story, without being involved in the act of lying or
storytelling itself.
1d. Other cases in which the noun is the Patient of the corresponding verb are those in
which the noun is an entity undergoing the action or affected by the action: kai “to
eat; food”; ꞌakaveŋa “to carry on the back; basket carried on the back”.
1e. For a number of words, the noun denotes the Agent of the corresponding action. In
some cases the noun denotes a profession: haꞌavā “to judge; a judge”; tāvini “to serve;
servant”. For other words the Agent may be anyone who performs the action, whether
incidentally or regularly: mataꞌite “to testify; eyewitness”; reoreo “to lie; liar”.
-
1f. Words indicating the place where the action happens, are rare. One example is
haka iri “to ascend; slope”. hāpī “to learn” may be used in the sense “school” (turu ki te
hāpī “go down to school”), but more commonly this sense is expressed by hare hāpī
“house + learn”.
2. For abstract words, it is harder to distinguish distinct nominal and verbal senses.
Noun and verb often refer to the same “thing”, but with an aspectual difference: while
the verb expresses an event taking place in time, the noun denotes the same event as a
bounded whole. This suggests that the distinction is syntactic rather than lexical.
2a. Many natural phenomena (e.g. meteorological conditions) can be expressed as
either noun or verb. The following pair of examples illustrate this for aꞌa “flood”: in
(12) it is a verb with the flooded object as subject, in (13) it is a noun in idiomatic
collocation with the verb rere “fly”.
(12) Ku aꞌa ꞌā te hare ꞌi te vai.
PRF flood CONT ART house at ART water
“The house was flooded with water.” (Egt)
(13) He rere te aꞌa.
NTR fly ART flood
“The flood came up.” (Mtx-7-17.012)
Other words in this category only occur as nouns: ꞌua “rain”97 (with hoa “throw”: He
hoa te ꞌua, “It rained”, lit. “The rain threw”); tokerau “wind” (often with puhi “blow” or
hū “roar”).
2b. There is a large category of words expressing human experiences: feelings and
propensities (mataku “to be afraid; fear”; nounou “to be greedy; greed”); physical
-
experiences (mamae “pain; to suffer pain”; mare “asthma; to have asthma”).

2c. There are many other abstract words. Some of these express telic events, events
with a natural endpoint; in that case the noun expresses a bounded entity, the event
conceived as an object: hāipoipo “to marry; wedding ceremony, wedding party”; ꞌāꞌati
-
“to compete; competition”; tauꞌa “to fight; battle”. For other words the semantic
distinction between the nominal and the verbal sense is less clear: hāpī “to learn, to
teach; schooling, lesson, education”; haꞌamata “to begin; beginning”; haꞌuru “to sleep;
sleep”; mate “to die; death”.
It is questionable whether abstract nouns are lexically distinct from the corresponding
verbs. In a few cases, the noun has developed more specific senses: makenuV “to move
about”, makenuN “action, movement; development; party/feast”; rēV “to win”; rēN
“victory; goal (in soccer)”. Further lexical research could show if other abstract words
show subtle meaning differences between noun and verb.
As suggested in sec. 3.2.1.2, syntactic criteria could also help to determine the
existence of lexical nouns and verbs. The consistent absence of verb phrase particles
could indicate that the nucleus is a lexical noun, not a nominalised verb. Another
syntactic criterion is the syntactic context in which the noun phrase appears. As
discussed in section 3.2.3.1 below, in certain constructions nominalised verbs occur in
noun phrases without a suffix, while in other nominal positions they tend to have a
nominalising suffix. If a word occurs in one of the latter contexts without a
nominalising suffix, this suggests that it is a lexical noun. In the following example,
manaꞌu “think” and ŋaroꞌa “perceive” both occur in the direct object position, a
position in which verbs usually take a nominalising suffix. ŋaroꞌa does indeed have the
suffix iŋa; manaꞌu however does not, which suggests that it is a lexical noun.
(14) A au e haka ꞌite atu ena i tōꞌoku manaꞌu, i tōꞌoku
PROP 1SG IPFV CAUS know away MED ACC POSS.1SG.O think ACC POSS.1SG.O
ŋaroꞌa iŋa.
perceive NMLZ
“I will make known what I think, what I feel.” (R443.013ff)
In many other situations it is hard to classify the abstract word as a noun or a verb,
and for these words the existence of a lexical noun/verb distinction could be called
into question. For many concrete words, on the other hand, there is a clear lexical
noun/verb distinction. As indicated above, the noun often denotes a participant in the
event rather than the event itself. Moreover, either the verb or the noun may have
idiosyncratic senses.
97
Only rarely is ꞌua used as a verb, without a subject: e ꞌua rō ꞌā “it was raining” (R475.003).
Another indication that nominal and verbal senses are lexically determined, is the fact
that many noun/verb pairs which could be expected to exist, do not occur.98 A few
examples:
• Some words express both an action and the agent of that action (1e above).
Others, however, can only express the action itself: hāpī “teach”, not
“teacher”; aŋa “to do, make”, not “builder”. kori means both “to steal” and
“thief”, but toke means “to steal”, not “thief”.
• Some words express both an action and an object brought about or affected by
the action (1b–1d); others do not. kai “to eat; food” is both a noun and a verb,
but unu “to drink” is not: one may kai i te kai “to eat food”, but one cannot
*unu i te unu “to drink.V drink.N”. tarakī “to dry meat; dried meat” is both a
noun and a verb, but other verbs of food preparation (like tunu “to cook”,
tunuahi “to roast”) cannot be used in a nominal sense to refer to the cooked
food.
• Many objects have an action typically associated with them, which can be
expressed by the corresponding verb: rama “torch; to fish with a torch”; hohoꞌa
“picture; take a picture”. Other objects also have an action typically associated
with them, yet do not express that action with the same word: kahu “clothes”,
not “to be/get dressed”; hoi “horse”, not “to ride a horse”; vaka “canoe”, not
“to travel by canoe”; mata “eye”, not “to look”.
This confirms that noun/verb correspondences are – at least for certain words –
defined in the lexicon.
3.2.2.2. Lexical nominalisation involving a suffix

While hundreds of words in the Rapa Nui lexicon show zero derivation, cases of lexical
nominalisation involving a nominalising suffix are much less numerous. As discussed
in section 3.2.3.2 below, there are various nominalising suffixes, without a sharp
distinction in meaning and use: –ŋa, haŋa, iŋa, aŋa, eŋa, oŋa. All of these can be used
in lexical nominalisation as well as syntactic nominalisation, often with the same verb.
An extreme example is the verb noho “to sit, stay”, which occurs with all suffixes:
nohoŋa, noho haŋa, noho iŋa, noho aŋa, noho eŋa, noho oŋa; all of these may have the
lexicalised sense “epoch, period”.
As discussed in the previous section, lexical noun/verb pairs without suffix may have
various meaning correspondences. In the same way, suffixed nominalisations may be
related to the root verb in various ways. Some indicate an object associated with the
event or action: moe “to lie”, moeŋa “mat”; hatu “to weave leaves”, hatuŋa “woven
roofing”; toe “to remain”, toeŋa “leftovers”.
Others refer to a place where the action is performed: puhi “to fish for lobsters and eels
at night”, puhiŋa “a place where lobsters and eels are caught at night”; piko “to hide”,
pikoŋa or piko haŋa (both obsolete) “hiding place”.
98
Clark (1983a) presents similar observations for Maori.
Other derivations yet have a more abstract sense. noho NMLZ is mentioned above.
Another example is haka tere iŋa “system, culture, religion”, from haka tere “to lead,
rule, govern”.
All these examples concern lexical nominalisation. The use of the nominalising suffix
in syntactic nominalisation will be discussed in section 3.2.3 below.
3.2.2.3. Cross-categorial use of borrowings

The Rapa Nui lexicon has incorporated a large number of Spanish borrowings (→
1.4.1). These are used cross-categorially with great freedom. For many Spanish
noun/verb pairs, Rapa Nui has borrowed one form, usually either the noun or the verb
in the 3rd sg. present, and this form is used as both noun and verb. Below are two
examples from the text corpus.99 In (15), rivuho, originally a noun (Sp. dibujo
“drawing”), is used as a verb; in (16), the verb agradece (Sp. agradece “gives thanks”) is
used as a noun.
(15) Ku rivuho atu ꞌā i tū ꞌavione era.
PRFdrawing away CONT ACC DEM airplane DIS
“They drew that airplane.” (R379.057)
(16) Meꞌe huru kē tōꞌona agradece ki te hau nei he rapa nui.
thing manner different POSS.3SG.O thank to ART race DIS PRED Rapa Nui
“Her gratitude for this race, the Rapa Nui, is exceptional.” (Makihara 2001a:204)
Section 3.2.2.1 showed that there are lexical restrictions and idiosyncrasies in the
cross-categorial use of Rapa Nui words. Further research could show whether similar
restrictions apply in the use of borrowings.
3.2.3. Syntactic nominalisation

Syntactic nominalisation refers to constructions in which a lexical verb enters into a
construction which has “some of the formal trappings of a noun phrase” (Clark
1981:65). As discussed in sec. 3.2.1.1, no change in meaning is involved; the verb
retains its verbal sense, while the phrase may retain VP characteristics. In Rapa Nui,
the minimal criterion for nominalisation is that the verb is preceded by a determiner.
This is usually the article te, occasionally a demonstrative, but it may also be the
nominal predicate marker he: see the discussion of (23) below.100
Just like lexical nominalisation, syntactic nominalisation occurs without and with a
nominalising suffix. In the first case (zero nominalisation), the nominalised form is
identical to the verb itself. For suffixed forms, the suffix is usually iŋa or haŋa,
occasionally eŋa, aŋa or oŋa; the form of the suffix is discussed in section 3.2.3.2.
99
See also Makihara (2001a), who gives many examples from a corpus of spoken texts.
100
Pace Moyse-Faurie (2011:136): “In Polynesian languages, only the specific article may
nominalise a verb phrase”.
In section 3.2.3.1 the use of both types of nominalisations is discussed. In 3.2.3.3, the
nominalised phrase is examined in further detail, showing that this phrase retains
certain verbal characteristics.
3.2.3.1. Uses of zero and suffixed nominalisation

The choice between zero and suffixed nominalisation depends to a large extent on the
syntactic context. Generally speaking, zero nominalisations are used in more verbal
contexts, while suffixed forms are used in more nominal contexts. However, there is no
clear watershed between the two sets of contexts: in certain environments either one
can be used. The difference between the two can be formulated as follows: zero
nominalisation presents the event as an event, i.e. as something which has a temporal
duration, and which may be progressive or habitual. Suffixed nominalisation noun
presents the event as an object, i.e. as a bounded entity, seen as a whole.101 Often it
refers to one particular occasion when the event took place, or to a set of such
occasions. By contrast, zero forms may refer to potential occurrences. Broadly
speaking, suffixed nominalisation are realis, while zero nominalisations may be
irrealis.102
The event/object distinction goes a long way towards explaining the distribution of
both items. The different syntactic contexts will be listed and illustrated below, but
here are some general observations. Zero nominalisations are commonly used as main
clause predicate, a typical verbal context. Aspectual verbs like haꞌamata “begin” refer
to the temporal structure of an event, so it is not surprising that they take a zero
nominalisation as complement. By contrast, in typical nominal positions (subject,
possessor...) suffixed forms are more common.
When the event is negated (an irrealis context), zero nominalisations are common,
while suffixed forms are extremely rare.
(17) ꞌI te taꞌe hakaroŋo, he ŋaro rō atu ꞌai.
at ART not listen NTR lost EMPH away SUBS
“Because (the sheep) did not listen, it got lost.” (R490.005)
When the event is modified by a numeral (i.e. is countable), a verbal noun is used:
(18) He takeꞌa mai ka teka e rua haka teka iŋa ꞌi muri o te motu.
NTR see hither CNTG revolve NUM two CAUS revolve NMLZ at near of ART islet
“I saw (the bird) making two rounds near the islet.” (R338.014)
Not all distributional facts are easily explained, though. Certain constructions take a
suffixed nominalisation, even though they denote an event with temporal duration
101
Clark (1981:79) makes a similar distinction, when he suggests “the hypothesis that unsuffixed
nominalizations denote activities or processes ... whereas suffixed nominalisations denote events,
which can be enumerated and located in time”.
102
Realis, as defined by Payne (1997:244), asserts that an event has actually happened; the
irrealis mode does not assert that the event actually happened, nor that it did not happen (→
11.5.2).
(e.g. the ko te V construction in (24)–(25) below). On the other hand, a reason clause
may refer to one particular instance, yet contain a zero nominalisation (see (29)).
We may conclude that the choice between the two forms is partly based on semantics,
partly conventionalised (certain constructions always or usually take one form), and
partly free.
Regardless the syntactic position of the phrase, suffixed forms are used when the word
refers to the place, time103 or manner of the event, as the following examples show:
(19) Tōꞌona noho haŋa ꞌi Ahu te Peu.
POSS.3SG.O stay NMLZ at Ahu te Peu
“He lived (lit. his living) in Ahu te Peu.” (R233.002)
(20) Kai ŋaro i a au mai tōꞌoku ꞌitiꞌiti
- iŋa ꞌā
NEG.PFV forgotten at PROP 1SG from POSS.1SG.O small:RED NMLZ IDENT
ki te hora nei.
to ART time PROX
“I have not forgotten it from my childhood (lit. smallness) until now.”
(R416.936)
(21) Pē nei te aŋa haŋa o te rāꞌau nei.

like PROX ART make NMLZ of ART medicine PROX
“This is how you make (lit. the making of) this medicine.” (R313.159)
In the remainder of this section, the different contexts in which the two
nominalisations are used, are listed and illustrated.
1. A number of constructions involve a main clause which is nominalised, even
though they express an event. In most of these, zero nominalisation is used.
1a. A very common construction is the actor-emphatic, in which an Agent is preposed
as a possessive pronoun or phrase (→ 8.6.3). In one actor-emphatic construction (there
are three in Rapa Nui), the verb is nominalised (i.e. preceded by the article).
(22) ꞌĀꞌana te kai i te meꞌe ririva
- taꞌatoꞌa.
POSS.3SG.A ART eat ACC ART thing good:RED all
“He (was the one who) ate all the best things.” (R532-01.011)
1b. Much less common is the ko S te V construction: a topicalised subject followed by a

zero nominalisation (→ (89)–(90) on p. 393).
1c. Another common construction is he V te aŋa, which indicates an habitual action,
event or attitude. This construction involves two nominalised verbs: aŋa “to do” is
nominalised and serves as the subject of the clause; the other verb serves as nominal
predicate. An example:
103
The temporal sense is found with “stage words” (see Broschart 1997:148): certain adjectives
like ꞌitiꞌiti “small”, and the noun poki “child”: poki iŋa “childhood”. In the corpus, poki is the only
-
noun taking the nominaliser.

(23) ꞌI rā noho iŋa he tuꞌu nō mai te aŋa o te nuꞌu paꞌari

at DIS stay NMLZ PRED arrive just hither ART do of ART people adult
ki tōꞌoku koro uꞌi.
to POSS.1SG.O Dad look
“At that time the old people always came to see my father.” (R649.101)
As he is both a nominal predicate marker and an aspect marker, it may not be

immediately obvious that he tuꞌu is nominalised. However, the further contents of the
clause show that this is the case: the subject of the clause is te aŋa, which is not an
argument of tuꞌu. Conversely, the Agent of tuꞌu is not expressed as subject of the clause,
but as a genitive phrase after aŋa. (Another indication that the verb in this
construction is nominalised is, that its object may be incorporated; → (125) on p. 250.)
1d. The construction Ko te + verb signifies that an action or situation is ongoing or
persisting. In most cases a suffixed nominalisation is used, followed by the identity
particle ꞌana/ꞌā, as in (24). Sometimes the identity particle is left out, in which case a
zero nominalisation may be used, as in (25).
(24) Ko te ai iŋa ꞌana te kona mai ira e punua ena te naonao.
-
PROM ART exist NMLZ CONT ART place from PRO IPFV hatch MED ART mosquito
“There are still places from where the mosquito breeds.” (R535.054)
(25) Ko te kimi ko te ohu a nua.
PROM ARTsearch PROM ART shout PROP Mum
“Mum kept searching and shouting.” (R236.082)
1e. Occasionally verbs are nominalised in main clauses in other cases. With haŋa
“want” and kī “say”, this is not uncommon (cf. 9.2.6).104 Notice that their S/A
argument105 is expressed as a possessive.
(26) Te haŋa era o Malo mo ai ko Hepu mo rē.
ARTwant DIS of Malo for exist PROM Hepu for win
“Malo wants (lit. “Malo’s wish”) Hepu to win.” (R408.064)
(27) Tāꞌana kī: taꞌe tātou hokotahi nō.
POSS.3SG.A say NEG.CONS 1PL.INC alone just
“What she said, was: we are not alone.” (R649.191)
1f. Finally, a construction with nominalised verb is sometimes used to express reasons
(→ (258)–(259) on p. 545).
104
Interestingly, in Maori there is also a tendency to express “wish”-type predicates nominally,
followed by a purpose clause (Bauer 1993:459).
105
Following Comrie (1978), the following terms are used in this grammar to refer to verb
arguments without specifying a semantic role: S = the single argument of an intransitive verb; A
= the most agentive argument of a transitive verb (typically an Agent or Experiencer); O = the
least agentive argument of a transitive verb (typically a Patient or Theme).
2. In subordinate clauses, either suffixed or zero nominalisations are used, depending

on the type of clause:
2a. In causal clauses, after the preposition ꞌo, nominalised verbs are common (→
4.7.2.2):
(28) Ko koa rivariva ꞌana te
- ŋā poki ꞌo te turu hakaꞌou
PRF happy good:RED CONT ART PL child because_of ART go_down again
o rāua ki te hāpī.
of 3PL to ART learn
“The children are really happy because they go back to school.” (R334.128)
2b. The preposition ꞌi followed by a verb has various usages. It may indicate a reason,
in which case it is followed by either a zero or a suffixed nominalisation; the latter is
more common.
(29) Ku mate atu ꞌā a au ꞌi te kata ꞌi tū haka paka era
PRF die away CONT PROP 1SG at ART laugh at DEM CAUS conspicuous DIS
i a ia.
ACC PROP 3SG
“I laughed my head off (lit. died with laughing) because of his boasting.”
(R230.172)
(30) Ko haꞌumani ꞌana ꞌi te kai iŋa nō i te moa.

PRF fed_up at ART eat NMLZ just ACC ART chicken
CONT
“He was fed up with eating only chicken.” (R617.202)
ꞌi is also used in a temporal sense; in that case the clause usually has a suffixed
nominalisation:
(31) ꞌI te tuꞌu iŋa hakaꞌou mai era mai Hiva...
at ART arrive NMLZ again hither DIS from mainland
“When he returned (lit. in the returning) again from the mainland....”
(R487.021)
2c. In temporal clauses introduced by ki or ꞌātā ki “until”, suffixed forms are used:
(32) E tiaki rō atu ki tuꞌu topa haŋa atu.
IPFVwait EMPH away to POSS.2SG.O descend NMLZ away
“I will wait until you come down.” (R230.047)
However, ante ki “before” is followed by a zero nominalisation – possibly because its
sense is more irrealis than ꞌātā ki.
(33) ante ki te uru ki roto
before to ART enter to inside
“before she went inside” (R181.005)
2d. Occasionally in circumstantial clauses, after koia ko, a zero nominalisation is used;
more commonly, however, koia ko is followed by a verb (→ 8.10.4.2).
2e. Purpose clauses, introduced by mo “in order to”, usually have a (non-nominalised)
verb (→ 11.5.1). Interestingly, occasionally they have a suffixed nominalisation
directly following mo. This is the only construction in which a suffixed form is not
preceded by a determiner:
(34) ꞌIna he māꞌeha mo uꞌi iŋa i te kai.
NEG PRED light
for see NMLZ ACC ART food
“There was no light to see the food.” (R352.070)
3. In nominal positions in general, suffixed forms are much more common than zero
nominalisations.
3a. Suffixed nominalisations may be the subject of verbal or nominal clauses:
(35) He riva nō te hī iŋa ki te nuꞌu o muꞌa ꞌana i te siera.
PRED good just ART fish.V NMLZ for ART people of before IDENT ACC ART sawfish
“For the people of the past, fishing for sawfish was something nice.”
(R364.019)
(36) I haꞌamata ai te noho iŋa ꞌi ira mai te matahiti toru ꞌahuru mā pae.
PRF begin PVP ART stay NMLZ at PRO from ART year three ten plus five
“His living there started in the year ‘35.” (R539-1.492)
For more examples, see (19)–(21) above.

However, the subject may also be a zero nominalisation. This tends to happen when
the verb refers to a potential or general situation, rather than an event which happens
at a specific time:
(37) ꞌO ira te oho tai e oho hai mahana rivariva. -
because_of PRO ART go sea IPFV go good:RED

INST day
“Therefore, going to sea is done on beautiful days.” (R354.016)
Notice however, that (35) does not refer to a specific instance either, yet it involves a
suffixed form.
These examples suggest that there is a certain freedom in the use of both forms.
3b. In direct object position, zero nominalisations are common with two classes of
verbs: aspectual verbs and certain cognitive verbs.
— Aspectual verbs include oti “to finish”, haꞌamata “to begin” and hōrou “to hurry, do
in a haste”, as well as a few less common verbs like haka mao “to terminate”. They
may take a nominalised verb as complement, which may or may not be introduced by
the object marker i (→ 11.3.2).
(38) I oti era i te hakaroŋo e Kāiŋa...
PFV finish DIS ACC ART listen Kainga AG
“When Kainga had finished listening...” (R304.011)
(39) He haꞌamata rō ꞌai te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa te aŋa.
NTR begin thing all
EMPH SUBS ART ART do
“All the things began to be done.” (R378.022)
Aspectual verbs are not always constructed with a nominalised verb, however. For
more details, see section 11.3.2.
— Cognitive verbs include, among others, ꞌite “to know”, hāpī “to learn” and māhani
“to be or get used to”. These often take a zero nominalisation when the content of
knowledge is a skill, a “how to”:
(40) ¿Kai ꞌite ꞌō koe i te tatau i te ū?
NEG.PFVknow really 2SG ACC ART squeeze ACC ART milk
“Don’t you know how to milk cows?” (R245.184)
(41) Ki oti he hāpī mai i te pāpaꞌi ꞌi te mākini.
when finish NTR learn hither ACC ART write at ART machine
“After that, we learned typing.” (R206.008)
However, a suffixed form may also be used, possibly indicating the manner of
performing an activity:
(42) Mo hāpī rivariva ōꞌou - i te pāpaꞌi haŋa o te ŋā meꞌe nei...
for learn good:RED POSS.2SG.O ACC ART write of ART PL thing PROX NMLZ
“In order for you to learn well the (way of) writing these things...” (R617.003)
With complements of other verbs, for example verbs of perception and speech, suffixed
forms are much more common:
(43) E ŋaroꞌa nō ꞌā e au te hetu iŋa o tuꞌu māhatu.
IPFV perceive just CONT AG 1SG ART strike NMLZ of POSS.2SG.O heart
“I hear the beating of your heart.” (R505.015)
(44) He vānaŋa tahi i te mate eŋa era o tū poki era.
NTR speak all ACC ART die
of DEM child DIS
NMLZ DIS
“He told all about the death of that child.” (R102.105)
3c. In genitive position, suffixed nominalisations are often used:

(45) E ai rō ꞌana e rua huru o te uꞌi iŋa o te taŋata.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM two manner of ART look NMLZ of ART man
“There are two ways in which people see it (lit. two ways of seeing).”
(R648.218)
Zero nominalisations also occur in this position, especially after time nouns:
(46) Ka rua matahiti o te poreko o Puakiva...
CNTG two year of ART born of Puakiva
“Two years after Puakiva’s birth...” (R229.007)
One might expect a suffixed form here, as the birth is a one-time event which has
happened; yet zero forms are more common when modifying a time noun.
3d. Suffixed nominalisations are found after most prepositions: mai “from”, hai
“with”, pē “like”, ki “to” (often temporal “until”, see above), and after locationals. Two
examples:
(47) Mai tai nei, mai te hopu iŋa mātou ko kuā Tonere.
from sea PROX from ART bathe NMLZ 1PL.EXC PROM COLL Tonere
“We are coming from the shore, from swimming with Tonere.” (R245.084)
(48) He hati te vaꞌe pa he hati iŋa era ꞌā o tōꞌoku vaꞌe.
NTR break ART foot like PRED break NMLZ DIS IDENT of POSS.1SG.O foot
“He broke his leg, like I broke my leg (lit. like the breaking of my leg).”
(R492.021)
3e. With the nominal predicate marker he, suffixed nominalisations are used (except
in the construction he V te aŋa, see 1c above, ex. (23)). This happens for example in
titles as in (49), in existential clauses, and in classifying clauses as in (50).
(49) He tuꞌu iŋa mai o Hotu Matuꞌa
PRED arrive NMLZ hither of Hotu Matu’a
“The arrival of Hotu Matu’a” (title of a story) (R369.000)
(50) Te meꞌe nehenehe o te
- aŋa nei... he aŋa iŋa o te hiꞌo.
ARTthing beautiful of ART work PROX PRED make NoM of ART glass
“The beautiful thing of this work was the making of the glass.” (R360.038)
3.2.3.2. The form of the nominalising suffix

As indicated above, there are various forms of the nominalising suffix: haŋa, iŋa, eŋa,
oŋa, –ŋa.106 In older texts, both haŋa (86x) and –ŋa (132x) are common, while iŋa (9x)
and aŋa (3x) occur sporadically. In newer texts, haŋa still occurs (255x), but iŋa is now
the predominant form (914x). –ŋa has become very rare (12x), but other forms have
developed: besides aŋa (9x), eŋa (25x) and oŋa (14x) are found. The latter two are the
result of vowel assimilation: oŋa occurs after noho “to stay” and oho “to go”, while eŋa
occurs after various verbs ending in –e and –o; in the first case eŋa is the result of total
assimilation, in the second case it results from vowel height assimilation: noho iŋa >
noho eŋa.
The predominant forms, then, are haŋa and –ŋa107 in older Rapa Nui, and haŋa and iŋa
in modern Rapa Nui. The question is, if there is a distinction between the two forms in
each stage.
106
The forms –(C)aŋa and –ŋa occur throughout the Polynesian languages. Originally, the initial
consonant in –Caŋa was lexically determined; this is still the case in languages like Maori (Bauer
1993:512) and Samoan (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992:194). In other languages, the paradigm was
simplified, as in Tahitian, where only –raꞌa (< *raŋa) was retained. In Rapa Nui the situation is
more complicated, as this section shows.
107
One could ask whether forms like nohoŋa in older texts actually contain a long vowel (nohōŋa)
or even a disyllabic double vowel (noho oŋa). The former is theoretically possible: long vowels
are poorly represented in older texts, and in other languages (e.g. Samoan), the vowel before –ŋa
may be lengthened as well. Notice, however, that Rapa Nui has an absolute constraint against
long vowels in penultimate syllables (→ 2.3.2). Concerning the possibility of noho oŋa underlying
nohoŋa, there is no positive evidence for this; on the contrary, the occurrence of *–ŋa in many
In older Rapa Nui, haŋa has a wide range of uses, corresponding to the uses of
suffixed nominalisations described in the previous section. –ŋa often has a more
nominal and sometimes lexicalised sense: ohoŋa “go NMLZ = trip”; nohoŋa “stay NMLZ
= epoch”. The –ŋa form may refer to an object related to the event: toeŋa “remain
NMLZ = leftovers”; hatuŋa “weave NMLZ = roofing”; moeŋa “lie NMLZ = mat”.
However, the distinction between haŋa and –ŋa is by no means clear-cut. On the one
hand, haŋa forms are used with nominal senses, especially in the sense of place,
manner and time (→ (19)–(21) above): noho haŋa means “epoch”, just like nohoŋa;
ꞌitiꞌiti haŋa “small NMLZ = infanthood”; piko haŋa “hide NMLZ = hiding place”. On the
-
other hand, –ŋa forms may be used with a verbal sense, just like haŋa forms:
(51) Ki roaroa
- te mimiroŋa, he vīviri te
- henua.
when long:RED ART spin:NMLZ NTR roll ART land
“When he has turned around for a while (lit. “when the spinning is long”), he
will get dizzy (lit. the land rolls).” (Ley-8-52.013)
In modern Rapa Nui, the distinction between different nominalisers is even harder to
pinpoint. haŋa (255x) is less common than iŋa (914x), but occurs in a wide variety of
texts, in a wide variety of uses, and with no less than 82 different verbs. To give two
examples:
— Both topa iŋa o te raꞌā and topa haŋa o te raꞌā (“descend NMLZ of the sun”) are used
in the sense “sunset” or “the place where the sun sets, the west”.
— Both noho iŋa and noho haŋa occur in the sense “epoch, period”.
More generally, both suffixes occur in nominalisations used as subject, object, genitive,
after prepositions, and in time clauses introduced by ꞌi. The only construction in which
haŋa never occurs, is the predicate construction ko te V (see (24)–(25) above). Speaker
preference may play a role: it is telling that the Bible translation consistently uses iŋa,
almost never haŋa. Apart from this, I have not been able to find a distinction between
the two.
3.2.3.3. The nominalised phrase

In 3.2.1.1 it was pointed out that verbs preceded by a determiner may still be
accompanied by certain verb phrase elements, as well as certain noun phrase elements.
The noun phrase is discussed in detail in chapter 5, the verb phrase in chapter 6. This
section is limited to a brief listing of elements occurring with nominalised verbs, which
shows the hybrid character of nominalised verb phrases.
Some VP elements never occur with nominalised verbs: aspectual and modal markers,
the intensifier rō, and the VP-final particle ai or ꞌai. However, other elements do occur:
other Polynesian languages and the rarity of Vŋa in older Rapa Nui texts suggest that –ŋa is an
original form while –Vŋa is a recent development, even though the occurrence of –iŋa/-aŋa in
some languages could be taken as evidence to the contrary. A possible scenario is, that a form
like uꞌiŋa “look NMLZ” developed into uꞌi iŋa; the form iŋa was then generalised to verbs not
ending in i, supplanting –ŋa.
— Nominalised verbs may be followed by an adverb (→ 4.5.1) like hakaꞌou “again” or

takoꞌa “also”. Notice that hakaꞌou and takoꞌa may also occur in the noun phrase (→
5.9.1). With suffixed nominalisations, hakaꞌou and takoꞌa occur after the nominalising
suffix.
The adverbs tahi “all” and koraꞌiti “slowly” – which do not occur in the noun phrase –
both occur once in the corpus with a nominaliser; interestingly, they precede the
suffix:
(52) Ko te turu koraꞌiti iŋa ꞌā te vai.
PROM ART go_down slowly NMLZ IDENT ART water
“The water went slowly down.” (Gen. 8:5)
— Both nominalised verbs and verbal nouns may be followed by a directional mai or
atu (→ 7.5):
(53) Ko rivariva ꞌana tōꞌona
- rere iŋa mai.
PRF good:RED CONT POSS.3SG.O jump NMLZ hither
“His jump(ing) was good.” (R408.022)
— Nominalised verbs may take the constituent negator taꞌe (→ 10.5.6):108

(54) ꞌI te taꞌe hakaroŋo, he ŋaro rō atu ꞌai.
at ART NEG.CONS listen NTR lost
away SUBS
EMPH
“Because (the sheep) did not listen, it got lost.” (R490.005)
taꞌe hardly ever goes together with a verbal noun, possibly because the realis character
of the verbal noun precludes its use with a negation.
— The limitative particle nō “just, still” (→ 7.4.1) occurs with nominalised verbs and
verbal nouns (see (30) above).
Certain particles occur in both noun phrase and verb phrase:

— The demonstrative particles nei, ena and era. In the verb phrase, they co-occur with
certain aspectual markers (→ 7.6); in the noun phrase, they co-occur with any
determiner (→ 4.6.3). They do not occur with nominalised verbs, but they do occur
with verbal nouns, for example in (48), here repeated:
(48) He hati te vaꞌe pa he hati iŋa era ꞌā o tōꞌoku vaꞌe.
NTR break ART foot like PRED break NMLZ DIS IDENT of POSS.1SG.O foot
“He broke his leg, like I broke my leg (lit. like the breaking of my leg).”
(R492.021)
— The marker ꞌā/ꞌana occurs in the verb phrase as a continuous marker, co-occurring
with certain aspectual markers (→ 7.2.5.5); in the noun phrase it serves as an identity
marker (→ 5.10). It occurs with verbal nouns, as illustrated in (48) above. In this
context, where a comparison is involved, ꞌā is clearly an identity marker.
108
taꞌe does not occur within the noun phrase; when it modifies a noun, it occurs before the
predicate marker he.
Nominalised verbs and verbal nouns may also be accompanied by noun phrase
particles. They may be preceded by any kind of determiner: the article te,
demonstratives like tū as in (29) above, possessive pronouns as in (27), and the
predicate marker he as in (48). Verbal nouns tend to denote single instances of an
event, so they may be countable: they can be modified by a numeral (see (18)), or by
quantifiers like taꞌatoꞌa “all”. The corpus does not contain examples of the plural
marker ŋā with verbal nouns, but this may be accidental.
In conclusion, both nominalised verbs and verbal nouns retain a partly verbal
character in their phrase. Verbal nouns are more nominal than nominalised verbs, as
they allow quantifying elements but do not allow negation.
3.2.4. Nouns used as verbs

Any noun (i.e. entity word) can be used as the nucleus of a verb phrase. Usually, the
noun is used in a predicative sense: a verb phrase headed by noun N signifies that the
subject is or becomes N; it possesses or acquires property N. These constructions are
somewhat similar to nominal predicates marked with he (→ 9.2.1), yet they are
different: the noun may be preceded by any preverbal marker, e.g. an aspectual as in
(55) or a negator as in (56), and it may be followed by verb phrase particles such as rō
ꞌā in (55). Also, the clause may express a process (“become”), while nominal predicates
only express a state (“be”).
(55) ꞌAi te nunui o te
- paꞌahia e toto rō ꞌā e viri era.
there ART PL:big of ART sweat blood EMPH CONT IPFV roll DIS
IPFV
“Big drops of sweat became blood and fell down.” (Luke 22:44)
(56) Kai oromatuꞌa hia i oho rō mai era ki nei.
NEG.PFV priest yet PFV go EMPH hither DIS to PROX
“When he had not yet become a priest, he came here.” (R423.004)
Very occasionally, the noun does not indicate “be/become N”, but a typical action
associated with N:
(57) ...i eꞌa mai ai e tahi rūꞌau e tokotoko rō
- ꞌana.
PFV go_out hither PVP NUM one old_woman IPFV cane EMPH CONT
“...an old woman appeared leaning on a cane.” (R437.079)
Nouns in a verb phrase are in fact rare in texts, with the exception of time nouns. The
latter are commonly used as verbs, usually expressing that a period of time passes.
(58) Ko tāpati ꞌā i tuꞌu iho atu ai.
PRFweek CONT PFV arrive just_then away PVP
“When a week had passed, he arrived.” (R416.515)
3.2.5. Nominal drift

In 3.2.3.1 sub 1 above (examples (22)–(27)), a number of constructions are listed in
which a verb is nominalised, even though they are main clauses expressing an event:
the actor-emphatic construction, ko te + verb, et cetera. Sub 2 of the same section
(ex. (28)–(34)) lists a number of nominalised subordinate constructions, e.g. ꞌo te +

verb to indicate cause or reason. (As shown in 11.6.4 sub 3, various other nominal
constructions are used as well to express reason.)
These examples illustrate a tendency in Rapa Nui to maximise the nominal domain.
This tendency reveals itself in a number of other areas as well:
— Nominal rather than verbal complements. Motion verbs may be followed by a
nominal Goal complement as in (59), even though the goal is semantically an event (→
11.6.3). As the example shows, the event may be expressed by a verb following the
nominal complement. Likewise, perception verbs may be followed by a nominal object
+ a verbal clause, as in (60) (→ 11.3.1.2).
(59) He iri ararua ki te rāua hoi ꞌaꞌaru mai.
NTR ascend the_two to ART 3PL horse grab hither
“Both of them went to grab their horse.” (R170.002)
(60) He takeꞌa i a Hoto Vari ka pū mai.
NTR see Hoto Vari CNTG approach hither
ACC PROP
“He saw Hoto Vari approaching.” (R304.004)
— In a peculiar case of compounding, an event is expressed by a verb attached as

modifier to one of its arguments; the argument is syntactically the head of the
construction (→ 5.8.2.3):
(61) ꞌI tōꞌona mahana he ai mai te aŋa he ꞌāua titi,
at POSS.3SG.O day NTR exist hither ART work PRED enclosure build
ꞌo he rau kato.
or PRED leaf pick
“On certain days there were jobs like making fences or picking leaves.”
(R380.084)
— In a number of constructions, verbal arguments – especially S and A – may be

expressed as possessives, even when the verb is not nominalised. This is the default
way to express the S/A argument in clauses introduced by mo as in (62) (→ 11.5.1.2);
it commonly happens in relative clauses as in (63) (→ 11.4.4); and under certain
conditions it happens in main clauses as in (64) (→ 8.6.4.1).
(62) Mo haŋa ōꞌou mo ꞌite a hē a au e ŋaro nei...
if want POSS.2SG.O for know by CQ PROP 1SG IPFV disappear PROX
“If you want to know where I disappear (then come with me).” (R212.010)
(63) ¿He aha te kōrua meꞌe [i aŋa ꞌi ꞌApina]?
NTR what ART 2PL thing PFV do at Apina
“What did you do (lit. what [is] your thing did) in Apina?” (R301.197)
(64) He kī o tū rūꞌau era...
NTR say of DEM old_woman DIS
“The old woman said...” (R313.171)
3.3. Nouns
3.3.1. Classification of nouns

Apart from locationals (→ 3.6), there are two main types of nouns in Rapa Nui:
common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns, such as hare “house” or poki
“child”, designate a class of entities characterised by certain properties; they can be
used as nominal predicates, and it is only within a referential noun phrase that they
acquire reference to one or more entities. Proper nouns, such as Tiare “Tiare” and koro
“Dad”, are inherently referential; they are not used as predicates and have unique
reference in a given context.
These classes impose different constraints on the noun phrase of which they are the
head. The most important differences are:
1. Common nouns are in most contexts obligatorily preceded by a determiner,
proper nouns are not.
2. Common nouns may be modified by various elements which are incompatible
with proper nouns: quantifiers, adjectives, plural markers and relative clauses.
(See the structure of common NPs in sec. 5.1 and the structure of proper NPs
in 5.14.1.)
3. Proper nouns are in many contexts preceded by the proper article a (→
5.14.2.1).
4. Though both common and proper noun phrases may be preceded by the
particle ko, proper nouns have ko in a wider range of contexts (→ 4.7.11).
Prototypical common nouns denote classes of concrete, bounded entities, for example
persons (taŋata) and objects (hare “house”, toki “adze”). Prototypical proper nouns are
names of persons. The precise extent of each category can be deduced from the
syntactic behaviour of nouns, with (1) and (3) above as main criteria: nouns preceded
by the proper article a are proper nouns; nouns preceded by determiners like the
article te are common nouns. This will be explored in the next section.
Both common and proper nouns function as head of a noun phrase. The structure of
the common noun phrase is discussed in section 5.1 and following; the structure of the
proper noun phrase is briefly discussed in 5.14.
Within the class of common nouns, we may distinguish countable and non-countable
nouns. Non-countable nouns include mass nouns like toto “blood” and ꞌōꞌone “earth,
soil”, and abstract nouns like haŋa “love” and mamae “pain”. There is no
morphological or syntactic difference between countable and non-countable nouns in
Rapa Nui, except that the latter cannot be combined with noun phrase elements
related to quantification: plural markers, numerals and universal quantifiers.
A third group of nouns is the class of locationals, which are preceded neither by
determiners nor by the proper article. This class contains a small group of locational
terms like muꞌa “front”, as well as deictic terms like nei “here, nearby”. Locationals are
discussed in section 3.5.
Geographical names mostly pattern with locationals, but in some situations they
behave like proper nouns (→ 3.3.2).
The properties of the different types of nouns are summarised in the following table.
Table 12: Types of nouns

open determiners proper adjectives quantifying other
class article elements modifiers
common nouns:
count nouns x x x x x
mass nouns x x x x
proper nouns x x x
locationals x
3.3.2. Proper nouns

The class of proper nouns contains those items which are – in the appropriate contexts
– preceded by the proper article a. This includes the following categories:
1. Proper names of persons:

(65) He oho a Hotu ki te hare.
NTR go Hotu to ART house
PROP
“Hotu went home.” (R273.003)
(66) He uꞌi i a Vaha.
NTR look ACC PROP Vaha
“He saw Vaha.” (Mtx-3-01.144)
Geographical names do not take the proper article, whether they designate countries
or islands, towns, mountains or any other geographical entity. Nor do they take the
common noun article te:
(67) He hoki rāua ki Rapa Nui.
NTR return 3PL to Rapa Nui
“They returned to Rapa Nui.” (Notes)
(68) Te kona noho ꞌi tuꞌa, ꞌi Pōike ꞌi roto i te ꞌana.
ART place stay
at back at Poike at inside at ART cave
“They lived back in Poike in a cave.” (Ley-5-26b.003)
This characteristic distinguishes geographical names from both common and proper
nouns, and includes them with locationals (→ 3.5). There are some exceptions though:
a. Tire “Chile” is the only geographical name which always takes the personal name in
the appropriate contexts.
(69) Ararua nō pāꞌeŋa e tuꞌu mai era, mai Tahiti ꞌe mai i a Tire.
the_two just side arrive hither DIS from Tahiti and from at PROP Chile
IPFV
“Both sides arrived, from Tahiti and from Chile.” (R539-2.221)
b. Other geographical names may take the proper article when topicalised (personal
names and pronouns would also take a in this context):
(70) A Rapa Nui he henua ꞌitiꞌiti - e tahi...
PROP Rapa Nui PRED land small:RED NUM one
“Rapa Nui is a small island...” (R351.001)
c. The proper article is used before geographical names used metonymically for their
inhabitants. In this case, the presence of a shows that the geographical name has been
transformed into a personal name:
(71) He aŋa a Rapa Nui i to rāua riu tuai.
NTR make PROP Rapa Nui ACC ART:of 3PLsong ancient
“(The people of) Rapa Nui made their old songs.” (R620.013)
2. Personal pronouns:
(72) He turu a ia ki tai.
NTR go_down PROP 3SG to sea
“He went down to the sea.” (Notes)
(73) ꞌI rā hare a mātou e noho ena.
at DIS house PROP 1PL.EXC IPFV stay MED
“In that house we lived.” (R416.961)
3. Certain kinship terms. The proper article is especially common with koro “father,
older man” and nua “mother, older woman”. These words are used in the same way as
“Dad” and “Mum” in English: like personal names, they have a unique referent in the
context, and therefore do not need a determiner.
(74) He kī a koro ki a nua...
NTRsay PROP Dad to PROP Mum
“Dad said to Mum...” (R333.303)
By contrast, matuꞌa “parent” is a common noun. It does not have a unique referent; in
order to refer to a particular parent, its reference must be defined, e.g. by a possessive
pronoun:
(75) He kī ia a Tiare ki tōꞌona matuꞌa vahine era...
NTR say then PROP Tiare to POSS.3SG.O parent female DIS
“Then Tiare said to her mother...” (R481.137)
4. Certain general terms referring to people. The word māhaki “friend” (which has a
certain compassionate connotation: “poor one”) usually takes the proper article:
(76) Ka turu kōrua, ka uꞌi i a māhaki.
IMP go_down 2PL look ACC PROP companion
IMP
“Go down to have a look at (our) friend.” (Ley-2-05.011)
The same applies to a few similar, but less common words: vērā “that poor one”, ꞌeꞌete
“so-and-so”, taureka “that guy”.
5. Nouns preceded by the collective marker kuā/koā (→ 5.2).

(77) He oho a kuā koro he hāꞌuru.
NTR go PROP COLL Dad NTR sleep:PL
“Father and the others went and slept.” (R160.039)
kuā is usually followed by a proper name or another word from the categories
mentioned above, but even when followed by a common noun, it may be preceded by
the proper article. In the following example, korohuꞌa is preceded by the plural marker
ŋā, something which only happens with common nouns. Even so, kuā is preceded by
the proper article.
(78) ꞌO ira a koā ŋā korohuꞌa e maꞌu hiohio
- era
because_of PRO PROP COLL PL old_man IPFV carry strong:RED DIS
i te hahaꞌu iŋa o te pātia.
ACC ART tie NMLZ of ART harpoon
“Therefore the old people tied the cable of their harpoons well.” (R360.020)
6. Names of months always take the proper article, regardless which names are used:
the old Rapa Nui names as in (79), the modern English-based names as in (80), or
Spanish names as in (81):
(79) E tiaki ꞌātā ki a Hora Nui.
EXH wait until to PROP September
“You must wait until September.” (R647.238)
(80) ꞌI a Noema o nei matahiti ꞌā i hoki hakaꞌou ai ki nei henua.
at PROP November of PROX year return again
to PROX land
IDENT PFV PVP
“In November of this same year he returned again to this island.” (R343.016)
(81) Ki oti te Tāpati nei he piri tātou ꞌi a marzo.
when finish ART Tapati PROX NTR join 1PL.INC at PROP March
“When the Tapati (= festival week) is finished we are close to March.”
(R625.131)
7. The word hora “summer”:

(82) ¿Pē hē a kōrua i noho ai ꞌi a hora?
like CQ PROP 2PL at PROP summer
PFV stay PVP
“How were you during summer?” (R334.051)
NB hora “time”, a different lexeme, is a common noun. toŋa “winter” is also a common
noun.
8. Definite numerals like a totoru “the three”. These are always preceded by the
proper article (→ 4.3.4). Unlike all other elements that take the proper article, they
cannot occur after prepositions.
The use of the proper article a is limited to certain syntactic contexts. This is discussed
in section 5.14.2.1.
3.4. Verbs
3.4.1. Classification of verbs

As discussed in section 3.2.1.2, a prototypical verb is a word which denotes an event,
functions as clause predicate and is the head of a verb phrase. Verb phrases will be
discussed in chapter 7, verbal clauses in chapter 8. This section will be limited to a
brief discussion of verb types.
Verbs may have zero, one, two or three arguments. Zero-argument verbs are, for
example, words indicating a moment in time or the passage of time.109 ꞌōtea “to dawn”
in (83) and ahiahi “to be evening” in (84) do not have a subject or any other argument,
whether overt or implied. The bracketed clause consists of a predicate only.
(83) [I ꞌōtea era] he turu he oho a Kava...
PFV dawn DIS NTR go_down NTR go PROP Kava
“When it dawned, Kava went down...” (R229.198)
(84) [He ahiahi], he maꞌoa te
- ꞌumu.
NTR afternoon NTR open ART earth_oven
“(When) it was late afternoon, they opened the earth oven.” (Mtx-7-15.030)
One-argument verbs include:

1. active intransitive verbs, i.e. verbs involving an Agent, such as oho “go”, hopu “to
bathe, swim”, piko “to hide oneself”;
2. patientive verbs, i.e. verbs involving a Patient undergoing a process, such as mate
“to die”, hiŋa “to fall”, rehu “to be forgotten”;
3. adjectives, i.e. words expressing a property, such as nuinui “(be) big”, teatea “(be)
- -
white”.
109
On zero-argument verbs, see Dryer (2007b:267). Crosslinguistically, zero-argument verbs
typically involve weather conditions (“It rains”). In Rapa Nui however, weather terms are not
zero-argument verbs: as discussed in 3.2.2.1 sub 2a, weather conditions are expressed by subject–
predicate collocations, i.e. one-argument predicates.
Two-argument verbs in Polynesian languages are often divided into two groups:
canonical transitives and so-called “middle verbs”.110 The former involve an Agent
which acts voluntarily and deliberately, and a Patient affected by the action. Examples
are kai “to eat” and tiŋaꞌi “to kill, hit”. With middle verbs, the object is not affected by
the action, and the action may be spontaneous rather than voluntary. This category
includes verbs of cognition, affection and perception: “to know”, “to love”, “to see”. As
discussed in section 8.6.4.2, in Rapa Nui the difference has consequences for the
marking of the object.
Many verbs may be either transitive or intransitive, depending on whether an object is
expressed or implied. For example, the verb kai “to eat” is transitive when a certain
(type of) food is mentioned or implied in the context: in (85) below it is transitive; in
(86) it is transitive as well, even though the object is implicit (it has been mentioned
just before); in (87) it is intransitive.111
(85) Kai haŋa a Puakiva mo kai i tū kai era.
NEG.PFVwant PROP Puakiva for eat ACC DEM food DIS
“Puakiva did not want to eat that food.” (R229.145)
(86) Mo kai ōꞌou he mate koe.
if eat POSS.2SG.O NTR die 2SG
“If you eat (the poison), you will die.” (R310.063)
(87) ¿Ko kai ꞌā koe?
PRF eat CONT 2SG
“Have you eaten?” (R245.058)
Three-argument verbs involve an Agent, a Patient, and a participant to which the

action is directed in some way; depending on the verb, this may be a Goal, Addressee,
Recipient or Beneficiary. Examples are vaꞌai “to give”, tuhaꞌa “to distribute”, hāpī “to
teach”, ꞌaꞌamu “to tell”. Usually the Patient is expressed as direct object, while the
other argument is marked with either ki or mo. This is discussed in sec. 8.8.2; one
example:
110
See e.g. Chung (1978), Hooper (1984b), Harlow (2007a). Bauer (1983) uses the term
“experience verbs”. In Chung’s description, the difference concerns the affectedness of the
patient; Pawley (1973) and Elbert & Pukui (1979) focus on the difference between deliberate and
spontaneous actions. Both classifications yield the same sets of verbs. Syntactic differences
between canonical transitives and middle verbs are language-specific: (a) in ergative languages,
they take different transitive constructions (→ 8.2.1); (b) when nominalised, they may take
different possessive markers (e.g. in Hawaiian, Elbert & Pukui 1979:48); (c) middle verbs may
take the ACC marker ki rather than i. The latter is true in Rapa Nui and Maori (Bauer 1983;
1997:267ff). In Hawaiian and Tahitian, the development k > glottal neutralizes the difference
between ki and i, as initial glottals in particles are usually not contrastive.
111
Whether a verb is transitive or intransitive may have syntactic repercussions, even when no
object is expressed. See the discussion on causativisation of transitive verbs in 8.12.3, esp.
examples (235) and (236).
(88) He vaꞌai a nua i te kai ki a koro.

NTRgive PROP Mum ACC ART food to PROP Dad
“Mum gave the food to Dad.” (R236.078)
There is one exception to this pattern: the verb hāpī “teach” may take two direct
objects; the first of these expresses the person taught, the second the content of
teaching:
(89) He hāpī i te taŋata i te pure.
NTR teach ACC ART person ACC ART pray
“He taught people to pray.” (R231.304)
Three-argument verbs also include causativisations of transitive verbs, such as haka

takeꞌa “CAUS see = to show”, haka aŋa “cause to make”, haka ꞌamo “make (someone)
carry”; these are discussed in sec. 8.12.3. One example:
(90) He haka tikeꞌa e Te Pitu ki a Uka Oho Heru i te ꞌōꞌone meamea.
-
NTR CAUS see Te Pitu to PROP Uka Oho Heru ACC ART soil
AG red:RED
“Te Pitu showed (=made see) Uka Oho Heru the red soil.” (Fel-1978.070)
3.4.2. Active, stative, intransitive

Transitive and active intransitive verbs together form the class of active verbs. These
are characterised by
1. the possibility for the subject to have the agent marker e (→ 8.3.1.2);
2. the possibility to occur in the actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3).
The remaining verbs form the class of stative verbs. This class is well-established in
Polynesian linguistics.112 Criteria for this class vary per language. In Rapa Nui, statives
are characterised only by the two criteria above: they do not occur in the actor-
emphatic and their subject cannot be marked with e. In other languages, criteria may
include the impossibility of passivisation and the impossibility to be used in the
imperative.113
Regarding the latter criterion, the incompatibility of stative verbs with the imperative
is probably semantically/pragmatically motivated: there are simply few contexts in
which it is appropriate to use a property word in a command. In Rapa Nui, the word
koa “happy” – which is otherwise a typical adjective (→ 3.5.1.4) – does occur in the
imperative:
112
The term was introduced by Buse (1965) and adopted e.g. by Hohepa (1969b), Biggs (1973),
Elbert & Pukui (1979), Chung (1978), Seiter (1980), Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992).
113
See Biggs (1973, 1974) on statives in Maori. Within this class, Biggs distinguishes between
stative adjectives and stative verbs (discussed as “neuter verbs” in Hooper 1984b); the latter are
a small class of verbs with inherently passive meaning, distinguished by the impossibility to enter
into a nominal construction. In Rapa Nui, no such distinction can be made.
(91) Ka koa mai ꞌāpī ꞌe mai nehenehe a

- koe.
IMP happy while new and while beautiful PROP 2SG
“Be happy as long as you are young and beautiful.” (R453.018)
Stative verbs in Rapa Nui are also characterised by the use of the perfect aspect ko – ꞌā
to express a present situation; however, this use also occurs with certain categories of
active verbs (→ 7.2.7.2).
Intransitive verbs are united by two features:

— they have a single argument;
— apart from this argument, an (extra) Agent may be expressed, marked with i:
(92) He mate koe i a au.
NTR die 2SG at PROP 1SG
“You will die by me = I will kill you.” (Mtx-3-01.147)
As discussed in section 8.6.4.7, this mainly happens with non-agentive verbs
(categories 2 and 3 in the previous section), but given the right context, it may also
occur with agentive intransitives (category 1).
Adjectives can be considered as a subclass of stative verbs and will be discussed in

sec. 3.5. Even though there are no clear-cut criteria to distinguish adjectives from
other verbs (especially from patientives), in section 3.5.1 it will be shown that there
are sufficient grounds to recognise adjectives as a separate subcategory.
The following table lists the different types of verbs with their features.
Table 13: Types of verbs

class examples valency S/A i-marked other actor- e-mkd. i-mkd.
ACC argument emphatic agent Agent
zero-arg. ahi-ahi “evening”, 0
ꞌōtea “dawn”
patientives mate “die”, rehu 1 x x
“be forgotten”
adjectives nui-nui “big”, 1 x x
tea-tea “white”
active oho “go”, 1 x x x x
intransitives hopu “bathe”
canonical kai “eat”, 2 x x x x
transitives tiŋaꞌi “kill”
middle haŋa “love”, 2 x x x x
verbs tiaki “wait”
three-arg. vaꞌai “give”, 3 x x x x x
verbs ꞌaꞌamu “tell”
3.5. Adjectives
Adjectives are words denoting properties. As Bhat (1994) points out, adjectives differ
from nouns in that they refer to a single property, while nouns refer to a cluster of
properties. Adjectives differ from verbs in that they denote a time-stable property,
while verbs denote a transient event.
Section 3.5.1 discusses the question whether adjectives form a separate part of speech
in Rapa Nui, and how they can be distinguished from other words, especially verbs.114
Section 3.5.2 discusses degrees of comparison, a grammatical category largely confined
to adjectives.
3.5.1. Does Rapa Nui have adjectives?

3.5.1.1. Adjectives as a prototypical category
In Polynesian languages – and in Oceanic languages in general – property words such
as “big” and “good” tend to behave like verbs; for example, they are often preceded by
an aspect marker and function as predicate of the clause. Many grammars therefore
deny that adjectives are a separate word class; rather, they are considered as verbs. On
the other hand, property words are sufficiently different from action words to be
classified as a separate subclass of verbs. As discussed in section 3.4.2 above, in Rapa
Nui – as in other Polynesian languages – a class of “stative verbs” can be distinguished;
this class includes typical adjectives such as size and colour terms, but also non-active
verbs like “die” and “be forgotten”.
The question is, whether it is possible in Rapa Nui to distinguish a subcategory of
adjectives within the stative verbs. Englert (1978:28) remarks: “Es dudoso si en el
idioma rapanui existe el adjetivo propiamente así llamado. Tal vez hay solamente
adjetivos verbales o participios.” Property words in Rapa Nui behave like verbs in most
respects. On the other hand, there are also significant differences, as will be shown in
the following sections. These differences are sufficiently far-reaching to recognise
adjectives as a separate subclass within the category of verbs. At the same time, it is
impossible to draw a sharp line between adjectives and other verbs; I have not found a
114
According to Croft (2000), adjectives are intermediate between verb and noun. A prototypical
adjective describes a property and acts as a modifier; properties are intermediate between objects
and actions (one could think of a scale of time-stability here), while modification is intermediate
between reference and predication. Therefore, in a language like Rapa Nui, where there is so
much interaction between noun and verb, it is only to be expected that adjectives are even
harder to distinguish.
According to Dixon (2004; 2010a:53; 2010b:62; 104), it is probable that every language has a
class of adjectives (different from Dixon 1982), though the criteria to distinguish adjectives from
either nouns or verbs may be subtle and not obvious at first sight. Dixon (2004; 2010b:62ff)
suggests criteria to distinguish adjectives from verbs and nouns. Note however, that out of
thirteen language descriptions in Aikhenvald and Dixon (2004), five authors consider adjectives
as members of the verb class, even though there are differences between adjectives and (other)
verbs (e.g. Hajek 2004; Hyslop 2004).
single criterion which sharply and clearly defines a category of adjectives. The
boundary between adjectives and verbs is fluid in two ways. First, it is not possible to
give an exact list of adjectives; some words are more adjectival than others.115 Second,
some contexts are more adjectival than others, so that a given word may show more
adjectival or more verbal behaviour, depending on the context. The adjectival category
can therefore best be defined in terms of a prototype (cf. the same approach for nouns
and verbs in sec. 3.2.1.2), which unites certain semantic, pragmatic and syntactic
properties. A prototypical adjective
• denotes a property such as dimension, colour or value;
• modifies a referent, by specifying a property of that referent;
• occurs in a noun phrase, directly following the head noun, without a
preceding aspect marker.
This raises the question whether less prototypical cases are also labelled as adjectives,
and if so, how far the use of this label is extended. For practical reasons, in this
grammar the term “adjective” is used for property words modifying a noun, and in a
looser sense also for property words in other syntactic positions.
In the following sections, I will discuss adjectival characteristics and show to what
extent these may serve to distinguish adjectives from other words.
3.5.1.2. Morphology of adjectives

Two things can be said about the morphology of adjectives.
1. Some adjectives are full reduplications. This is true for
a. a number of very common “basic” adjectives: nuinui “big”, ꞌitiꞌiti “small”, rivariva
- - -
“good” and rakerake “bad”;

-
b. a number of colour terms: teatea “white”, meamea “red”, ritorito “clear, transparent,
- - -
white”, ꞌuriꞌuri “black, dark”.116

-
For most of these, the simple form also exists, but with a marked sense and limited
use. For example, even though both ꞌiti and ꞌitiꞌiti are used adnominally and
-
adverbially, ꞌiti is more common as an adverb, while ꞌitiꞌiti is predominantly

-
adnominal. While rivariva means “good”, adnominal riva means either “good” or
-
“pretty”. The reduplicated forms may have had an intensifying sense originally, but
nowadays they are the default forms in most contexts. In some case the sources exhibit
a shift over time: while rake “bad” occurs in old texts, in modern Rapa Nui only
rakerake is found.
-
115
Hohepa (1969b:8) lists adjectives in Maori (as distinguished from stative verbs) on the basis of
a number of syntactic and morphological criteria. However, as Harlow (2007a:106) points out,
other attempts to list Maori adjectives exhausively have resulted in somewhat different lists.
116
Reduplications as basic colour terms are common in Oceanic languages, even though (a) the
use of reduplications as basic lexemes is unusual in Austronesian; (b) it is typologically unusual
to have morphologically complex words as basic colour terms (Blust 2001; 2013:304). Blust
(2001:42) suggests that reduplications originally had an intensive sense, which lost its intensity
over time through frequent use.
2. Just like some verbs, a number of adjectives have a separate plural form, which is
partially reduplicated. For example: roaroa “long”, roroa “long (Pl)”; rivariva “good”,
- - -
ririva “good (Pl)”. The plural forms may be used when the denoted entity is plural, but
-
their use is optional.

ꞌitiꞌiti “small” has a suppletive plural rikiriki; the use of this form is obligatory when the
- -
adjective modifies a plural noun or is a predicate with a plural subject.
3.5.1.3. Syntactic function: adnominal and other uses

The prototypical syntactic function of adjectives, which distinguishes it from nouns
and verbs, is adnominal: adjectives typically modify a head noun (Croft 2000). Now
this fact alone is not sufficient to distinguish adjectives from nouns and verbs, as the
latter are used adnominally as well (→ 5.8.1). Moreover, no adjective is used
exclusively as a noun modifier: the same words also serve as predicates, NP heads
and/or adverbs, and many also serve as a base for causativisation. The following
examples of rivariva “good” illustrate this:
-
(93) He hāŋai hai kai rivariva. - (adnominal)

NTR feed INST food good:RED
“She fed (him) with good food.” (Mtx-7-26.030)
(94) Ko rivariva ꞌā
- ꞌi te hora nei. (predicate)
PRFgood:RED CONT at ART time PROX
“She is well now.” (R103.234)
(95) Ku tikeꞌa ꞌana te rivariva o tū
- rere era. (noun)
PRF see CONT ART good:RED of DEM jump DIS
“He saw how well he had jumped (lit. the good of the jump).” (R408.025)
(96) Ko ꞌite rivariva ꞌā
- koe ꞌina ōꞌoku matuꞌa. (adverb)
PRFknow good:RED CONT 2SG NEG POSS.1SG.O parent
“You know well that I don’t have parents.” (R214.013)
(97) He haka rivariva i - tāꞌana meꞌe hī. (causative)
NTR CAUS good:RED ACC POSS.3SG.A thing fish.V
“He prepared his fishing gear.” (R237.111)
Even though adnominal use as such cannot serve as an absolute criterion, the frequency
of adnominal use may be used as a diagnostic. Words denoting events and objects (i.e.
verbs and nouns) are used adnominally only occasionally, while for property words
adnominal use is quite common.
The frequency of adnominal use differs considerably between different adjectives:
some are mainly used adnominally, others are mainly used in other functions.117 For
117
In the frequency counts in this paragraph, adjectives that are part of a name are excluded.
Also excluded are syntactically isolated adjectives, e.g. in lists and appositions.
example, nuinui “big” is adnominal in 58.3% of all occurrences in the text corpus,118
-
while rivariva “good, well” is adnominal in only 24.6% of all occurrences.119 Even so,
-
for both of these, adnominal use is considerably more common than for the noun
taŋata “man”, which is adnominal in 2.3% of all occurrences (72 out of 3120), or the
verb oho “to go”, which is adnominal in 1.0% of all occurrences (51 out of 5011).
When adjectives are grouped in semantic categories, such as suggested by Dixon
(2010b:73), some patterns emerge:120
Table 14: Uses of adjectives
total adnominal predicate noun adverb causative

colour121 337 82.5% 13.6% 3.3% 0.3% 0.3%
age122 619 77.2% 8.1% 13.6%123 0.6% 0.5%
dimension124 1315 61.7% 13.5% 11.9% 8.7% 4.1%
value125 1842 36.8% 22.6% 18.1% 13.2% 9.3%
physical 805 15.3% 26.6% 33.5% 5.3% 19.3%
property126
position127 542 14.9% 41.0% 30.6% 0.4% 13.1%
other128 1426 16.3% 57.4% 4.1% 15.1% 7.1%
118
403 occurrences in total; 25.8% are predicate, 9.7% are NP heads and 3.7% are adverbs.
119
837 occurrences in total; 19.6% are predicate, 4.3% are NP heads and 37.8% are adverbs.
120
For this and the following section, I analysed a number of common adjectives from different
semantic categories. See the following footnotes for a listing. In the table, values over 20% are in
bold; values over 40% are shaded grey.
121
meamea “red”; moana “blue”; ritomata “green”; ritorito “clear, transparent, white”; teatea
“white”; tetea “white (Pl)”; tōuamāmari “yellow”; ꞌuri “dark, black”; ꞌuriꞌuri “dark, black”
122
ꞌāpī “new”; hōꞌou “new”; mātāmuꞌa “past”; paꞌari “adult”; tahito “old”; tuai “old”
123
Most nominal uses are cases of mātāmuꞌa “past”, which is often used as a noun “the past, the
old days”, and hōꞌou “new”, which is used idiomatically as a term of endearment. Without these
two, figures for this category would be as follows:
total adnominal predicate noun adverb causative
495 86.5% 9.7% 2.4% 0.8% 0.6%
124
ꞌiti “small, a bit”; ꞌitiꞌiti “small”; nui “big”; nuinui “big”; parera “deep”; popoto “short (Pl)”;
-
potopoto “short”; raro nui “deep”; rikiriki “small (Pl)”; roaroa “long”; roroa “long (Pl)”; ruŋa nui
- - - -
“high”
125
hauhaꞌa “important; value”; hōnui “respected”; ꞌino “bad”; kino “bad (arch.)”; maꞌitaki “clean,
pretty”; nehenehe “beautiful”; rakerake “bad”; ririva “good (Pl)”; riva “good”; rivariva “good,
well”; taꞌe au “unpleasant”.
This category shows more variation between individual items than other categories. For example,
hōnui “respected” (45x) is used adnominally in 82.2% of all occurrences, rakerake “bad” (226x) is
-
adnominal in 69.0% of all occurrences; on the other hand, hauhaꞌa (81x) is used as a noun
“value, worth” in 61.7% of its occurrences; rivariva “good, well” (837x) is an adverb in 37.8% of
-
its occurrences.
126
hiohio “strong”; māuiui “sick”; paŋahaꞌa “heavy”; pūai “strong”; tītika “straight”
-
127
hāhine “near”; poto “nearby; short of breath”; roa “far”
This table shows that words denoting colour, age and dimension are mostly used
adnominally. For value terms, the adnominal function is the most common one as well,
though it accounts for only 38.3% of all occurrences. For all other categories, less than
20% of the occurrences are adnominal; these words are more commonly used as
predicate or as noun. We may conclude that dimension, age and colour terms are the
most prototypical adjectives, as far as their syntactic function is concerned; value
adjectives are close to prototypical. This coincides with Dixon’s (2012:73)
generalisation that if a language has any adjectives at all, it will have at least some
adjectives from (some of) these four categories.
3.5.1.4. Adnominal adjectives versus adnominal nouns and verbs

The previous paragraph showed, that adjectives show a high frequency of adnominal
use, compared to nouns and verbs. Apart from this, adnominal adjectives are also
different in function and syntax from adnominal nouns and verbs. In the first place,
modifying nouns are usually part of a compound, expressing a single concept together
with the head noun, while modifying adjectives specify an additional property of the
concept expressed by the head noun (→ 5.8.1). Modifying nouns are incorporated into
the head noun; different from adjectives, they cannot be followed by modifying
particles, while adjectives may be accompanied by e.g. degree markers and adverbs (→
5.8.3.2).
Modifying verbs occur in two constructions. First, they may form a compound
together with the head noun (→ 5.8.2.3); in this case they express a single concept
together with the head noun, and the same constraints apply as with modifying nouns.
Alternatively, modifying verbs may be the head of a relative clause (→ 11.4), which
consists of a verb phrase optionally followed by one or more arguments or adjuncts.
The verb in a relative clause is often preceded by an aspect marker. By contrast,
prototypical adjectives – such as terms of dimension, age and colour – are never
preceded by an aspectual marker when used adnominally.
Less prototypical adjectives (such as those of position and physical property) do occur
in aspect-marked relative clauses, though only occasionally. In the following example,
hāhine “near” is used in a relative clause:
(98) ꞌIna takoꞌa o Oceanía te taꞌatoꞌa henua era e hāhine era ki Asia.
NEG also of Oceania ART all land DIS IPFV near DIS to Asia
“Not all the islands that are close to Asia belong to Oceania either.” (R342.008)
hāhine is mostly used as predicate; its adnominal use is relatively rare, which suggests
that it is not a prototypical adjective.
128
huru kē “different, strange”; koa “happy”; hōrou “quick(ly)”; aŋarahi “difficult”; parautiꞌa “true,
truth”; tano “correct”
Now Rapa Nui also has “bare relative clauses”, relative clauses in which the verb is not
preceded by an aspect marker (→ 11.4.5). One could ask whether an adnominal
adjective is structurally identical to the verb in a bare relative clause. After all, there
are certain similarities between both, besides the absence of the aspect marker. For
one thing, adnominal adjectives may be preceded by degree markers and followed by
adverbs (→ 5.8.3.2), elements which also occur in verb phrases (→ 7.3.2; 4.5.1).
Adjectives may enter into the comparative construction, but verbs occasionally enter
into this construction as well (→ (92) in 7.3.2).
However, there are also structural differences between adnominal adjectives and bare
relative clauses. Adnominal adjectives do not take the full range of postverbal
particles: they are never followed by the evaluative markers rō and nō, or by
directionals mai and atu. This is true for all adjectives included in the table in the
preceding section, not just the prototypical categories. Verbs in relative clauses, on the
other hand, do take the full range of postverbal particles.129
When adjectives are used predicatively, these restrictions do not hold: not only are
predicate adjectives preceded by an aspectual marker, they can be followed by
evaluative markers, or by a directional marker as in the following example:130
(99) Ku rikiriki
- atu ꞌā te ika nei pē he tapatea ꞌana.
PRFsmall:PL:RED away CONT ART fish PROX like PRED kind_of_eel IDENT
“These fish are quite small, just like tapatea.” (R364.015)
Another difference between verbs and adnominal adjectives is, that the latter are only
followed by a limited set of adverbs, all of which express a degree: rahi “much”, riꞌariꞌa -
“very, terribly”, taparahi-taꞌata “terribly”, or tano “in a moderate degree” (→ 5.8.3.2).

With the exception of rahi, these adverbs do not occur in the verb phrase, while on the
other hand most verb phrase adverbs do not occur in the adjective phrase (→ 4.5.1).
We may conclude that there are subtle but clear semantic and structural differences
between adnominal adjectives and verbs. Together with the higher frequency of
adnominal use of adjectives, this suggests that the prototypical adjective is different
from a verb.
3.5.1.5. Predicate adjectives

Adjectives are used as verbal predicates (i.e. predicates marked with verbal particles)
to express non-permanent properties, properties which characterise their argument
during a moment or a period of time. Permanent properties are expressed in nominal
clauses, in which the adjective modifies a nominal predicate (→ 9.2.7).
129
See also sec. 5.8.2.3 on the difference between modifying verbs as compounds and bare
relative clauses.
130
Examples such as (99) are not very common, as time-stable properties are not naturally
associated with directionality. In the example above, atu is used in the sense of extent (→
7.5.1.5).
Adjectives and verbal predicates may take the full range of aspect markers discussed in
7.2: neutral he, perfective i, imperfective e, contiguity ka and perfect ko. Below are
some remarks on specifically adjectival uses (or non-uses) of aspect markers.
The contiguity marker ka is used with adjectives in the same way as with any verb.
However, there is one use of ka which only occurs with certain adjectives, the
exclamative construction discussed in section 10.4.1.
Regarding imperfective e: as discussed in section 7.2.5.4, e with adjectives commonly

occurs in the construction e – (nō/rō) ꞌā, but rarely in the construction e – PVD. e – nō ꞌā
indicates that a state still exists, implying that it could end at some point, but has not
ended yet.
(100) Te poki nei e ꞌitiꞌiti
- nō ꞌā.
ART child PROX IPFV small:RED just CONT
“This child is still small.” (R532-14.007)
The perfect ko – ꞌā indicates that a state has been reached as the result of an
otherwise unstated process:
(101) Ko koa ꞌā a au ꞌi te hora nei.
PRF happy CONT PROP 1SG at ART time PROX
“I am happy now.” (R214.053)
(102) Ko rivariva ꞌā
- ꞌi te hora nei, ꞌina he māuiui hakaꞌou.
-
PRFgood:RED CONT at ART time PROX NEG NTR sick again

“He is well now, he is not sick any more.” (R103.234)
Now this use of ko – ꞌā is not restricted to adjectives, but occurs with a much wider
range of verbs, including certain types of active verbs (→ 7.2.7.2).
Neutral he with adjectives expresses a state as such.

(103) He rivariva tāꞌana
- aŋa era ka aŋa era.
NTR good:RED POSS.3SG.A work DIS CNTG do DIS
“The work he was doing, was good.” (R313.116)
he + adjective may be used in situations where a state starts to exist, as in the

following examples:
(104) I oho era, he māuiui hakaꞌou tū - mata era.
PFV go DIS NTR sick eye DIS again DEM
“Later, his eyes got sick again.” (R237.084)
(105) I hini era he paŋahaꞌa rō atu ꞌai ꞌi te haꞌuru.
PFV delay DIS NTR heavy away SUBS at ART sleep
EMPH
“Later they got heavy with sleep.” (R536.027)
In such cases, the clause can be labeled “inchoative”; however, this is not expressed by
he as such, but simply a feature which can be inferred from the context.
Just like verbs, adjectives can also be used with the modal markers ana, mo and ki, and
be preceded by the verbal negators ꞌina, kai and e ko. Two examples:
(106) Ki nuinui he maꞌu he haka hāipoipo ki te
- - taŋata hauhaꞌa.
when big:RED NTR carry NTR CAUS marry to ART man value
“When (the child) was big, they would take it and marry it off to a rich man.”
(R399.004)
(107) He noho Makemake hokotahi nō, ꞌina kai

- riva.
NTR stay Makemake solitary
just NEG NEG.PFV good
“Makemake lived on his own, it was not good.” (Ley-1-01.001)
3.5.1.6. Nominal use of adjectives

As pointed out in sec. 3.5.1.3 above, adjectives can be used nominally, i.e. as heads of
noun phrases. Nominal adjectives refer to a property as such, not to an object
possessing the property: rivariva “goodness”, not “a good one” (→ 5.7 sub 4):
-
(108) he meꞌe mo te rivariva o Rapa Nui pe

- muꞌa ka oho ena
PREDthing for ART good:RED of Rapa Nui toward front CNTG go MED
“something for the good of Rapa Nui in the future” (R470.011)
(109) mata nunui pa he
- matā ꞌā te ꞌuriꞌuri
-
eye PL:big like PRED obsidian IDENT ART black:RED

“big eyes, black as obsidian (lit. like obsidian itself the black)” (R310.021)
Verbs are also used nominally in a variety of constructions (→ 3.2.3.1). However, two
nominal constructions occur only with adjectives, not with verbs.131 Both have an
exclamative sense.
1. Exclamative ꞌAi te X is only found with adjectives of size, such as nuinui “big” and -
kumi “long” (→ 10.4.3).

2. Exclamative Ko te X is used with both nouns and a wide range of adjectives (value,
physical property, size etc.) (→ 10.4.2).
Nominally used adjectives usually do not have a nominalising suffix; in this respect
they differ from verbs. For example, in (95) in sec. 3.5.1.3 above, rivariva is used as -
object of a verb of perception; in this context, verbs normally get a nominalising suffix
(→ 3.2.3.1), but rivariva does not.-
There are two contexts in which adjectives do have a nominalising suffix:

1. When referring to a time, stage or occasion when a certain property applies. This
happens especially with stage adjectives like ꞌāpī “young” and ꞌitiꞌiti “small”, but -
occasionally with other adjectives as well.
131
See Bhat (1994:29): adjectives are typically able to be the basis of exclamations.
(110) mai te rikiriki

- haŋa ꞌātā ki te nunui haŋa
-
from ART small:PL:RED NMLZ until to ART PL:big NMLZ

“from the time they were small until the time they grew up” (R236.097)
(111) He rakerake iŋa
- o te vaikava
PRED bad:RED NMLZ of ART sea
“The sea gets rough (lit. the bad of the sea) (title of a story)” (Acts 27:12)
2. In the construction ko te – iŋa ꞌā (→ 3.2.3.1 sub 1c):

(112) Ko te hiohio - iŋa ꞌana te taura ꞌaka era.
PROM ART strong:RED NMLZ IDENT ART rope anchor DIS
“The anchor rope kept being taut.” (R361.061)
3.5.1.7. Conclusions
The previous sections have shown that property words differ in their syntactic
behaviour from event words in a number of respects:
• They are often used adnominally.
• When used adnominally, they form adjective phrases, which differ from verb
phrases: aspect markers and certain postverbal particles do not occur in the
adjective phrase, while the set of adverbs is different from verb phrase
adverbs.
• When property words are used predicatively, they enter into the same range of
constructions as verbs, but there are some minor differences.
• Property words functioning as head of a noun phrase show two differences
from verbs in the noun phrase: they enter into certain exclamative
constructions, and they rarely take the nominalising suffix.
This allows the conclusion that Rapa Nui has an adjective category. However, given
the close correspondence with verbs, it is best to consider adjectives as a subclass of
verbs, more specifically, of stative verbs.
The discussion has also shown that the adjectival category is not a monolithic one.
Some adjectives – especially those denoting colour, age and dimension – are more
prototypical than others.
3.5.2. Degrees of comparison

3.5.2.1. The comparative
Rapa Nui has a number of different comparative constructions.132 In one of these, the
particle ꞌata serves as index of comparison (“more, –er”); it precedes the adjective
expressing the parameter of comparison. This construction can be used whether the
132
For the different elements in comparative constructions, I use the following terms (adapted
from Dixon 2012:344):
Susan (is) more intelligent than Mary
comparee index parameter standard
adjective is adnominal as in (113) or predicative as in (114). The standard of

comparison is expressed by ki + noun phrase.
(113) E ai rō ꞌā... [te poki] [ꞌata] [nuinui] ... [ki a - Taparahi].
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART child more big to PROP Taparahi
COMPAREE INDEX PARAMETER STANDARD
“There were children bigger than Taparahi.” (R250.011)
(114) ¿[ꞌAta] [maneŋe] [koe] [ki te poki era ai]?
more medium_size 2SG to ART child DIS there
INDEX PARAMETER COMPAREE STANDARD
“Are you smaller than that boy there?” (R415.176)
ꞌata also functions as a degree marker in front of event verbs (→ 7.3.2, where its
etymology is also discussed). With verbs, it may also form a complete comparative
construction, including a standard of comparison (→ (92) on p. 326).
A second construction uses the verb hau “to exceed, surpass, be superior”, with the
comparee as subject. The parameter of comparison is marked with the locative
preposition ꞌi. The standard of comparison is expressed by ki + noun phrase, as in the
ꞌata-construction above.
(115) [E hau rō atu] [a ia] [ꞌi te roroa] [ki a
- au].
IPFV exceed EMPH away PROP 3SG at ART RED:long to PROP 1SG
INDEX COMPAREE PARAMETER STANDARD
“He is taller than me (lit. he is more/surpassing in length to me).” (Notes)
hau can in turn be reinforced by ꞌata, in which case the aspectual marker before hau
tends to be left out.
(116) [ꞌAta hau] hoꞌi [a Veriamo] [ꞌi te reherehe] [ki a
- meꞌe ki a Eva].
more exceed indeed PROP Veriamo at ART weak:RED to PROP thing to PROP Eva
INDEX COMPAREE PARAMETER STANDARD
“Veriamo was weaker than what’s-her-name, than Eva.” (R416.171)
In the older language, comparisons are sometimes made without any marking; only ki
indicates that a comparison is made:
(117) Te poki nei poki maꞌori ki tētahi poki.
ART child PROX child expert to other child
“This child is more intelligent than the other.” (Egt 1978:30)
Although this sentence still sounds acceptable nowadays, speakers of modern Rapa Nui
would tend to add ꞌata in front of maꞌori.
3.5.2.2. The superlative

The superlative can be expressed by hopeꞌa “last” (a Tahitian loan not found in old
texts), followed by a genitive phrase which contains a nominalised adjective:
(118) Te kona hopeꞌa o te nehenehe ko

- ꞌAnakena.
ART place last of ART beautiful PROM Anakena
“The most beautiful place (lit. the place last of the beauty) is Anakena.”
(R350.013)
(119) He autoridad hopeꞌa o te nuinui o te Quinta Región.

-
PRED authority last of ART big:RED of the Fifth Region

“He is the highest authority of the Fifth Region.” (R203.018)
hopeꞌa can also be used in a superlative sense without a qualifying adjective, to express
that something is “ultimate, extreme”, whether in a positive or negative sense:
(120) Te tai hopeꞌa mo te hāhaki he tai pāpaku.
ART sea last for ART gather_shellfish PRED sea thin
“The best tide for gathering shellfish is low tide.” (R353.018)
hopeꞌa + genitive is also used for the absolute superlative: “very”.

(121) ¡Ko te manu hopeꞌa o te tau!
PROM ART animal last
of ART pretty
“What a very pretty animal!” (R345.072)
(122) E tahi ꞌōpītara nuinui, hopeꞌa o te
- rivariva.
-
NUM one hospital big:RED last of ART good:RED

“There was a big hospital, very good.” (R239.055)
ꞌata, which is more commonly used for the comparative, may have an absolute
superlative sense as well:
(123) A ira i topa ai, ꞌi ira te vino ꞌata nene.
by PRO PFV descend PVP at PRO ART grapes more sweet
“There they dismounted, there were the sweetest grapes.” (R337.006)
In the older language, the superlative can be expressed by the adjective as such,
without any special marking; such unmarked superlatives are obsolete nowadays.
(124) Te maꞌuŋa Terevaka te maꞌuŋa nuinui o te
- kāiŋa.
ART mountain Terevaka ART mountain big of ART homeland
“Mount Terevaka is the biggest hill of the island.” (Egt 1978:30)
3.5.2.3. The equative

The equative, “X is as ... as Y”, is expressed using the preposition pē “like” (→ 4.7.8).
The quality with respect to which the two entities are compared, may be expressed as
a noun modifier, such as rikiriki in the following example:
-
(125) He hakarē i a Tiare ꞌi muri i te tētahi ŋā poki rikiriki - pē ia ꞌā.

NTR leave Tiare at near at ART other PL child small:PL:RED like 3SG IDENT
ACC PROP
“He left Tiare with the other children that were as small as her.” (R481.034)
But more commonly, it is expressed as a noun phrase:

(126) Te maꞌuŋa e takeꞌa mai era mai tū roa era o Ao Tea Roa
ART hill IPFV see hither DIS from DEM far DIS of Ao Tea Roa
pē he ŋaꞌoho ꞌana te rikiriki.
-
like PRED pebble IDENT ART small:PL

“The hills of Ao Tea Roa in the distance were small like pebbles.” (R347.078)
(127) ꞌĪ a au e kimi ꞌā i te tiare tuꞌu pē koe te nehenehe.
-
IMM PROP 1SG IPFV search CONT ACC ART flower seem like 2SG ART beautiful
“I’m looking for a flower that looks as beautiful as you.” (R433.003f)
3.6. Locationals
3.6.1. Introduction
Rapa Nui has a set of words serving to locate entities in space. These words behave
somewhat like nouns, yet are a class of their own, and are called locationals in this
grammar.133
Different groups of locationals can be distinguished.

— One group indicates basic spatial relationships such as “before, behind, under,
above”. Often they indicate the relative position of a referent with respect to another
specific referent in the context:
(128) A nua ꞌi roto i te hare.
PROPMum at inside at ART house
“Mother is in the house.” (R333.284)
roto locates mother with respect to the house. The preceding preposition ꞌi indicates
that this locative relationship is stable: there is no movement involved towards a
position inside the house, or from the inside to the outside.
In this grammar, this first group is called relative locationals.134
— Another group consists of absolute locationals: they locate the referent with
respect to certain generally known geographical points of reference:
133
All Polynesian languages have such a word class. They have been called local nouns
(Churchward 1953, Bauer 1997, Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992, Besnier 2000), locative nouns
(Elbert & Pukui 1979), L-class nouns (Clark 1976), locatives (Biggs 1973, Bowden 1992). For the
relative locationals, Harlow (2007a:145) uses the term “relator nouns”.
134
Note, however, that there is not always a second referent involved. These same locationals can
also indicate a general direction:
(i) He rere a ruŋa.
NTR jump by above
“He jumped up.”
(129) He turu a koro ki tai.

NTR go_down PROP Dad to sea
“Dad went down to the seashore.” (R333.388)
— A third group consist of deictic locationals, which indicate spatial distance with
respect to the speaker or the discourse situation:
(130) E vaꞌu mahana i noho ai ꞌi nei.
IPFV eight day PFV stay PVP at PROX
“He stayed here (=on Rapa Nui) for eight days.” (R374.005)
— Finally, there is a small group of temporal terms belonging to the locational class,
such as ꞌaŋataiahi “yesterday”.
What all locationals have in common is that they can be preceded by prepositions, like
common nouns. Unlike common nouns, they do not take determiners: the preposition
immediately precedes the locational. Nor do they take the proper article, as proper
nouns do.
Another class of lexical items commonly used in Rapa Nui discourse for spatial
orientation, is the class of geographical names, such as Tahiti “Tahiti”. As discussed in
section 3.3.2, these can be immediately preceded by prepositions; unlike personal
names, they do not take the proper article. Therefore they do not belong to the class of
proper nouns, but to the locationals.135 Geographical names will not be discussed in
further detail.
The following sections discuss relative (3.6.2) and absolute (3.6.3) locationals. Deictic
locationals are very similar in form and function to demonstratives and are discussed
in the section on demonstratives (→ 4.6.5). Section 3.6.4 discusses temporal words
belonging to the class of locationals. Section 3.6.5 shows which modifying elements
may occur in the locative phrase.
Finally, the interrogative hē partly behaves like a locational as well; it is discussed in
sec. 10.3.2.3.
3.6.2. Relative locationals

Relative locationals, in Polynesian linguistics often simply called ‘locationals’, indicate
basic spatial relationships. Rapa Nui has the following locationals:
135
Clark (1976:54) likewise classifies proper names of places among the locatives (L-class nouns
in his terminology).
Table 15: Locationals
muꞌa front
tuꞌa back, behind
ruŋa above, higher place
raro under, lower place
roto inside
haho outside
muri older RN: back, behind
modern RN: proximity, nearby
place
tupuꞌaki proximity, nearby place
vāeŋa middle
Most of these have the same basic sense throughout the Polynesian languages, though
the Rapa Nui locationals underwent some idiosyncratic developments.136
In the following subsections, these locationals are discussed in detail. Sections 3.6.2.1
and 3.6.2.2 discuss the syntax of locational constructions. Section 3.6.2.3 discusses the
semantics of certain locationals and locational expressions. This is continued in section
3.6.2.4, which discusses the temporal use of certain locationals.
3.6.2.1. Adverbial expressions

Locationals are usually preceded by one of the locative prepositions discussed in 4.7.
Together with these prepositions, the locationals form adverbial expressions of
location. Here are a few examples:
(131) He uru koe he noho ꞌi roto.
NTR enter 2SG NTR stay at inside
“You go in and stay inside.” (R310.295)
(132) He marere te hare ki raro.
NTR scatter ART house to below
“The house fell down.” (Ley-2-12.006)
136
This becomes clear when we compare the Rapa Nui forms and meanings with their PPN
equivalents, as given in Pollex:
— PPN *muri meant “behind, after, to follow, be last”. Rapa Nui is the only language in which its
meaning shifted to “proximity”; the original meaning is still present in older texts.
— PPN *tupuaki meant “the top of the head”. In no other languages did it develop into a
locational.
— PPN *waheŋa is glossed as “division, portion, share, piece of land; middle”. In many languages
it is a common noun, and Clark (1976) does not list it as a locational in PPN; however, in most
EP languages it does occur as a locational: Marquesan vaveka (Cablitz 2006:331f, k < PPN *ŋ),
Maori vaenganui (Biggs 1973:41), Hawaiian waena (Elbert & Pukui 1979:121), Pa’umotu vaeŋa
(Stimson 1964:594), Mangarevan vaega (Tregear 2009:118). It does not occur in Tahitian.
(133) Mai ruŋa he raŋi atu a Eva...

from above NTR call away PROP Eva
“From above, Eva cried...” (R210.111)
(134) Meꞌe rahi te manu o ruŋa.
thing many ART bird of above
“There were many birds on (the island).” (Egt-02.083)
Adverbial expressions like these often have an absolute sense. For example, in (132) ki
raro indicates “down, in a lower direction”. In other cases, the locational is interpreted
relative to a second referent, which is implied. In (134), the context makes clear that o
ruŋa is to be interpreted with respect to an island.
3.6.2.2. Locationals with complement: prepositional expressions

The adverbial expressions discussed in the previous section can be followed by a
preposition + noun phrase to indicate a spatial relationship with respect to a second
referent. The combination of preposition + locational + preposition acts as a sort of
complex preposition, in which the locational indicates the spatial relationship between
two referents, and the initial preposition the way in which this relationship holds. In
the following example, roto expresses that the spatial relationship is such that referent
A (the cat) is inside referent B (the house). The preposition ki expresses that referent A
moves towards that location.
(135) He uru te kurī ki roto i te hare.
NTR enter ART cat to inside at ART house
“The cat entered into (lit. to inside) the house.” (Notes)
The second preposition does not have any semantic contribution; it serves just to
provide a syntactic link between the locational and its complement. The following
examples show different ways in which this preposition can be realised:
(136) ꞌI te rua mahana i tuꞌu mai ai ki muꞌa o Haŋa Kaokao.
-
at ART two day arrive hither PVP to front of Hanga Kaokao

PFV
“On the second day, they arrived in front of Hanga Kaokao.” (R539-1.570)
(137) He eꞌa mai roto mai te koro.
NTR go_out from inside from ART feast_house
“They went out of the feast house.” (Mtx-6-03.090)
(138) He eke māua ki ruŋa ki te hoi.
NTRgo_up 1DU.EXC to above to ART horse
“We mounted (on top of) the horses.” (R126.045)
(139) He ꞌoka te pua ꞌi raro i te rano ꞌi Rano ꞌAroi.
NTR plant ART kind_of_plant at below at ART crater_lake at Rano Aroi
“He planted pua down in the crater of Rano Aroi.” (Mtx-6-05.006)
(140) Ko Meta te meꞌe o tuꞌa o Juan Hotu.

PROM Meta ART thing of back of Juan Hotu
“Meta is the one behind Juan Hotu.” (R412.214)
As these examples show, the second preposition may be either i as in (135), o as in

(136), or a copy of the first preposition as in (137)–(138). When the first preposition is
ꞌi or o, the analysis of the second preposition is ambiguous: in ꞌi raro i in (139), the
second preposition may be either a “default” preposition i, or a copy of the first
preposition (ꞌi and i are variants of the same preposition, → 4.7.2). The same is true
for o tuꞌa o in (140).
As Clark (1976:54f) points out, all other Polynesian languages use either i or o as
second preposition;137 Rapa Nui is the only language in which the second preposition
may be a copy of the first.138
In older texts the copying strategy is used in an overwhelming majority of the cases.
Not counting the ambiguous ꞌi LOC i and o LOC o constructions, the second preposition
is a copy of the first in 93% of all PREP + LOC + PREP constructions in this corpus
(768 out of 826). Thus, constructions like (137)–(138) are common in older texts,
while constructions such as (135)–(136) are rare.
In modern Rapa Nui the copying strategy is still in use, as illustrated by (138) above,
but it has become relatively rare, occurring in only 10% of all nonambiguous cases
(175 out of 1761).139 And some of these are, on a closer look, not copies at all, but
prepositions introducing a new constituent. The following example illustrates this:
(141) I oti era he turu ki raro ki te teata mātaꞌitaꞌi.
-
PFV finish DIS NTR go_down to below to ART cinema observe

“After that they went down to the theatre to watch.” (R210.145)
137
Vaitupu (a dialect of Tuvalu) is the only variety apart from Rapa Nui where both o and i are
used, without apparent difference in meaning.
138
As Clark (1976:56f) indicates, the copying construction could have arisen from cases like
(139) or (140): the second preposition, which originally was an invariable i or o, was reanalysed
as a repetition of the first one. This reanalysis could have been facilitated by constructions like
the following (quoted by Clark):
(i) He topa mai te timo ki roto ki te ꞌana o ꞌAna te Ava Nui.
NTR descend hither ART warrior to inside to ART cave of Ana te Ava Nui
“The warriors were dragged into the cave of Ana te Ava Nui.” (Mtx-3-03.231)
While such constructions could originally have consisted of two parallel phrases: “inside, to the
cave” they could easily be reanalysed as a single phrase “into the cave”, in which the second ki is
a copy of the first.
According to Finney & Alexander (1998:27–28), ki ... ki also occurs in Vaitupu and, in some
constructions, in Maori; however, this does not amount to a generalised copying strategy as in
Rapa Nui.
139
This tendency is even stronger in the Bible translation, which is more recent than most of the
newer texts: in the new Testament, the preposition is i or o in over 99% of the prepositions, with
i in the overwhelming majority (88%).
This is not a case of a complex preposition “to below N”: ki raro is not interpreted
relative to the second referent te teata (in that case, people would go to a location
below the cinema); rather, ki raro and ki te teata are two separate, parallel constituents.
Instead of a copy of the first preposition, the second preposition is usually i or o
nowadays; both are used without a clear difference in meaning.140
In general, i is more common in modern Rapa Nui than o: over the whole corpus of
modern texts, i outnumbers o in a proportion of 2:1.141 The choice between the two is
free to a certain degree, but certain tendencies can be observed:
1. When the second referent is pronominal, i tends to be used, followed by the proper
article.
(142) Poki raꞌe ꞌāꞌaku ka eꞌa nei mai muri i a au.
child first POSS.1SG.A CNTG go_out PROX from near at PROP 1SG
“You are my first child to leave my side (lit. to go out from near me).”
(R210.049)
2. The choice between i and o also correlates with the choice of locational: o is more
common with raro, muꞌa and tuꞌa, while i is more common with roto, ruŋa and muri.
The preposition preceding the locational does not play a role.
The locational roto and the following article te are often contracted: roto (i/o) te >
rote. This contraction is a recent development; it does not occur in older texts.
(143) E koro, ¿e aha ꞌā koe ꞌi rote ꞌua?
VOC Dad what CONT 2SG at inside_ART rain
IPFV
“Dad, what are you doing in the rain?” (R210.097)
3.6.2.3. The semantics of some locationals

This section discusses the meaning of some individual locationals, and of some
locational expressions.
muri in older texts means “after”: either in spatial sense (“behind”), or in a temporal
sense (“afterward”).
140
Just like the copying construction may be the result of reanalysis (→ fn. 138 above), the
choice for i or o could also have been brought about by reanalysis: in expressions like ꞌi ruŋa i
and o roto o, the second preposition (which was a copy of the first) was reanalysed as default i or
o, and their use was subsequently generalized. i lends itself to a generalized use as it is the most
general locative preposition; o lends itself to a generalized use as it is common as genitive
marker. Notice that it is not uncommon for spatial relationships to be expressed by the genitive
(see Dixon 2010b:285). Fischer (2001a:324) considers the generalisation of i as second
preposition as a development under Spanish influence.
141
Pace Finney & Alexander (1998:28), who claim that “o has largely displaced earlier i as right-
side preposition”.
(144) He oho te ŋāŋata ꞌi muri i tau ŋā io era.

NTR go men
at after at DEM PL young_man DIS
ART
“The men went after those youngsters.” (Mtx-7-37.018)
(145) Ka tiŋaꞌi kōrua te viꞌe ena, mo muri au ana tiŋaꞌi.
IMP kill 2PL
woman MED for after 1SG IRR kill
ART
“Kill that woman, after that kill me.” (Mtx-7-21.037)
In modern Rapa Nui, muri indicates spatial proximity, “close to, next to”:
(146) He tuꞌu ki muri ki te pahī, he ekeeke - ki ruŋa.
NTR arrive to near to ART ship NTR go_up:RED to above
“They came alongside the ship and went on board.” (R210.081)
tuꞌa refers to the back of something. ꞌi tuꞌa normally refers to a location behind, on the
outside of something: ꞌi tuꞌa o te hare = “behind the house”. But in some situations it
may refer to a location within, at the back side. This may occasionally lead to
ambiguities:
(147) Ka hakarē te bombona ꞌi tuꞌa o te kamioneta.
IMP leave ART gas_bottle at back of ART van
“Put the gas bottle behind the van”, or: “...in the back of the van.”
ꞌi tuꞌa in this example refers to a location either inside or outside the car.
ruŋa may be either “on, on top of (touching)” or “above (not touching)”:

(148) Te puka ꞌi ruŋa i te ꞌamuramaꞌa.
ARTbook at above at ART table
“The book is on the table.” (Notes)
(149) E revareva
- rō ꞌā te mōrī a ruŋa i te ꞌamuramaꞌa.
IPFV stand_out:RED EMPH CONT ART oil
by above at ART table
“The lamp is hanging above the table.” (Notes)
vāeŋa refers to the middle, the centre of something:

(150) ꞌI vāeŋa o te vaikava he topa te ꞌati nuinui.
-
at middle of ART ocean happen ART problem big:RED

NTR
“In the middle of the ocean a big accident happened.” (Fel-40-026)
In relation to a set of two referents it indicates a location in between the two:

(151) ꞌI vāeŋa o te hare nei ꞌe o te hare era te karapone.
at middle of ART house PROX and of ART house DIS ART shed
“The shed is between this house and that house.” (Notes)
Some combinations of preposition + locational have specialised meanings:

— a raro: “on foot”:
(152) Ko koro a raro ꞌā i iri ai. Ko nua a ruŋa te hoi.

PROM Dad by below IDENT PFV ascend PVP PROM Mum by above ART horse
“Dad goes up (to the field) on foot. Mum goes on horse.” (R184.052f)
— a vāeŋa: “in half”:

(153) Ana haŋa he ꞌavahi a vāeŋa, hoa hai miti...
IRR want NTR divide by middle throw INST salt
“If you want, you cut (the fish) in half, put salt on...” (R185.007)
— o ruŋa i means “about”, in the sense of a topic of knowledge or discourse:

(154) He ꞌuiꞌui
- nō te aŋa o ruŋa i te ꞌaꞌamu tuai.
PRED ask:RED just ART do of above at ART story ancient
“He was always asking about the old stories.” (R302.018)
3.6.2.4. Temporal use of locationals

While muꞌa “front” and tuꞌa “back” are primarily spatial terms, they are also used
temporally, referring to past and future. However, the temporal dichotomy between
past and future does not coincide with the spatial dichotomy between front and back –
in other words, it is not the case that muꞌa refers to the future and tuꞌa to the past, or
the other way around. Rather, muꞌa and tuꞌa acquire specific temporal senses in
combination with certain prepositions.142
— pe muꞌa (often in the expression pe muꞌa ka oho ena): “later, in the future”:
(155) Mai te hora nei pe muꞌa, e ko takeꞌa hakaꞌou au e koe.
from ART time PROX toward front IPFV NEG.IPFV see again 1SG AG 2SG
“From now on, you won’t see me anymore.” (R309.070)
(156) Pe muꞌa ka oho ena, he haka aŋa rō au i te hare.
toward front CNTG go make EMPH 1SG ACC ART house
MED NTR CAUS
“Later, I will have a house built.” (R229.029)
— a tuꞌa: either “before, ago” or “later, afterwards”:

(157) E ai rō ꞌā te rivuho ... meꞌe rahi matahiti a tuꞌa i aŋa ai.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART drawingthing many year by back PFV make PVP
“There is a drawing... made many years ago.” (R296.010ff)
142
See Tetahiotupa (2005) for an equally complex situation in Tahitian. Temporal reference leads
itself easily to ambiguity, as there are two fundamentally different ways to conceptualise the
passage of time: either the world is seen as fixed and time moves from the future to the past, or
time is fixed and we travel through it from the past to the future (see Anderson & Keenan
(1985:296)). In the second case, the future is clearly “ahead”, while the past is “behind”. On the
other hand, as the past is known and therefore “visible” while the future is unknown and
“invisible”, the past can be conceived as being before our eyes, while the future is behind our
backs.
(158) Ka rima taꞌu a tuꞌa ... he manaꞌu hakaꞌou a ia ki a Rokeꞌaua

CNTG five year by back ... NTR think again PROP 3SG to PROP Roke’aua
ararua ko Makita.
the_two PROM Makita
“Five years later he thought again of Roke’aua and Makita.” (R243.205)
— ꞌi/o muꞌa ꞌā: “first, in the past”:

(159) Te mana ꞌi muꞌa ꞌā meꞌe pūai.
ART power at front IDENT thing strong
“Mana (supernatural power) was something strong in the past.” (R634.001)
3.6.3. Absolute locationals

Polynesian languages a small set of locationals which locate a person or object with
respect to a certain generally known geographical area.143 These can be labelled
“absolute locationals”.
Rapa Nui has the following absolute locationals:
tai seashore (as opposed to land)

ꞌuta land, inland (as opposed to sea)
tahatai seashore
kampō countryside
kōnui far144
kampō is borrowed from Spanish campo “field, countryside”.145 The other words are
common in the Polynesian languages.146
Like the relative locationals, these words are immediately preceded by prepositions.
Unlike the relative locationals, they cannot be followed by a prepositional phrase
indicating a second referent with respect to which the spatial relation holds.
143
Cf. Levinison & Wilkins (2006:21): “The absolute frame of reference in ordinary language use
requires fixed bearings that are instantly available to all members of the community.”
See Cablitz (2005) for a discussion of absolute or geocentric localisation in another Polynesian
language, Marquesan.
144
Based on its meaning kōnui would seem to belong to the category of deictic locationals (→
4.6.5 below). However, syntactically it behaves like the absolute locationals, in that it can be
followed by the postnominal demonstrative era; see section 3.6.5 about elements modifying
locationals.
145
Rapa Nui is not the only language in which the class of locationals has been extended with
borrowings. For example, in Tongan, uafa “wharf”, piliisone “prison” and sitima “steamer” are
locationals. See Clark (1976:55).
146
Most Polynesian languages have a locational kō “there”, often modified by deictics nei, ena or
era to indicate the degree of distance. kōnui, in which kō is modified by nui “big”, is its only Rapa
Nui reflex. (Similarly, in Rapa Nui raro nui became lexicalized, meaning “deep”, and ruŋa nui,
meaning “high”.)
The following sections discuss each of these locationals in turn. First, however, a
general note on spatial reference. As the list above shows, the main reference points
for spatial orientation in Rapa Nui are related to the sea. Spatial reference in Rapa Nui
reflects the geography of the environment in which the language is spoken: a single
island, a closed world of limited dimensions. In this world, the coast is always close; it
is either visible, or one knows at least in which direction it is. It is not surprising that
orientation happens predominantly with respect to the sea.147
As the speech community is small and the area is limited, common orientation points
(most of them on the island, a few outside, like Tahiti and the mainland) are generally
known by name. Therefore, spatial reference in stories often happens by place names.
The following is a typical example:
(160) He eꞌa ki ruŋa, he tere he oho mai ki Maꞌuŋa Teatea, ki Mahatua ...
-
NTR go_out to above NTR run NTR go hither to Ma’unga Teatea to Mahatua
He oho, he tuꞌu ki Vaipū...
NTR go NTR arrive to Vaipu
“They got up and travelled to Ma’unga Teatea, to Mahatua ... They went and
arrived at Vaipu...” (Mtx-3-01.214ff)
Another feature of Rapa Nui geography is, that the Rapa Nui population is
concentrated in one town. The rest of the island is largely uninhabited (though easily
accessible) and can be designated as a whole by a couple of generic locationals: either
ꞌuta “inland” where agriculture takes place, or kampō, “the countryside” where one
goes for an outing. This will be discussed in more detail below.
The cardinal points (north, east, south, west) are not used for spatial orientation.
Proto-Polynesian does have words for two of these: *toŋa “south, southern wind” and
*tokelau “north, north wind”; these are reflected in many daughter languages, but in
Rapa Nui they have a different sense: toŋa = “winter”, tokerau = “wind (in general)”.
3.6.3.1. tai “seashore”; ꞌuta “nland”

— tai indicates orientation with respect to the seashore:148
(161) Ko takataka tahi ꞌā
- te ŋā poki ꞌi tai.
PRF gather:RED all CONT ART PL child at sea
“All the children gathered near the shore.” (R161.013)
147
A correlation between the geographical environment and grammaticalisation of spatial
reference systems is crosslinguistically common; Palmer (2015) captures this generalisation as
the Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis: “absolute coordinate systems are not merely
anchored in, but are motivated by the environment” (210).
148
There is a difference in meaning between the locational tai, which refers to the seashore, and
the noun tai, which refers to the surface or condition of the sea:
(i) Ko māria ꞌā te tai.
PRF calm CONT ART sea
“The sea is calm.”
(162) He turu ki tai hāhaki rāua ko te poki.

NTR go_down to sea gather_shellfish 2PL PROM ART child
“She went down to the seashore to gather shellfish with her child.” (Mtx-7-
14.034)
(163) He oho atu te hānau momoko a tai ꞌā.

-
NTR go away ART race slender by sea IDENT

“The ‘slender race’149 went along the seashore.” (Ley-3-06.029)
As (162) shows, the verb used for a movement in the direction of the sea is turu “go
down”. This verb is always used for seaward movement, even when no vertical
movement is involved. Note, however, that in the hilly landscape of Rapa Nui a
movement towards the sea will often involve some downward movement.
The locational tai is only used for movement and location on land. A movement at sea
toward land is indicated with ꞌuta “inland” (see the next section).
— ꞌuta indicates orientation towards the inland, away from the coast. It may indicate a
location on land (as opposed to the sea), or a place well inland (as opposed to the
coastal region).
For example, ki ꞌuta either indicates a movement from sea to land as in (164), or a
movement from a place on land to a place further inland as in (165). In the first case
the verb tomo “go ashore” is used, in the second case iri “go up”.
(164) He tomo te taŋata ki ꞌuta.
NTR go_ashore ART man to inland
“The people went ashore.” (Ley-2-03.036)
(165) He iri tau kope era ki ꞌuta ki te tauꞌa.
NTR ascend DEM person DIS to inland to ART battle
“That man went (further) inland to the battle.” (Mtx-7-35.012)
— tai and ꞌuta are not only used for large-scale movement, but also for movement and
localisation on a small scale. They may serve, for example, to localise people in a
group, or objects on a table:
(166) Te meꞌe ena o te pāꞌeŋa ꞌuta ko tōꞌoku māmā era.
ART thing MED of ART side inland PROM POSS.1SG.O mother DIS
“(looking at people in a photo:) The one on the inland side is my mother.”
(R411.057)
149
There is some uncertainty about the meaning of the terms hānau ꞌeꞌepe and hānau momoko. -
The traditional interpretation is “long ears” and “short ears”, but Englert (1978) translates “raza
corpulenta” and “raza delgada”, respectively (see Mulloy 1993). More recently, Langdon (1994)
has defended the traditional interpretation.
(167) Ka vaꞌai mai te ensalada o te pāꞌiŋa ꞌuta.

IMP give hither ART salad of ART side inland
“Pass me the salad on the inland side.” (Notes)
3.6.3.2. tahatai “seashore”

tahatai indicates the seashore. Its meaning is similar to tai (→ 3.6.3.1), but seems to
focus more narrowly on the line separating land and sea. Like the other locationals, it
may be preceded by different prepositions:
(168) He ŋā poki e kokori ꞌā
- ꞌi tahatai.
PRED PL child IPFV PL:play CONT at seashore
“There are children playing on the seashore.” (R415.950)
(169) He turu te taŋata ki tahatai he ruku i te ika.
NTR go_down ART man to seashore NTR dive ACC ART fish
“The men went down to the seashore and fished underwater.” (R372.016)
(170) He haꞌere a au he oho a tahatai.
NTR walk PROP 1SG NTR go by seashore
“I walked along the seashore.” (R475.010)
Like tai, tahatai is only used for movement on land. Movement from the sea to the
shore is indicated by ꞌuta.
3.6.3.3. kampō “countryside”

kampō, from Spanish “campo”, indicates the area outside town.
(171) He eke ararua ki ruŋa i te hoi he oho ki kampō.
NTR go_up the_two to above at ART horse NTR go
to countryside
“The two mounted their horse and went to the countryside.” (R178.013)
(172) ꞌI te mahana era ꞌi ꞌŌvahe ꞌo ꞌi tētahi kona o kampō, i tomo era
at ART day DIS at Ovahe or at other place of countryside PFV go_ashore DIS
te ika, he haꞌaꞌī ki ruŋa i te pereꞌoa.
ART fish NTR fill to above at ART car
“On days when in Ovahe or another place in the country the fish would come
ashore, they would load it on a wagon...” (R539-1.482)
As kampō is principally used with reference to outings, and as outings typically take
place near the shore, kampō usually refers to a place near the coast. In this respect it is
different from ꞌuta “inland”, which often refers to areas inland where people grow their
crops.
3.6.3.4. kōnui “far”

kōnui “far, distant” does not indicate an absolute point of reference, but any point far
away from the reference point. The reference point may be the starting point of a
movement as in (173), or the place where the action takes place as in (174).
(173) He tere he piko a Manu ki kōnui era.

NTR run NTR hide PROP birdto far DIS
“Manu fled and hid far away.” (R459.007)
(174) He uꞌi atu mai kōnui nei ꞌā ko te puaꞌa ka teka, ka teka.
NTR look away from far PROX IDENT PROM ART cow
revolve CNTG revolve
CNTG
“From afar he saw a cow that was turning round and round.” (R250.137)
3.6.4. Temporal locationals

There are a number of words referring to time which, like locationals, are preceded by
prepositions. (They could be labelled “temporals”.) These words all share the non-
productive prefix ꞌaŋa-, which indicates recent past:150
ꞌaŋataiahi “yesterday”
ꞌaŋapō “last night”
ꞌaŋanīrā/ꞌaŋarīnā “earlier today”; also more general “today, nowadays”
ꞌaŋahē “when (past)” (→ 10.3.2.3)151
Like other locationals, these words are preceded by prepositions, such as locative ꞌi
(175) or genitive o (176):
(175) Kai haꞌuru mātou ꞌi ꞌaŋapō.
NEG.PFV sleep 1PL.EXC at last_night
“We did not sleep last night.” (R250.126)
(176) Te nuꞌu ruku o ꞌaŋanīrā ko ai ꞌana te raperape,
- te hiꞌo...
ARTpeople dive of today.PAST PROM exist CONT ART swimming_fin ART glass
“Today’s divers have swimming fins, goggles...” (R539-1.348)
There is also a set of three time words referring to the future:
150
This prefix occurs with a similar meaning in many other Polynesian languages, but always as
a reflex of PPN *ꞌana; Rapa Nui is the only language in which *n became ŋ.
Green (1985:12) mentions *ina(a)fea “when (past)” as a PCE innovation; in fact, this reflects a
more general shift from PEP *ꞌana- to PCE *ina-. This shift is not only reflected in *inafea, but
also in Maori inapoo, Tahitian inapō “last night”; Maori inakuanei, Tahitian ināꞌuanei, Pa’umotu
inākuanei “just now”; Tahitian & Maori inanahi “yesterday” (Pollex; Bauer 1993; Acad.tah. 1999).
The Rapa Nui forms ꞌaŋa- show that the shift a > i took place after Rapa Nui split from PEP.
(Notice also that all reflexes of *ina are from Tahitic languages, except Marquesan inehea “when
(past)”.)
151
About the origin of these terms: ꞌaŋapō and ꞌaŋahē are transparent: pō “night”, hē “content
interrogative particle” (< PPN *fea, see fn. 487 on p. 468). For –nīrā and –rīnā Pollex does not
give any cognates (only Samoan *analeilaa “earlier today” is a possible candidate). It is not clear
which form is original in Rapa Nui, as both appear in older texts. For ꞌaŋataiahi, the only known
cognate in Pollex is Maori (Eastern dialect) tainahi “yesterday”. However, the second part –ahi is
common as part of a word meaning “yesterday”: most Polynesian languages have a reflex of PPN
*nanafi “yesterday”, sometimes preceded by i- or a-.
ꞌanīrā/ꞌarīnā “later today”

āpō “tomorrow”
a hē “when (future)”
These are not locationals but adverbs: they are not preceded by prepositions but form
a clause adjunct on their own. The initial a in all three words reflects PPN *ꞌā-, a prefix
indicating near future (Pollex 2009), despite the variety in spelling in its Rapa Nui
reflexes (ꞌa, ā, a).152
Some examples:
(177) E vovo, ꞌanīrā he hoki māua ki ꞌuta.
VOCdear_girl today.FUT NTR return 1DU.EXC to inland
“My girl, today we will return to the field.” (R235.038)
(178) Āpō he eꞌa tātou ki ruŋa ki te vaka.
tomorrow NTR go_out 1PL.INC to above to ART boat
“Tomorrow we will go out by boat.” (R368.045)
(179) ¿A hē tātou ka iri hakaꞌou mai mo piroto?
FUT CQ 1PL.INC CNTG ascend againhither for soccer
“When are we going to play soccer again?” (R155.007)
Interestingly, Rapa Nui has no generic temporal words “now” and/or “then”. To
express these, the noun hora “time” is used: hora nei indicates temporal proximity
“now”, hora era expresses temporal distance “then”.
3.6.4.1. raꞌe “first”

One more element needs to be mentioned here. raꞌe “first” is used in a variety of
constructions: it can be an adjective modifying a noun (→ 4.3.3), a verb, or an adverb
modifying a verb. It is also used as a locational, always preceded by the preposition ꞌi.
ꞌi raꞌe functions as an adverbial phrase “first, before anything else” (→ 11.6.2.4).
(180) He kai ia ꞌi raꞌe e tahi ꞌapa haraoa.
NTR eat then at first NUM one part bread
“First I will eat a piece of bread.” (R476.031)
3.6.5. The locational phrase

Like other nouns, locationals can be modified by certain noun phrase elements. The
full range of possibilities is represented by the following chart:
152
This prefix occurs in different words in several languages, e.g. Samoan aa taeao “tomorrow”;
Tongan ꞌapogipogi “tomorrow”; Tahitian ꞌāꞌuanei “shortly, in a while”, afea “when (future)” (cf.
inaꞌuanei “just now, a while ago”, inahea “when (past)”). Maori, like Rapa Nui, has a whole set of
expressions sharing this morpheme: aapoopoo “tomorrow”, aa hea “when (future), aaianei “now”,
aakuanei “presently”, aa teeraa tau “next year” (see Biggs 1973:79).
Table 16: Structure of the locational phrase
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
preposition nucleus adverb emphatic limit. postnom. identity complement
marker marker dem. marker
ꞌi, ki, mai, locational takoꞌa mau nō nei; ꞌā; preposition + NP
pe... ena; ꞌana
era
Position 5 is only available for relative and absolute locationals, not for deictic
locationals. This is not surprising, as postnominal demonstratives have (almost) the
same form and function as the deictic locationals themselves. Position 7, which
connects the locational to a second referent, is only available for relative locationals,
not for absolute and deictic locationals.
Here are a few examples:
(181) Ki roto mau ꞌana a Kekoa e haŋa era mo rere mai.
to inside really IDENT PROP Kekoa IPFV want DIS for fly hither
“Into (that pool) Kekoa wanted to jump.” (R408.012)
(182) Pē rā nō e kai e oho era.
like DIS just IPFV eat IPFV go DIS
“Just like that he kept eating.” (R310.225)
(183) Mai ꞌuta era au, mai roto mai te koro.
from inland DIS 1SG from inside hither ART feast_house
“I’m coming from inland, from the feast house.” (Mtx-7-20.034)
Compared to the common noun phrase (→ chart in section 5.1), adjectives are absent
from the locational phrase,153 as well as anything related to quantification:
determiners, quantifiers, numerals, plural markers and the collective marker kuā. The
locational phrase is very similar to the proper noun phrase (→ 5.14.1), which also
excludes quantifying elements; the main difference is, that the latter includes the
proper article a.
3.7. Conclusions
Like other Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui has no inflectional (and little derivational)
morphology; moreover, many lexical items are freely used in both the noun phrase and
the verb phrase. The existence of a distinction between nouns and verbs in the lexicon
has been questioned for Polynesian languages. However, in this chapter I argue that
there are good grounds to maintain this distinction. Approaches which conflate the
153
There is one exception: ruŋa “above” and raro “below” may be followed by nui “big”, in both
cases with idiomatic sense: ruŋa nui “high”, raro nui “deep”. Notice that the same element nui has
also been added to the original PEP locative *kō “there”, resulting in kōnui “far” (→ 3.6.3).
two classes (or which define the bulk of the lexicon as “universals”) do not do justice
to the fact that the semantic relationship between the “nominal” and “verbal” uses of a
lexeme is often unpredictable. Rather, the occurrence of words with a typically verbal
sense in the noun phrase can be regarded as cross-categorial use.
The boundary between nouns and verbs is not clear-cut; hence, the two can be defined
in terms of a prototype, an intersection of certain syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
features. In actual use, these features are not randombly distributed but tend to
converge: a word referring to an entity tends to occur in a noun phrase, modified by
noun phrase particles, and function as a referring expression.
The common cross-categorial use of nouns and verbs can be described in terms of two
processes: lexical nominalisation (which turns a verb into a true noun, with a nominal
sense) and syntactic nominalisation (where a verb is used in a construction which has
certain nominal features). In both cases, the resulting nominal form may or may not
have a suffix. While in lexical nominalisation the suffix is relatively uncommon, in
syntactic nominalisation the use of the suffix depends on the construction; generally
speaking, suffixed nominalisations are used when the event is presented as an object, a
bounded entity, rather than as an event happening over time.
Syntactic nominalisation is in fact very common in Rapa Nui. In several constructions,
a main clause predicate is constructed nominally; in addition, nominalised verbs are
used in various subordinate constructions, such as causal clauses and certain
complement clauses. The variety and frequency of nominal constructions are evidence
of a “nominal drift”, a tendency to maximise the use of nominal constructions.
Nouns can be subdivided into common nouns (which are preceded by determiners),
proper nouns (which take the proper article a) and locationals (which take neither).
Verbs can be subdivided into several classes, based on criteria such as the number of
arguments, the use of the agent marker e and the possibility to enter into the actor-
emphatic construction. Adjectives are a subclass of verbs; they are characterised by
frequency of adnominal use, as well by the presence of certain modifiers and the
absence of modifiers occurring with other verbs.
4. Closed word classes
4.1. Introduction
As indicated in section 3.1, there is a basic distinction in Rapa Nui between full words
(notably nouns and verbs) and particles. The previous chapter dealt with word classes
that are clearly full words: nouns and verbs and subtypes thereof. This section
discusses word classes which have at least some characteristics of particles: they form
closed classes and do not have a lexical meaning. All of these, except personal
pronouns, occur in the periphery of the noun and/or verb phrase.
However, most of these words also share characteristics of full words. Numerals and
(occasionally) demonstratives may also be a clause constituent. Pronouns and
numerals, and to a lesser extent quantifiers and adverbs as well, may form phrases
containing pre- and or postnuclear particles.
The following table lists these word classes in roughly descending order of full word
status:154
Table 17: Closed word classes
closed clause phrase NP/VP

section class constituent head periphery
personal pronouns 4.2.1 x x x
possessive pronouns 4.2.2 x x x x
numerals 4.3 x x x x
quantifiers 4.4 x (x) x
adverbs 4.5 x (x) (x) x
demonstratives 4.6 x (x) x
prepositions 4.7 x x
154
Other word classes are not discussed in this chapter, but in sections corresponding to their
respective functions. This concerns negators (→ 10.5), the polar question marker (→ 10.3.1),
coordinating conjunctions (→ 11.2), preverbal subordinators (→ 11.5) and subordinating
conjunctions (→ 11.6). Yet other words are particles occurring in fixed positions in the noun
phrase and the verb phrase; these are discussed in chapters 5 and 7: determiners (→ 5.3–5.4), the
proper article (→ 5.10), the collective marker (→ 5.2), plural markers (→ 5.6), the identity
marker (→ 5.14.2), aspect markers (→ 7.2), other preverbal particles (→ 7.3), evaluative
markers (→ 7.4), directionals (→ 7.5) and the continuity marker (→ 7.2.5.5).
4.2. Pronouns
Rapa Nui has a set of personal pronouns, two sets of possessive pronouns and a set of
benefactive pronouns. Section 4.2.1 discusses personal pronouns; 4.2.2 discusses
possessive pronouns; section 4.2.3 lists benefactive pronouns. Finally, section 4.2.4
discusses a few marked uses of pronouns.
NB Demonstrative particles are used as pronouns in limited contexts; this is discussed
in sec. 4.6.6.
4.2.1. Personal pronouns

4.2.1.1. Forms
Personal pronouns are inflected for number (singular, dual, plural), person, and
inclusiveness. The forms are given in the following table.155
Table 18: Personal pronouns
singular dual plural

st
1 person inclusive tāua tātou
au
1st person exclusive māua mātou
2nd person koe kōrua
3rd person ia rāua
The inclusive forms indicate that the addressee is included in the group referred to by
the pronouns: tāua “you and me”, tātou “we all, including you”. The exclusive forms
indicate that the addressee is not part of the group referred to: māua “the two of us
(but not you)”, mātou “we (excluding you)”.
Most Polynesian languages have distinct dual and plural pronouns in all persons. As
this table shows, in Rapa Nui dual and plural are only distinguished in the first person.
In the second and third person, the original dual forms kōrua and rāua extended their
use to plural, while the PEP plural forms *kōtou and *rātou were lost.156
Personal pronouns tend to be used for animate referents only: humans and animals.
Note however that possessive pronouns can be used for inanimates as well. Here is an
illustration from a description of a palm tree:
155
Apart from the loss of plural forms, the personal pronouns were inherited from PEP without
any changes (see the reconstructed forms by Wilson (1985:98)); the singular forms are even
unchanged from the PPN forms as reconstructed by Kikusawa (2003:168). Ultimately, the dual
and plural forms go back to Proto-Oceanic, where the dual forms had a suffix *-dua “two” and
the plural forms a suffix *-tolu “three” (Pawley 1972:37).
156
According to Bergmann (1963:55), in some other Polynesian languages, dual pronouns have
extended uses. Thus in Tongan, the first person inclusive dual is often used with a plural sense
(Churchward 1953:124f). A similar process in Rapa Nui may have led to the extension in use of
dual pronouns to include plurality, eventually superseding the original plural forms.
Chapter 4: Closed word classes 133
(1) Tumu nei e ai rō ꞌā tōꞌona maŋa roaroa.

-
tree PROX IPFV exist EMPH CONT POSS.3SG.O branch long:RED

“This tree has long branches (lit. there are its long branches).” (R483.005)
In the same text, personal pronouns are avoided to refer to the tree; full noun phrases
are used instead:
(2) Tāꞌaku aŋa he manava mate ki te tumu nei. E ai rō ꞌana
POSS.1SG.A do PRED stomach die to ART tree PROX IPFV exist EMPH CONT
te maŋa pakapaka o te
- niu nei.
ART branch dry:RED of ART palm_tree PROX
“I always like this tree. This palm tree has dry branches.” (R483.009f)
Personal pronouns belong to the class of proper nouns. This means that in many
syntactic contexts, they are preceded by the proper article a (→ 5.14.2.1).
4.2.2. Possessive pronouns

Rapa Nui has two sets of possessive pronouns.157 One set is based on the article te and
starts with t-; I will call this series “t-possessives”. The other set, which does not start
with t-, will be called “zero possessives” (Ø-possessives). In addition, the singular
pronouns in each set exhibit a distinction between o- and a-forms. This results in four
forms, for example in the first person singular:
tōꞌoku tāꞌaku ōꞌoku ꞌāꞌaku “my, mine”
The t-possessives are discussed in 4.2.2.1, the Ø-possessives in 4.2.2.2.

In this chapter, only the forms of possessive pronouns are given. Their use is discussed
– together with possessive phrases in general – in chapter 6 on possession.
4.2.2.1. t-possessives
4.2.2.1.1. Singular possessors
In the singular, there are two classes of possessive pronouns, characterised by the use
of o and a, respectively. These classes indicate different types of relationships between
possessor and possessee; the issue of o- and a-possession is discussed in sec. 6.3.3.
157
Following Dryer (2007c:182), I use the term “possessive pronoun” for any pronominal
possessive form, whether used as a constituent on its own (English “mine”, “yours”) or as a
modifier within the noun phrase (English “my”, “your”). The latter are often called possessive
adjectives, reserving the term possessive pronoun for independent forms which can function as
nominal complement or predicate. In Rapa Nui, the difference between the two sets of possessive
forms does not correspond to the difference between so-called possessive adjectives and
possessive pronouns. Both can, for example, occur as modifier before the noun (→ 6.2.1).
Moreover, the term “possessive adjective” would not be entirely satisfactory for Rapa Nui, as
possessors do not occur in the same position in the noun phrase as adjectives (see the position
chart in section 5.1).
The singular t-possessives are as follows:
Table 19: Singular t-possessive pronouns
o-class a-class
1 singular tōꞌoku tāꞌaku
2 singular tōꞌou, tuꞌu, toꞌu tāꞌau, taꞌa, taꞌu
3 singular tōꞌona tāꞌana
tuꞌu and toꞌu are shortened forms of tōꞌou; taꞌa and taꞌu are shortened forms of tāꞌau.158
In older texts the short forms are rare; the long forms are used exclusively in all
contexts:
• in the noun phrase, before the noun (tōꞌou matuꞌa “your parent”, tāꞌau poki
“your child”, 6.2.1)
• in verbless possessive clauses, a construction now obsolete (→ 9.3.3).
Nowadays, when t-pronouns are used in the noun phrase, only the shorter forms are
used (tuꞌu matuꞌa “your parent”, taꞌa poki “your child”, 6.2.1). The long forms are only
used nowadays in the partitive construction “Poss o te N” (→ 6.2.2).
4.2.2.1.2. Plural possessors

In the plural, a and o forms are not distinguished. Even so, there are two series of t-
possessive pronouns: one with to, one with te.
Table 20: Plural t-possessive pronouns
to-series te-series
1 dual inclusive to tāua te tāua
1 dual exclusive to māua te māua
1 plural inclusive to tātou te tātou
1 plural exclusive to mātou te mātou
2 dual/plural to kōrua te kōrua
3 dual/plural to rāua te rāua
There is no difference in meaning between the two series. The to-series is older; it is
still used occasionally nowadays, but has an archaic ring to it. The te-series is found
occasionally in older texts (17x), but to is predominant in these texts (176x).159 In
newer texts, te is predominant: there are 127 to-forms against 1314 te-forms.
158
According to Mulloy & Rapu (1977:13), taꞌa and tuꞌu “demonstrate a relatively recent sound
change” from the older forms tāꞌau and tōꞌou. Note however that, while the shortened forms are
indeed relatively rare in older texts, they do occur in MsE and Ley (though not in Mtx).
159
12 of the 17 te-forms in old texts are te kōrua in Mtx; to kōrua is only used once in Mtx. This
may suggest that the change to > te started off as dissimilation before o (kōrua is the only plural
pronoun with o as first vowel); subsequently this was generalised to all pronouns.
4.2.2.2. Ø-possessives
The singular Ø-possessives have the same form as the t-possessives, minus the initial
t-. The a-forms are spelled with an initial glottal, just like the possessive preposition ꞌa
(→ 2.2.5).
Table 21: Singular Ø-possessive pronouns
o-class a-class
1 singular ōꞌoku ꞌāꞌaku
2 singular ōꞌou, uꞌu, oꞌu ꞌāꞌau, aꞌa, aꞌu
3 singular ōꞌona ꞌāꞌana
As with the t-possessives, there are shortened forms in the 2nd person singular: uꞌu and
oꞌu are shortened forms of ōꞌou, aꞌa and aꞌu are shortened forms of ꞌāꞌau. There is no
difference in meaning between the longer and the shorter forms.
In the plural, the Ø-possessives are identical to the personal pronouns preceded by the
genitive preposition o, as in a genitive noun phrase. As with the t-possessives, the
plural pronouns do not make a distinction between a and o-possession.
Table 22: Plural Ø-possessive pronouns
1 dual inclusive o tāua

1 dual exclusive o māua
1 plural inclusive o tātou
1 plural exclusive o mātou
2 dual/plural o kōrua
3 dual/plural o rāua
4.2.3. Benefactive pronouns

Benefactive pronouns express that something is destined/intended for the person in
question. They are identical to the t-possessive pronouns (for the second person
singular, the long form is used), but with an initial m- instead of t-. As with possessive
pronouns, there is an o/a distinction in the singular, but not in dual and plural.
In any case, the data show that the te-possessives are a recent innovation, not a retention from
PEP as suggested by Wilson (1985:105f; 2012:298)
Table 23: Benefactive pronouns
o-class a-class
1 singular mōꞌoku māꞌaku
2 singular mōꞌou māꞌau
3 singular mōꞌona māꞌana
1 dual inclusive mo tāua –
1 dual exclusive mo māua –
1 plural inclusive mo tātou –
1 plural exclusive mo mātou –
2 dual/plural mo kōrua –
3 dual/plural mo rāua –
Benefactive pronouns are the pronominal counterpart of the preposition mo/mā + NP,
and have the same uses. The use of these prepositions is discussed in section 4.7.7.
4.2.4. Uses of pronouns

Personal pronouns are used in the same contexts as nouns: as subjects, objects, after
prepositions et cetera. The uses of possessive pronouns are listed in 4.2.2.1.1 and
4.2.2.2 above and will be discussed in more detail in chapter 6. In this section, a few
nonstandard uses of pronouns are discussed.
4.2.4.1. Generic pronouns: “one”

As in many languages, the second person singular pronoun koe can be used in a
generic way, referring to persons in general.
(3) E ko takera e koe e noho ꞌana, e riri ꞌana ꞌo e tātake ꞌana...
IPFV NEG.IPFV see AG 2SG IPFV sit CONT IPFV angry CONT or IPFV argue CONT
“(describing someone’s character:) You would never see him angry or
arguing...” (R302.050)
(4) E riꞌariꞌa nō koe ꞌi te
- kai ka hiko era.
IPFV afraid just 2SG at ART food CNTG snatch DIS
“People (lit. you) were afraid because she would snatch the food away.”
(R368.104)
koe as a generic pronoun can have a distributive sense: “each one, every one”. In the
following example this is reinforced by the repeated te kope era “that person”:
(5) He oho te taŋata, he toꞌo mai koe i tāꞌau viꞌe, te kope era,
NTR go ART man NTR take hither 2SG ACC POSS.2SG.A woman ART person DIS
te kope era hoki ananake.
ART person DIS also together
“The men came, every one took a woman for himself, each and every young
man.” (Mtx-3-01.285)
This example also shows that possessive pronouns (here tāꞌau “your”) may have a
generic sense as well.
4.2.4.2. Second person pronouns of personal involvement

There is yet another use of the second person singular personal and possessive
pronouns, which could be labeled “personal involvement”. Even though no participant
in the discourse is an addressee, someone – either a participant in the story or the
hearer – is addressed directly, to communicate a degree of personal or emotional
involvement from the part of the speaker.
1. Sometimes a participant in a narrative text is referred to as koe, followed by a

vocative phrase (→ 8.11 on the vocative). The narrative is in the third person, i.e. no
addressee is involved as a participant; yet the speaker is, as it were, addressing the
participant:160
(6) He ꞌara mai koe e Tahoŋa ē koia ko koa.
NTR wake_up hither 2SG VOC Tahonga VOC together PROM happy
“Tahonga (lit. “you, O Tahonga”) woke up happy.” (R301.351)
(7) He tuꞌu koe e te korohuꞌa nei ē ꞌi ruŋa i tōꞌona hoi pakiroki.
NTRarrive 2SG VOC ART old_man PROX VOC at above at POSS.3SG.O horse thin
“The old man arrived on his skinny horse.” (R363.017)
As (7) shows, even when the participant is “addressed” in this way, for all other
purposes it is still a third-person participant (tōꞌona hoi, “his horse”).
Sometimes the pronoun could be paraphrased as “that dear one”, but in many cases its
exact connotation is hard to convey in translation.
2. The second person singular possessive pronouns taꞌa and taꞌu (→ 4.2.2.1) can be
used without a real possessive meaning.161 This happens both in conversation and in
third-person contexts. In conversation, they are used to imply that the noun is in some
loose way connected to the hearer: “your thing”, i.e. the thing you were referring to, or
the thing you asked about, or the thing that is of interest to you.
In (8), two people are discussing a photograph. One of them points out a woman they
both know:
(8) —ꞌAi taꞌu viꞌe ko Eva. —ꞌAi te rūꞌau era ko Eva.
there POSS.2SG.A woman PROM Eva there ART old_woman DIS PROM Eva
“—Here is the (lit. “your”) woman Eva. —(Indeed), here is the old woman
Eva.” (R416.461f)
160
Fedorova (1965:400 col.1) gives examples of this same construction in Mss. A and C (→ fn. 27
on p. 23): koe e ... ē, calling it “the article circumfix”.
161
This use is also noted by Englert (1978:21), who distinguishes “taa y taau como artículos”
from “el pronombre posesivo taau”, and Bergmann (1963:48).
The same use of possessive pronouns is also found in narrative contexts where no
second-person participant is involved. By using a second person pronoun the speaker
is, as it were, addressing the listener, implying that the object or person under
discussion is in some way relevant to him/her. One could say that the listener is made
part of the story, a strategy which makes the story more vivid. One function of the
pronoun in this construction is stressing familiarity: the person or object is already
known to the listener, whether from the preceding text or from general knowledge.
taꞌa/taꞌu could thus be paraphrased as “the one you know”.
(9) He toꞌo mai taꞌa ika he totoi
- ki raro ki tou rua era.
NTR take hither POSS.2SG.A fish NTR RED:drag to below to DEM hole DIS
“They took that (lit. your) victim and dragged her down into the pit.”
(R368.099)
(10) ꞌIna mau ena taꞌa hahau tokerau oꞌo atu a roto i te avaava
-
NEG really MED POSS.2SG.A breeze wind enter away by inside at ART crack:RED
o te hare.
of ART house
“Really the (lit. your) breeze did not enter through the cracks of the house.”
(R347.055)
In this loose sense, the possessive pronouns taꞌu and taꞌa have lost their possessive
force; rather, they have become a sort of demonstrative, similar to demonstrative
determiners like tū and tau. However, the latter require a postnominal demonstrative
nei, ena or era, while taꞌa and taꞌu don’t.
4.3. Numerals
Rapa Nui has a decimal counting system, as is usual in Eastern Polynesia (see Lemaître
1985). As is equally usual, it has terms for several powers of ten.
Cardinal numerals are usually preceded by one of the particles e (the default marker),
ka (the contiguity marker) and hoko (when referring to a group of persons); these will
be discussed in 4.3.2. Using these particles as a criterion, the interrogative hia “how
many” also classifies as a numeral (→ 10.3.2.4).
On the other hand, the archaic form ꞌaŋahuru “ten” does not qualify as a numeral in
older texts, and neither do certain other forms which are obsolete nowadays (→
4.3.1.2).
In this section, first the forms of the numerals are discussed (4.3.1). 4.3.2 discusses
elements preceding and following the numerals in the numeral phrase, especially the
numeral particles e, ka and hoko. 4.3.3 discusses ordinal numerals; 4.3.4 discusses
definite numerals, special forms with collective reference. Finally, 4.3.5 discusses the
expression of fractions.
In the noun phrase, numerals occur either before or after the noun (→ chart in 5.1);
the use of numerals in the noun phrase will be discussed in section 5.5. Apart from
that, numerals also occur as predicates of numerical clauses; these are discussed in 9.5.
4.3.1. Forms of the numerals

The cardinal numerals from one to ten in modern Rapa Nui are given in the table
below.
Table 24: Numerals 1–10
basic form alternative form

one tahi hoꞌe
two rua piti
three toru
four hā maha
five rima pae
six ono
seven hitu
eight vaꞌu
nine iva
ten hoꞌe ꞌahuru; hoꞌe ꞌahuru
ꞌaŋahuru
As this table shows, for certain numerals there are two forms: a basic form and an
alternative form. The alternative numerals are used in compound numerals, i.e. as part
of numerals higher than ten. They are also used in a number of other cases, described
in 4.3.1.1.
For “ten”, hoꞌe ꞌahuru is the most common form nowadays. (ꞌahuru is never used on its
own, but always preceded by hoꞌe “one” or a higher numeral.) ꞌaŋahuru is an older
form which is still in use, but rare. It is especially used as a noun “a group of ten”, and
as ordinal number “tenth” (→ 4.3.3).
Numerals above 10 are constructed as follows:
Table 25: Numerals 11–100
eleven hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā hoꞌe

twelve hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā piti
thirteen hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā toru
fourteen hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā maha
fifteen hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā pae
twenty piti ꞌahuru
twenty-one piti ꞌahuru mā hoꞌe
twenty-two piti ꞌahuru mā piti
thirty toru ꞌahuru

fourty maha ꞌahuru
fifty pae ꞌahuru
sixty ono ꞌahuru
seventy hitu ꞌahuru
eighty vaꞌu ꞌahuru
ninety iva ꞌahuru
one hundred hoꞌe hānere
As this table shows, the alternative numerals are used both for the tens (piti ꞌahuru, not
*rua ꞌahuru) and the units (mā piti, not *mā rua). Tens and units are connected by the
particle mā “and, with”.162
Like ꞌahuru, hānere is always preceded by another numeral, whether hoꞌe “one” or a
higher numeral:
(11) E hoꞌe hānere māmoe hāpaꞌo ꞌāꞌana...
NUM one hundred sheep care_for POSS.3SG.A
“He had one hundred sheep he cared for...” (R490.002)
To indicate an unspecified number above ten, tūmaꞌa is used: “something, and a bit”.
(12) piti ꞌahuru tūmaꞌa matahiti
two ten more_or_less year
“twenty-something years”
(13) ...ꞌātā ki tōꞌona hora mate era ꞌi te matahiti pae ꞌahuru tūmaꞌa
until to POSS.3SG.O time die at ART year
DIS five ten more_or_less
“...until his death in the fifties (=1950s)” (R539-1.493)
The following table shows numerals above 100. Just as in the numerals between 10
and 100, units as part of higher numerals are preceded by mā. Between hundreds and
tens, and between thousands and hundreds, the particle e can be used, but this is not
obligatory.
Table 26: Numerals > 100
101 hoꞌe hānere mā hoꞌe

102 hoꞌe hānere mā piti
110 hoꞌe hānere (e) hoꞌe ꞌahuru
111 hoꞌe hānere (e) hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā hoꞌe
120 hoꞌe hānere (e) piti ꞌahuru
162
mā is common in Polynesian languages in the sense “and, with” (< PPN *mā), but in Rapa
Nui it is only used to connect numerals and in circumstantial clauses (→ 11.6.8). Its limited
distribution suggests that it was probably borrowed from Tahitian, where it is used in exactly the
same contexts (Acad.tah. 1986:107; 196).
157 hoꞌe hānere (e) pae ꞌahuru mā hitu

200 piti hānere
678 ono hānere (e) hitu ꞌahuru mā vaꞌu
1000 hoꞌe taꞌutini
1001 hoꞌe taꞌutini mā hoꞌe
1100 hoꞌe taꞌutini (e) hoꞌe hānere
1722 hoꞌe taꞌutini (e) hitu hānere (e) piti ꞌahuru mā piti
In spoken language, high numbers are often expressed with Spanish numerals. These
are not preceded by a numeral particle:
(14) He takeꞌa e māua i te cien peso.
NTR see 1DU.EXC ACC ART hundred peso
AG
“We found one hundred pesos.” (R127.004)
(15) Tres mil dorare i vaꞌai ai a Kontiki.
three thousand dollar PFV give PVP PROP Kontiki
“Three thousand dollars Kontiki (=Thor Heyerdahl) gave.” (R416.674)
Common as this may be, speakers do not consider this to be proper Rapa Nui; Spanish
numerals are not accepted in formal spoken and written language.
Regarding the etymology of the numerals: the alternative numerals listed above (hoꞌe,
piti, maha, pae, ꞌahuru) are borrowed from Tahitian.163 The basic numerals are the
original Rapa Nui forms, except vaꞌu (the original form is varu) and hoꞌe ꞌahuru, which
are also Tahitian. The forms toru, ono, hitu and iva are common to both languages.164
hānere is also a Tahitian borrowing, derived from English “hundred”. The origin of
taꞌutini is a little more complicated. It was probably borrowed from Tahitian tauatini,
whereby the second a disappeared and a glottal was introduced between the first two
vowels. Tahitian tauatini itself is a development from the older form tautani, from Eng.
“thousand”.165
163
The Tahitian forms for 1, 2, 4 and 5 are language-internal developments, some of which may
have occurred as late as the early 19th century (White 1968:64).
164
A Spanish expedition in 1770 recorded a set of numerals totally different from the usual ones
and unlike any numerals known from other Polynesian languages: coyana, corena, cogojui,
quiroqui, majana, teuto, tehea, moroqui, vijoviri, queromata (with some variation between different
manuscripts; see Ross 1937). These have sometimes been considered as evidence of a non-
Polynesian substrate (Ross 1936; Schuhmacher 1976, 1990; Mangor & Schuhmacher 1998). More
likely, however, they represent Rapa Nui words which the Spanish transcribers mistook for
numerals (Fischer 1992; Fedorova 1993; Mellén Blanco 1994).
Four years later, in 1774, Johann Reinhold Forster recorded a set of regular Polynesian numerals
(Fischer 1992:184).
165
The development from tautani to tauatini probably happened under the influence of Tah. tini
“numerous”: the second half of tautani was assimilated to tini, which had a closely related
meaning.
We may conclude that in modern Rapa Nui, all numbers higher than seven are
expressed by Tahitian numerals. The remarkable extent of lexical replacement is
evidence for the widespread influence of Tahitian on the language (→ 1.4.1).166
4.3.1.1. Other uses of the alternative numerals

As described above, in numbers above ten, the alternative (Tahitian) numerals are
used. They are also used in dates and when telling the time, and sometimes in
measures. These constructions are discussed here.
1. Days and dates

Most of the names of days of the week contain a (Tahitian) numeral:
(16) mahana piti; mahana pae
day two day five
“Tuesday; Friday”
For numbering the days of the month, the Tahitian numerals are used as well:
(17) ꞌi te hoꞌe mahana o Mē
at ART one day of May
“on the first of May” (R231.045)
2. Telling time
“X o’clock” is expressed as hora X, where X is a Tahitian numeral:
(18) Hora maha nei, ꞌe hora hitu tātou ka tuꞌu iho.
hour four PROXand hour seven 1PL.INC CNTG arrive just_then
“It is now four o’clock, and seven o’clock we will arrive.” (R210.198)
166
According to Lynch & Spriggs (1995:37), in almost all Oceanic languages, “the basic
monomorphemic numerals are well known and very frequently used”. Two notable exceptions
are Chamorro (Guam, see Topping 1973:166), in which the whole numeral system was replaced
by Spanish, and Anejom (Vanuatu, see Lynch & Spriggs 1995), where all numerals above three
were replaced by Bislama/English forms. Clark (2004), however, suggests that numerals are
quite susceptible to replacement by terms from a European language, because numerals are often
used in domains of interaction with Europeans: in European culture, numbers play a much larger
role than in traditional culture. For higher numerals, another reason for substitution is the length
of terms: higher vernacular numerals tend to be much longer than English equivalents. This is
true for Rapa Nui as well.
We also have to keep in mind that substitution by Tahitian terms is different from borrowing
from Spanish. As Fischer (2007:397; 2008a:151) points out, Tahitian forms are considered as
indigenous; they do not stand out as Spanish or English borrowings would (→ 1.4.1). Large-scale
replacement of numerals also happened in other languages under Tahitian influence. In
Mangarevan for example, all numbers higher than five are nowadays expressed with Tahitian
numerals (P. Auguste Uebe-Carlson, p.c.).
3. Measuring space and time

With spatial measuring words like mētera “meter”, māroa “fathom” and ꞌumi “ten
fathoms”, both Rapa Nui and Tahitian numerals are used: (19) has the Tahitian term
pae, while (20) has the Rapa Nui term rua.
(19) Te tumu nei tumu nikoniko e - ko oŋa te pae mētera o te roaroa.
-
ART tree PROX tree curl:RED IPFV NEG.IPFV appear ART five meter of ART long
“This tree is a twisted tree which doesn’t surpass five meters of length.”
(R478.055)
(20) E rua mētera mā pae o te roaroa.

-
IPFV two meter

plus five of ART long:RED
“He was 2m05 long.” (R250.177)
With time words we also find an alternation between Tahitian and Rapa Nui numerals:
(21) E uꞌi nō rā, e pae minuti toe he tuꞌu mai.
EXH look just INTENS NUM five minute remain NTR arrive hither
“Just watch, in another five minutes he comes.” (R437.037)
(22) Ka rima matahiti ōꞌoku...
CNTG five year POSS.1SG.O
“When I was five years old...” (R242.001)
4.3.1.2. Old numerals

In older texts, only the original Rapa Nui numerals are used. The numbers one through
seven and nine are identical to the basic still in use today, listed in section 4.3.1. For
“eight”, the old form is varu.167
For “ten”, the original numeral is ꞌaŋahuru, which is still marginally in use today (→
4.3.1 above). In older texts, it is usually preceded by the article te rather than the
numeral particles e or ka. Between ꞌaŋahuru and the noun there is a second article:
(23) He here e tahi te ꞌaŋahuru te taka.
NTR tie NUM one ART ten ART roll
“They tie ten rolls (of mahute fibers) together.” (Ley-5-05.002)
Thus, ꞌaŋahuru is more a noun than a numeral;168 the counted item follows as a second
noun phrase. On the other hand, it is not quite a regular noun, as the construction te N
te N is never used with other nouns.
167
It is interesting to note, that the Tahitian form vaꞌu appears already in MsE, the oldest text in
the corpus, where it is used alongside varu. In Ley and Mtx, however, varu is consistently used.
Englert’s grammar (1978:58), which otherwise does not mention Tahitian numerals, states that,
while varu is the older form, nowadays only vaꞌu is used.
vaꞌu may have been replaced earlier than the other numerals because it is a relatively high
number, and/or because the Tahitian form is close to the Rapa Nui form. Moreover, the
alternation between r and glottal is a process which occurs within Rapa Nui as well (→ 2.5.2).
168
It is not unusual for higher numerals to have the status of nouns; see Dixon (2012:78).
When ꞌaŋahuru is used nowadays, it behaves like any other numeral. For example, in
the following example it is not preceded by an article:
(24) ꞌI ira i noho ai e tahi ꞌaŋahuru o te mahana.
at PRO PFV stay one ten
PVP NUM of ART day
“There they stayed ten days.” (R420.047)
Three other old – and obsolete – numerals are kauatu “ten”, rau “hundred” and pīere
“thousand”. Like ꞌaŋahuru, they are preceded by the article rather than by a numeral
marker.
4.3.2. The numeral phrase

Cardinal numerals are always preceded by one of the particles e, ka and – less
commonly – hoko.169 These are discussed in the following subsections. Sec. 4.3.2.4
shows that numerals may be followed by a number of modifying particles.
4.3.2.1. Neutral e
e is the neutral numeral particle. In most contexts, cardinal numerals are preceded by
e.
Numerals preceded by e occur before or after the noun in the noun phrase (→ 5.5.1–
5.5.2); they also occur as the predicate of a numerical clause (→ 9.5). Numerous
examples of e + numeral are provided in the referred sections, as well as in 4.3.1
above.
4.3.2.2. The contiguity marker ka

ka is an aspectual marker indicating contiguity between two events (→ 7.2.6). With
numerals, ka is used in counting, or when listing or summing up a series of things:
(25) ka tahi, ka rua, ka toru, ka hā
CNTG one CNTG two CNTG three CNTG four
“one, two, three, four”
(26) He oho ki te hare hāpī, ka tahi mahana, ka rua, ka toru.
NTR go to ART house learn CNTG one day two CNTG three
CNTG
“He went to school, one day, two, three.” (R399.013)
When used within a noun phrase, like ka tahi mahana in (26), ka + numeral always
occurs before the noun, never after the noun (different from e).
ka as numeral marker is used when a number or quantity has been reached; it
indicates an extent. It is especially common with time words, indicating that a certain
169
A prefix found in other Polynesian languages but not in Rapa Nui is the distributive prefixe
*taki- (e.g. takitahi “one each”), used e.g. in Tahitian (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:182), Pa’umotu
(Stimson 1964:492), Maori (Bauer 1993:498), Samoan (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992:116).
time has elapsed. In the following example, ka + numeral indicates that the age of ten
years has been reached:
(27) E tahi poki te ꞌīŋoa ko Eva ka hoꞌe ꞌahuru matahiti.
NUM one child ART name PROM Eva CNTG one ten year
“There was a girl whose name was Eva, ten years old.” (R210.001)
In this sense “elapsed time”, ka is used to indicate minutes after the hour (→ 4.3.1.1
sub 2).
As ka indicates a quantity which has been reached, it may emphasize the amount: “up
to, as many as”. In (28) this emphasis is further enhanced by the use of rō atu:
(28) Mo ai rō kona hore iho hai ꞌārote e puꞌa era e ono
if exist EMPH place cut just_then INST plough IPFV cover DIS NUM six
ꞌo ka vaꞌu rō atu ꞌuei.
or CNTG eight EMPH away ox
“When a field was ploughed for the first time, it was ploughed with six or
even eight oxen.” (R539-1.110f)
(29) Ka ono, ka ono taŋata i mate ꞌi tau ꞌura era ko tetu.
CNTG six CNTG six man die
at DEM lobster DIS PROM huge
PFV
“As many as six men died by that enormous lobster.” (Mtx-4-05.014)
4.3.2.3. The person marker hoko

The particle hoko is used when counting persons: hoko rua “two people”, hoko toru
“three people” etc.170 It is only used with numerals under ten.
Numerals preceded by hoko may occur after the noun as in (30), before the noun as in
(31) (though this is relatively rare), or on their own as in (32):
(30) He eꞌa ia tou ŋā kope era hoko toru ꞌi ruŋa o te vaka.
NTRgo_out then DEM PL person DIS NUM.PERS three at above of ART boat
“Those three people went out by boat.” (R309.102)
(31) I eꞌa mai ai hoko iva taŋata o ruŋa i te ꞌavione mau ꞌana.
PFV go_out hither PVP NUM.PERS nine man
of above at ART airplane really IDENT
“When nine men had come out of the airplane...” (R539-2.215)
170
A prefix soko or hoko preceding numerals (PPN *soko) is found in a smattering of languages
throughout Polynesia (Pollex), though never exclusively referring to persons; it either means
“just, exactly” or “one, alone, a single”; the latter sense occurs in Rapa Nui in hokotahi “solitary”.
A numeral prefix restricted to human reference is PPN *toko, which occurs in the majority of
Polynesian languages. Possibly both *toko and *hoko existed originally in Rapa Nui; the two were
conflated because of their formal and semantic similarity, resulting in the form hoko with
semantic features of both *hoko and *toko.
(32) He haꞌuru hoko hā, hoko toru ka ꞌara ka vānaŋanaŋa nō.

-
NTR sleep NUM.PERS

four NUM.PERS three CNTG wake_up CNTG talk:RED just
“Four (men) slept, three were awake and were talking.” (MsE-050.005)
hoko rua and hoko tahi have both developed certain lexicalised uses in which the sense
is somewhat different from “a group of X persons”; in these cases, they are written as
one word. hokorua is used as a noun “companion” and as a verb “to accompany”;
hokotahi is used as an adjective “lonely, solitary”, or an adverb “alone, on one’s own”:
(33) He hokorua a au i tōꞌoku repahoa.
NTR accompany PROP 1SG ACC POSS.1SG.O friend
“I accompany my friend.” (R208.138)
(34) He uꞌi mai a Ure ꞌa Reka hokotahi nō a Marama, ꞌina he hokorua.
NTR look hither PROP Ure a Reka solitary
just PROP Marama NEG PRED companion
“Ure a Reka saw that Marama was lonely, he had no companion.” (Ley-7-
48.013)
4.3.2.4. Modifiers in the numeral phrase

Cardinal numerals may be followed by modifying elements like mau “really”, nō “just”
or hakaꞌou “again, more, other”, elements which also occur in the noun phrase (→
5.9).
(35) ꞌE ko tū meꞌe ꞌā i aŋa ai e rua hakaꞌou mahana.
and PROM DEM thing IDENT PFV do two again
PVP NUM day
“And he did that same thing two more days” (R532-07.021)
(36) E tahi mau nō ꞌāꞌana poki vahine.
NUM one really just POSS.3SG.A child female
“He had just one daughter.” (R372.004)
Numerals preceded by ka may also be followed by the verb phrase particles rō (→

7.4.2) and ꞌō (→ 4.5.4.5). rō (which may in turn be followed by atu) emphasizes the
extent or limit of the number: “up to, as much as, even”:
(37) ¡Ka rua ꞌō mahana ꞌina kai tuꞌu mai!
CNTG two really day NEG NEG.PFV
arrive hither
“She hasn’t come for two days!” (R229.132)
(38) Mo ai rō kona hore iho hai ꞌārote e puꞌa era e ono
if exist EMPH place cut just_then INST plow IPFV cover DIS NUM six
ꞌo ka vaꞌu rō atu ꞌuei.
or CNTG eight EMPH away ox
“When a field was ploughed for the first time, it was covered with six or even
eight oxen.” (R539-1.110)
4.3.3. Ordinal numerals

Rapa Nui does not have separate forms for ordinal numerals, except raꞌe “first”, which
is an adjective, occurring after the noun. Other numerals are interpreted as ordinal
numerals by virtue of their position: they are ordinal numerals when they occur before
the noun and are preceded by a determiner.
te taŋata raꞌe “the first man”

te rua taŋata “the second man”
te toru taŋata “the third man”
te hoꞌe ꞌahuru taŋata “the tenth man”
The determiner can be the article te as in the table above, but also a possessive
pronoun as in (39), or the predicate marker he as in (40):
(39) Ku aŋa ꞌana i tōꞌona rua vaka era.
PRFmake CONT ACC POSS.3SG.O two boat DIS
“He built his second boat.” (R539-1.168)
(40) Te hare pure he rua hare pure era.
ART house pray PRED two house pray DIS
“The church (shown in this picture) is the second church.” (R412.203)
rua as ordinal numeral is also used in the sense “the other” (out of two):
(41) E rua ŋāŋata Hiva, e tahi taŋata he italiano, te rua taŋata
NUM two men continent NUM one man PRED Italian ART two man
he harani.
PRED French
“There were two foreigners, one man was an Italian, the other man was a
Frenchman.” (Egt-02.185)
With a time word, rua means “next”.

(42) ꞌI te pōꞌā o te rua mahana he ꞌara a Piu.
at ART morning of ART two day wake_up PROP Piu
NTR
“In the early morning of the next day, Piu woke up.” (R437.088)
4.3.4. Definite numerals

To express “the two, the three” et cetera, a special form of the numerals is used, in
which the first mora is reduplicated (type 1 reduplication → 2.6.1.1). These forms,
which can be labeled “definite numerals”,171 are always preceded by the proper
article a.
171
Other possible terms are “proper numerals” (because of the use of a), or “collective numerals”
(because they denote a collectivity).
Table 27: Definite numerals
modern form archaic form

the two ararua a rurua172
-
the three a totoru -
the four a hahā -
the five a ririma -
the six a oono -
the seven a hihitu -
the eight a vavaꞌu - a vavaru -
the nine a iiva

-
the ten a hohoꞌe ꞌahuru - a tatahi te ꞌaŋahuru;

-
a tatahi te kauatu
-
Like all reduplications, these forms are written with a hyphen in standard orthography
(a to-toru etc.). As the table shows, the original a rurua has evolved into ararua. As this -
is a frozen form which is not recogniseable as a reduplication, it is written as a single

word without a hyphen: ararua versus a ru-rua.
The definite numerals often occur on their own as in (43) below, but they are also used
in the noun phrase. In the latter case they may placed either before the noun as in
(44), or after the noun as in (45).
(43) He eꞌa ia a totoru
- he oho he runu i te rāua tūava.
NTR go_out then PROP RED:three NTR go gather ACC ART 3PL NTR guava
“The three went out and gathered their guavas.” (R496.029)
(44) He oho mai a oono- ŋā io, he tuꞌu ki te hare o Kave Heke.
NTR go hither PROP RED:six PL young_man NTR arrive to ART house of Kave Heke
“The six young men came and arrived at the house of Kave Heke.” (Ley-4-
01.007)
(45) He oŋe te ꞌaro a hahā

- o nei.
NTR shortage ART side PROP RED:four of PROX
“The four sides of the island (lit. of here) here suffered shortage.” (Mtx-5-
02.017)
Like the cardinal numerals, definite numerals are never preceded by prepositions. They
are usually found in subject position, where no preposition is needed. However, they
are also used occasionally in positions that would normally require a preposition. In
the following example, a vavaru occurs in a locative phrase, where the preposition ꞌi
-
“in” is expected; the preposition is left out.
172
a rurua is used only in Ley and MsE; Mtx has ararua.
-
(46) ...he tiŋaꞌi e rima te ꞌaŋahuru a vavaru

- pū.
NTR kill NUM five ART ten PROP RED:eight hole
“...they killed fifty (people who were hiding) in the eight holes.” (Mtx-3-01.237)
Notice that this restriction distinguishes the definite numerals from all other items
preceded by the proper article: pronouns and common nouns marked with the proper
article can be preceded by prepositions without a problem (→ 5.14.2.1).
Nowadays the definite numerals other than ararua are used less frequently than in the
past.173 Their role is partly taken over by ananake (→ 4.4.4), which used to be the
universal quantifier “all”, but which nowadays has the sense “together”. Both ananake
and the definite numerals are mainly used pronominally nowadays, i.e. without a head
noun or pronoun.
One could say that ararua and ananake form a mini-paradigm in modern Rapa Nui,
with ararua referring to a group of two entities and ananake to more than two. This is
even clearer in comitative constructions: nowadays both ararua and ananake are used
as comitative markers, while other definite numerals are not used as such (→ 8.10.3).
4.3.5. Fractions
ꞌafa means “half”. It is only used in ꞌe te ꞌafa “and a half”, supplementing a whole
number:
(47) e toru mētera ꞌe te ꞌafa
NUM three meter
and ART half
“three and a half meters” (Notes)
The expression as a whole was borrowed from Tahitian, which in turn borrowed the
word ꞌafa from English “half”.
There are no common terms to express other fractions. They can be circumscribed
using ꞌapa “part”. In the Bible translation, where certain fractions occur, this may lead
to constructions such as the following:
(48) Ko mate ꞌana e tahi ꞌapa o te ꞌapa e toru o te taŋata.
PRF die CONT NUM one part of ART part NUM three of ART man
“One third of the people (lit. one part of the three parts of the people) had
died.” (Rev. 9:20)
173
In the corpus of old texts (122,600 words), there are 73 occurrences, roughly once in 1,700
words; in the much larger corpus of newer texts (367,500 words) there are only 39 occurrences,
roughly once in 9,400 words. ararua, on the other hand, is common both in older and newer
texts: in the former it occurs 136 times (once in 900 words), in the latter 865 times (once in 425
words).
The word ꞌapa was probably borrowed from Tahitian, where it means “half of a fish or
animal, cut lengthwise” or “piece of tissue, patch” (Acad.tah. 1999:49). It is not used
in older texts.
4.4. Quantifiers
4.4.1. Overview
Quantifiers are semantically similar to numerals in that they express a quantity; unlike
numerals, quantifiers do not indicate an exact amount.
The quantifiers of Rapa Nui are listed in the following table. As the table shows, the
quantifier system has undergone significant changes over the past century. A number
of new quantifiers have been introduced, while others have undergone semantic shifts.
Table 28: List of quantifiers
quantifier modern Rapa Nui older Rapa Nui

taꞌatoꞌa all —
ananake together all
paurō all, every —
rauhuru diverse —
tētahi some, other, another some, other, another
meꞌe rahi many —
kā each —
pura mere, purely, totally —
The following words are syntactically different from quantifiers (i.e. they do not occur
in the same positions in the noun phrase) but are discussed in this section because they
have a quantifying sense:
Table 29: Quantifier-like words
quantifier sense syntactic status

rahi many, much adjective (cf. meꞌe rahi above)
tahi all verb phrase adverb
kē some, other mainly adjective, occasionally
quantifier
rua other ordinal numeral (→ 4.3.3)
In Rapa Nui, quantifiers are syntactically like numerals in two respects:

— they occur as modifiers in the noun phrase, before or after the noun;
— they often exclude the use of the article.
There are important differences as well. Quantifiers are not preceded by the numeral
particles e, ka and hoko. And even though they seem to occupy the same positions in
the noun phrase, on closer analysis they sometimes turn out to be in a different
position. In fact, quantifiers also differ from each other in the positions in which they
can occur. They may be pre- or postnominal; if prenominal, they occur before or after
the article or without article. The following table lists the position(s) of each quantifier
in the noun phrase:174
Table 30: Distribution of quantifiers in the noun phrase
– te N –N te – N (te) N –
taꞌatoꞌa “all” marginal yes yes yes
paurō “all” yes marginal no marginal
rauhuru “diverse” yes yes yes yes
tētahi “some” no yes yes no
meꞌe rahi “many” no175 yes no no
This table demonstrates that the position of quantifiers is lexically determined. taꞌatoꞌa
“all” and rauhuru “diverse” occur both pre- and postnominally; the other quantifiers
only occur before the noun. The position with respect to the article te is lexically
determined as well: whereas paurō “all” is always followed by the article, the other
quantifiers mostly occur without article or after the article. The question whether the
position of the quantifier has semantic repercussions, is discussed in the subsections on
the individual quantifiers.
4.4.2. taꞌatoꞌa “all”

The universal quantifier taꞌatoꞌa “all” is the most common quantifier in modern Rapa
Nui. It is a relative newcomer, borrowed from Tahitian.176 It occurs in a variety of
positions in the noun phrase; a difference in position does not always imply a clear
difference in meaning.
1: te N taꞌatoꞌa. The most common position of taꞌatoꞌa is after the noun, before
postnominal demonstratives (see the chart in section 5.1). The noun is preceded by the
article te or another determiner:
(49) Te nūnaꞌa taꞌatoꞌa nei i noho ai ꞌi ꞌAnakena.
ART group all PROX PFV stay PVP at Anakena
“All these people stayed at Anakena.” (R376.036)
(50) E haŋa koe ki te manu taꞌatoꞌa, ki te ꞌanimare taꞌatoꞌa.
EXH love 2SG to ART bird all to ART animal all
“You must love all the birds, all the animals.” (R213.053)
174
Not included are ananake (which rarely occurs within a noun phrase in modern Rapa Nui) and
the minor quantifiers kā and pūra.
175
When meꞌe rahi occurs before the article, it is external to the noun phrase.
176
It is found in Fel, Blx and newer texts.
2a: te taꞌatoꞌa N. taꞌatoꞌa may also appear before the noun, after the determiner:
(51) ꞌI te mahana nei te taꞌatoꞌa ŋā poki he porotē.
at ART day PROX ART all PL child NTR parade
“Today all the children participate in the parade.” (R334.324)
The difference between te N taꞌatoꞌa and te taꞌatoꞌa N is mainly a stylistic one: some
speakers freely use taꞌatoꞌa prenominally, others feel that te taꞌatoꞌa N is less
grammatical. On the whole, postnominal taꞌatoꞌa is much more common.
Yet there is also a slight difference in meaning: at least for some speakers, prenominal
taꞌatoꞌa is somewhat emphatic. Compare (52) with (51) above: (51) indicates “all
without exception”, while (52) is more neutral.
(52) ꞌI te mahana nei te ŋā poki taꞌatoꞌa he porotē.
at ART day PROX ART PL child all NTR parade
“Today all the children participate in the parade.”
As (51) and (52) show, the noun phrase containing taꞌatoꞌa may include a plural
marker. In most cases, however, no plural marker is used; the use of taꞌatoꞌa itself is a
sufficient indication of the plurality of the noun phrase.
2b: taꞌatoꞌa te N. Very occasionally, taꞌatoꞌa occurs before the article:

(53) Taꞌatoꞌa te taŋata o Rapa Nui i oho ai ki te pure pāpaku
all ART person of Rapa Nui PFV go to ART prayer corpse
PVP
“All the people of Rapa Nui went to the funeral mass.” (R231.349)
This is merely a stylistic variant of te taꞌatoꞌa N. This construction is never used when
the noun phrase is preceded by a preposition.
2c: taꞌatoꞌa N. taꞌatoꞌa often occurs before the noun without a determiner. This is only
possible when the noun phrase is not preceded by a preposition: prepositions require a
deteminer to be present (→ 5.3.3.3). taꞌatoꞌa without determiner mostly occurs in noun
phrases at the beginning of the sentence or clause, as in (54). However, it may occur
further on in the sentence as well, as in (55).
(54) Taꞌatoꞌa meꞌe rakerake e
- haka aŋa era ki a Puakiva.
all thing bad:RED IPFV CAUS do
to PROP Puakiva
DIS
“He made Puakiva do all sorts of bad jobs.” (R229.397)
(55) E haŋa koe taꞌatoꞌa nō manu, taꞌatoꞌa nō ꞌanimare.
EXH love 2SG all just bird all just animal
“Love all the birds, all the animals.” (R213.026)
This use of taꞌatoꞌa may indicate a more generic, less exact quantification, without
establishing a precisely defined group: “all sorts of, everything, whatever”.
3: (te) taꞌatoꞌa. taꞌatoꞌa may occur without an accompanying noun, i.e. in a headless
noun phrase (→ 5.7). In this case it can be translated as “all, everyone, the totality”.
Headless taꞌatoꞌa may occur either with or without article:
(56) E aŋa tahi a ia i te ŋā meꞌe nei mo te rivariva o te
- taꞌatoꞌa.
EXH do all 3SG ACC ART PL thing PROX for ART good:RED of ART all
PROP
“He should do all these things for the good of all.” (R647.043)
(57) Taꞌatoꞌa e tahuti era, e tari mai era i te kai.
all IPFV run DIScarry hither DIS ACC ART food
IPFV
“All (people) ran, carrying the food.” (R210.155)
The choice between taꞌatoꞌa and te taꞌatoꞌa in headless noun phrases is partly
syntactically determined: when the noun phrase is preceded by a preposition, there
needs to be a determiner. This is the case in (56). When the context does not require a
determiner, the determiner tends to be left out, as in (57). This is no absolute rule,
though.
4: PRO taꞌatoꞌa. Finally, taꞌatoꞌa may quantify a pronoun; usually it appears after the
pronoun:
(58) E koro, ꞌī a mātou taꞌatoꞌa ia.
VOC Dad IMM PROP 1PL.EXC all then
“Dad, here we all are!” (R237.051)
4.4.3. paurō “each”

Like taꞌatoꞌa, paurō “each, every, all” is a newcomer in Rapa Nui, borrowed from
Tahitian pauroa. Interestingly, it already occurs in Mtx and Egt, but only once in each.
It is much more common in recent texts.
paurō usually precedes the determiner and is mostly used with time nouns like mahana
“day”, vece “time, turn”, matahiti “year”. Some examples:
(59) Paurō te mahana he turu au ki te hāpī.
every ART day go_down 1SG to ART learn
NTR
“Every day I go to school.” (R151.059)
(60) E ko puē au mo ꞌaꞌamu atu ki a kōrua paurō te vece.
IPFV NEG.IPFV can 1SG for tell
away to PROP 2PL every ART time
“I can’t tell you every time.” (R201.009)
(61) E rua ŋā viꞌe paurō te pō māhina ꞌomotohi e vari era
NUM two PL woman every ART night moon full_moon IPFV pass DIS
ki te ika hī.
to ART fish fish.V
“There were two woman who went fishing every night of a full moon.” (R532-
12.001)
Occasionally paurō is used with other nouns, mostly after the noun. In these cases it is
equivalent to taꞌatoꞌa:
(62) Te aŋa he riꞌariꞌa nō te

- taŋata paurō ꞌi tū ŋā tahutahu era.
-
ART do PRED afraid just ART man

every at DEM PL witch DIS
“All the people were continually afraid of those witches.” (R233.007)
4.4.4. ananake “together”

In old texts, ananake is the most common quantifier; in these texts it has a wide range
of uses, much like taꞌatoꞌa nowadays. In modern Rapa Nui, the use of ananake is
semantically and syntactically restricted. In the following sections these two stages are
discussed separately.
ananake does not occur in other languages, but the simple form anake177 is widespread
in Polynesian (< PNP *anake = “completely, only”). ananake may have developed
from anake by analogy of the definite numerals (→ 4.3.4): the development anake >
ananake is very similar to (a) toru > a totoru. This would explain the otherwise
-
unattested reduplication pattern, in which the penultimate syllable of a three-syllable

word is reduplicated. As discussed in section 4.3.4 above, ananake shows similarities in
use to the definite numerals.
4.4.4.1. Modern use

The modern sense of ananake is “together, all together”. It is mostly used
pronominally: ananake is not accompanied by a noun, nor preceded by an article. Its
referent must be known from the preceding context. Some examples:
(63) He nonoho rō
- ꞌai ananake ꞌi ꞌOhovehi.
NTR PL:stay EMPH SUBS together at Ohovehi
“They lived together in Ohovehi.” (R310.481)
(64) ꞌI tū hora era ananake i uꞌi ai rūꞌau rima kore.
at DEM time DIS together PFV look PVP old_woman hand lack
“At that moment they all (together) saw that the old woman had no hands.”
(R437.085)
(65) He ꞌamo te ꞌura ananake.

NTR carry ART lobster together
“Together they carried the lobsters.” (R410.045)
As these examples show, ananake may occur after the verb in the subject position as in
(63), but also before the verb as in (64), or at the end of the clause as in (65).
Regardless its position in the clause, ananake always refers to the subject. For example,
(65) does not mean “they carried all the lobsters”. Now this also has a semantic reason:
ananake normally has human reference; it is uncommon for ananake to be used for
animals or inanimate things.
Another current use of ananake is in the comitative construction (→ 8.10.3).
177
anake also occurs in Rapa Nui, but only in older texts; see the end of section 4.4.4.2.
4.4.4.2. ananake in older Rapa Nui

The modern pronominal use, in which ananake quantifies an implied subject, already
occurs in older texts. More commonly, however, ananake is used in these texts as a
quantifier within the noun phrase. This syntactic difference between the old and the
modern language coincides with a semantic difference: while in modern Rapa Nui
ananake means “together”, in older texts it is a universal quantifier “all”, a sense
nowadays expressed by taꞌatoꞌa and paurō.
Just like taꞌatoꞌa nowadays, ananake in the older language may occur after a noun or
pronoun:
(66) He hīhiŋa te
- mōai ananake.
NTR PL:fall ART statue all
“All the statues fell.” (Mtx-4-05.060)
(67) Ka oho mai kōrua ananake, he mate au.
IMP go hither 2PL all NTR die 1SG
“(The king said to his children:) Come, all of you, I am dying.” (Ley-2-08.009)
It also occurs before the noun; in that case it precedes the article te.
(68) Ananake te mata ana haka uŋa e tahi taŋata.
all tribe IRR CAUS send NUM one man
ART
“All the tribes sent one man.” (Ley-5-36.001)
(69) He oho tau nuahine era ananake te motu.
NTR go DEM old_woman DIS all islet ART
“The old woman went to all the islets.” (Mtx-3-06.045)
(70) E taū era ananake te raꞌā.
IPFV fight DIS all day ART
“They fought every day.” (Mtx-3-05.006)
Prenominal ananake is never preceded by a preposition. Even so, the examples show
that it may occur in noun phrases with a variety of functions, for example subject as in
(68), locational adjunct as in (69), or temporal adjunct as in (70). But ananake te N is
especially common with nouns denoting place or time, as in (69)–(70), a construction
that has been taken over by paurō te N nowadays.
4.4.5. rauhuru “diverse”

rauhuru means “diverse, manifold, many kinds”. It is a recent word, derived from rau
“one hundred (archaic)” + huru “kind, sort”. Like taꞌatoꞌa, it occurs before and after
the noun, with and without article, preceding and following the article.
1. Before noun and article – rauhuru te N:
(71) I noho era te oromatuꞌa ꞌi nei, he takeꞌa rauhuru te meꞌe mātāmuꞌa.
PFV stay DIS ART priest at PROX NTR see diverse
thing past ART
“When the priest lived here, he saw manifold things of the past.” (R423.021)
2. Before the noun, following the article – te rauhuru N:

(72) ꞌI te hora nei he vānaŋa a tātou o ruŋa i te rauhuru aŋa
at ART time PROX NTR talk PROP 1PL.INC of above at ART diverse work
o te taŋata.
of ART man
“Now we are going to talk about the different kinds of work of people.”
(R334.203)
3. Before the noun, without article – rauhuru N:

(73) ...mo aŋa rauhuru meꞌe rivariva haŋa ꞌāꞌana
-
for do diverse thing good:RED want POSS.3SG.A

“... to do all sorts of good things which he wants” (2 Tim. 3:17)
The use or non-use of the article is partly determined by syntax: after prepositions the
article is obligatory. Partly it is a matter of style, being more common in certain texts.
4. After the noun – (te) N rauhuru. The postnominal use of rauhuru is limited to some
speakers. The article may or may not be used.
(74) Ko rahi ꞌana te huru rauhuru o te kahu ꞌe taoꞌa.
PRF many CONT ART manner diverse of ART cloth(es) and object
“There are many kinds (lit. many are the different kinds) of clothes and
things.” (R539-2.28)
(75) Te aŋa ꞌa Paio he ꞌoka haꞌaꞌapu rauhuru.
ART work of.A Paio PRED plant crops diverse
“Paio’s work was planting all kinds of crops.” (R439.005)
5. rauhuru itself can also be used as a noun, followed by a possessive phrase:

(76) Te aŋa ꞌāꞌana he ꞌoka i te kai, i te rauhuru o te meꞌe.
ART work POSS.3SG.A PRED plant ACC ART food ACC ART diverse of ART thing
“His work was planting food, all kinds of things” (R444.015f)
Nominalised rauhuru may or may not be preceded by the article. Again, this choice is
partly prescribed by the syntax, partly free.
4.4.6. tētahi “some, other”

In this section first the syntax of tētahi will be discussed (4.4.6.1), then its meaning
(4.4.6.2).
4.4.6.1. Syntax of tētahi: te + tahi?

tētahi “some, other” is an ambiguous element. Its origin is clear: the article te + the
numeral tahi “one”. tētahi still betrays this origin when it occurs after prepositions:
(77) ꞌI tētahi mahana ana taꞌo hakaꞌou te tātou ꞌumu.

at some/other day IRR cook_in_earth_oven again
1PL.INC earth_oven
ART
“Another day we will cook in the (lit. our) earth oven again.” (R333.546)
(78) Ko māhani ꞌana ki tētahi ŋā poki era.
PRF accustom CONT to some/other PL child DIS
“She had gotten used to the other children.” (R151.018)
(79) He mate te manava ki te māꞌaŋa hāŋai o tētahi taŋata.
NTR die ART stomach to ART chick feed of some/other man
“She fell in love (lit. the stomach died) with the adopted child (lit. the chick
fed/raised) of another man.” (Mtx-5-04.002)
These prepositions are obligatory followed by a determiner (→ 5.3.3.3). The fact that
they can be followed by tētahi shows that in these cases tētahi contains a determiner,
the most natural explanation being that tētahi consists of the article te followed by tahi.
Yet in other cases tētahi does not incorporate a determiner. It can be preceded by
determiners, such as the article te (80) or a demonstrative (81):
(80) ꞌIna ko oho ki te tētahi kona.
NEG NEG.IPFV go
to ART some/other place
“Don’t go to another place.” (R481.135)
(81) He oho tahi ananake ko tū tētahi ŋā poki era.
NTR go all
together PROM DEM some/other PL child DIS
“He went together with those other boys.” (R161.027)
Also, tētahi may follow the preposition hai, a preposition which is never followed by a
determiner (→ 4.7.9):
(82) A Kontiki takoꞌa i hāꞌūꞌū mai hai tara ꞌe hai tētahi atu meꞌe.
PROP Kontiki also PFV help hither INST money and INST some/other away thing
“Kontiki (=Thor Heyerdahl) also helped with money and with other things.”
(R375.094)
We may conclude that tētahi has – at least in these cases – undergone a process of
reanalysis and turned into a monomorphemic quantifier which no longer includes a
determiner.
4.4.6.2. Use of tētahi

tētahi can be used with singular nouns in the sense “another”:
(83) E hoki mai hoꞌi koe ꞌi tētahi mahana.
EXHreturn hither indeed 2SG at some/other day
“Come back another day.” (R344.034)
More commonly, the noun has a plural sense, and tētahi means “some” or “others”:
(84) Tētahi mahana, e haꞌuru era ꞌi ruŋa o te ꞌone.

some/other day sleep
at above of ART sand
IPFV DIS
“Some days he would sleep on the ground.” (R309.060)
(85) ¿Ko ai rā nei te tētahi nuꞌu era?
PROM who INTENS PROX ART some/other people DIS
“Who are those other people?” (R414.075)
Multiple noun phrases can be conjoined in juxtaposed clauses using tētahi ... tētahi:
“some ... others”:
(86) ...tētahi ŋā poki tane nunui he hāpī mo haka taŋi i
- te kītara.
some/other PL child male PL:big NTR learn for CAUS cry ACC ART guitar
Tētahi ŋā poki he hāpī i te ꞌori rapa nui, tētahi hakaꞌou
some/other PL child NTR learn ACC ART dance shine crouch some/other again
mo ꞌori i te cueca.
for dance ACC ART cueca
“...some bigger boys learn to play the guitar. Other children learn Rapa Nui
dancing, yet others dancing the cueca.” (R334.130f)
As the last clause in (86) shows, tētahi can also be used without a following noun.
4.4.7. meꞌe rahi and rahi “much, many”

4.4.7.1. meꞌe rahi: from noun phrase to quantifier
meꞌe rahi, lit. “many things”, is originally a noun phrase, consisting of the noun meꞌe
“thing”, modified by the adjective rahi “much/many”. The few times when it is used in
older texts (there are only four occurrences), it is used as such. In the following
example, the noun phrase meꞌe rahi is in initial position as the predicate of an
attributive clause,178 followed by the subject noun phrase.
(87) Meꞌe rahi te manu o ruŋa.
thing many/much ART bird of above
“There were many birds (lit. many [were] the birds) on (the island).” (Egt-
02.083)
This example has the same structure as the attributive clause below (→ 9.2.7):
(88) Meꞌe paŋahaꞌa te kūmara.
thing heavy ART sweet_potato
“Sweet potatoes are heavy (food).” (Ley-5-24.008)
Nowadays meꞌe rahi is still used in the same way, i.e. as a predicate of an attributive
clause. If this construction contains a verb, possibly with other arguments, this is
constructed as a relative clause following the subject.
178
Attributive clauses commonly have the dummy noun meꞌe as anchor of the predicate adjective
(→ 9.2.7).
(89) Meꞌe rahi te taŋata [i mate ꞌi rā noho iŋa].

thing many/much ART man PFV die at DIS stay NMLZ
“Many people died (lit. many [were] the people who died) at that time.”
(R250.093)
However, this is not the most common way in which meꞌe rahi is used nowadays. It has
also developed into a frozen form which as a whole functions as a quantifier,
occupying the quantifier position in the noun phrase. meꞌe rahi as a quantifier is
distinguished by the following characteristics:
a. Unlike the examples above, it is not followed by the article, but directly precedes
the noun.
b. It does not need to occur clause-initially, but occurs in noun phrases in different
positions in the clause; the noun phrase may be subject (90), direct object (91),
oblique (92), time adjunct (93). In all cases, the noun phrase is not marked by a
preposition (→ 5.3.3.3).
(90) Meꞌe rahi nuꞌu i māmate.
-
thing many/much people PFV PL:die

“Many people died.” (R532-05.002)
(91) Ko ꞌamo ꞌana meꞌe rahi nō atu ꞌati.
PRFcarry CONT thing many/much just away problem
“They have carried many kinds of sufferings.” (1 Tim. 6:10)
(92) He tuhaꞌa te henua meꞌe rahi taŋata mo ꞌoka i te rāua tarake.
NTR distribute ART land thing many/much man
for plant ACC ART 3PL corn
“They distributed land to many people to plant corn.” (R424.013)
(93) ꞌI te kona nei i noho ai meꞌe rahi mahana.
at ART place PROX PFV stay thing many/much day
PVP
“In this place this stayed many days.” (R420.055)
These examples show that reanalysis has taken place. As discussed above, in older
Rapa Nui meꞌe rahi was the predicate of a nominal clause, optionally containing a
relative clause:
(i) [ Meꞌe rahi ]NP [ te N ([ i V ]Rel) ]NP
This construction was reanalysed to a simple clause with initial subject, in which meꞌe
rahi is a quantifier occurring before the article, by analogy of other quantifiers which
may occur in the same position (e.g. taꞌatoꞌa te N → 4.4.2):
(ii) [ Meꞌe rahi te N ]NP [ i V ]VP
Once meꞌe rahi is part of the noun phrase, the way is open for two developments:
1. The determiner can be left out, as in (90) above:
(iii) [ Meꞌe rahi N ]NP [ i V ]VP
2. meꞌe rahi may occur in non-initial noun phrases with different semantic roles, as in
(91)–(93) above.
There is still one difference with quantifiers like taꞌatoꞌa: meꞌe rahi is not preceded by
the article. If the article is used, it follows meꞌe rahi.
4.4.7.2. rahi “many, much”

rahi is used in the expression meꞌe rahi (see above), but also has a number of other
uses.
rahi is used in older texts, but not nearly as frequently as in modern Rapa Nui.179
Though the word occurs throughout Polynesia, Rapa Nui may have borrowed it from
Tahitian, or extended its usage under the influence of Tahitian.180 Apart from the
marked increase in use, another indication for Tahitian influence is the fact that rahi
can be followed by the Tahitian nominaliser –raꞌa.
In older texts, rahi is mainly used as a verbal/adjectival predicate.

(94) Ku rahi ꞌā te mamae o te viꞌe ꞌa Tau ꞌa Ure rāua ko
PRF many/much CONT ART pain of ART woman of.A Tau a Ure 3PL PROM
tāꞌana poki.
POSS.3SG.A child
“Tau a Ure’s wife and her child were in much pain (lit. Much was the pain
of...)” (Ley-9-63.019)
This usage is still common nowadays. rahi, preceded by an aspectual marker, can be
the predicate of either a main clause or a relative clause after the noun:
(95) Ko rahi ꞌana te mahana ꞌina e tahi meꞌe mo kai.
PRF many/much CONT ART day NEG NUM one thing for eat
“Many days there was nothing to eat.” (R303.029)
(96) He takeꞌa i te nuꞌu ko rahi ꞌā ꞌi roto i te hare.
NTR see people PRF many/much CONT at inside at ART house
ACC ART
“He saw that there were many people in the house.” (R229.295)
rahi often serves as adverb, modifying a verb or adjective: “a lot, very (much)”. When
modifying a verb, rahi often implies quantification of the subject or object of the verb
(in the same way as tahi “all”, → 4.4.9). E.g. in (98), rahi does not refer to many acts
of seeing, but quantifies the object of seeing.
(97) E topa rahi era te ꞌua he ai te mau o te mahiŋo.
descend many/much DIS ART rain NTR exist ART abundance of ART people
IPFV
“When a lot of rain fell, the people had abundance.” (Fel-19.006)
179
In older texts, rahi (including meꞌe rahi) occurs 20x (once per 6,100 words), in newer texts it
occurs 896x (once per 410 words).
180
The form of the word would be the same, whether inherited or borrowed.
(98) ꞌIna he takeꞌa rahi i te taŋata.

NEG NTR see
many/much ACC ART man
“He did not see many people.” (R459.003)
As a noun, rahi means either “the many, the large number” or “the majority, most”.
The counted entity is expressed as a genitive phrase after rahi.181
(99) Ka uꞌi rā koe i te rahi ena o te puaꞌa ena mo tatau.
IMPlook INTENS 2SG ACC ART many/much MED of ART cattle MED for squeeze
“Look how many cows there are to milk.” (R245.186)
(100) ꞌI te rahi o te nehenehe i
- tupu ai,
at ART many/much of ART fern PFV grow PVP
ꞌina he takeꞌa mai te hakari o te tumu.
NEG NTR see hither ART body of ART tree
Because of the many ferns, the body of the tree cannot be seen.” (R497.005)
Finally, rahi is used as an adjective, i.e. noun modifier. As discussed in section 4.4.7,
in older texts the expression meꞌe rahi is found occasionally, in which rahi is an
adjective to the generic noun meꞌe. There is only one example in these texts of rahi
modifying a noun other than meꞌe:
(101) He toꞌo mai i te moa, moa rahi.
NTR take hither ACC ART chicken chicken many/much
“They took chickens, many chickens.” (Ley-9-55.012)
Though one example does not carry too much weight, it is interesting to note that the
adjective is not simply put after the noun moa. Rather, moa is repeated as an
apposition, yielding a sort of predicate noun phrase to which rahi is added.
(Appositions in Rapa Nui are similar to predicate noun phrases.)
The use of rahi as an adjective thus seems to be a recent development. rahi as an
adjective is relatively common nowadays, though still not quite as common as the
predicate and adverbial uses of rahi. Speakers hesitate somewhat to use rahi as an
adjective; when they do so, it is often in situations where a construction with meꞌe rahi
is difficult or impossible. rahi as an adjective is especially found in the following
situations:
a. When the noun phrase is preceded by a preposition requiring a determiner.
(102) He haꞌere mo haka ora ꞌi te rohirohi o tū
- aŋa rahi era.
NTR walkfor CAUS live at ART tired:RED of DEM work many/much DIS
“He went to rest from the fatigue of those many works.” (R233.069)
b. When the noun is preceded by the constituent negator taꞌe.
181
Some speakers use rahiraꞌa in the same senses, either “the many” or “the majority”. (–raꞌa is
the Tahitian nominaliser.
(103) Ika taꞌe rahi nō i ravaꞌa ai.

fish NEG.CONS many/much just PFV obtain PVP
“They caught few fish.” (R312.010)
c. When the noun modified by rahi is itself a modifier:

(104) ꞌI te mahana tokerau rahi, e ko eꞌa ki te ika hī.
at ART day wind
many/much IPFV NEG.IPFV go_out to ART fish fish.V
“On days with much wind, (people) don’t go out fishing.” (R334.254)
d. in predicate noun phrases, especially in attributive clauses:

(105) Nuꞌu rahi te nuꞌu i manaꞌu pē nei ē ko tētere ꞌana ki Tahiti.
-
people many/much ART people PFV think like PROX thus PRF PL:run CONT to Tahiti
“Many people (lit. many people were the people who) thought that they had
fled to Tahiti.” (R303.051)
In fact, this is the same construction as meꞌe rahi when used as a noun phrase (see
(87)–(89) above).
e. With abstract nouns like riva “goodness”, mamae “pain”, haŋa “love”, aŋa “work”
and manaꞌu “thought”. rahi can be translated here as “much, great”:
(106) Te pohe rahi ꞌāꞌana he haka piri he haka takataka
-
ART desire many/much POSS.3SG.A PRED CAUS join PRED CAUS gather:RED
i te taŋata.
ACC ART man
“His great desire was to get people together.” (R302.039)
(107) Ko ai ꞌā te māuiui rahi
- ꞌi nei ꞌi Rapa Nui.
PRF exist CONT ART sick many/much at PROX at Rapa Nui
“There is a severe disease here on Rapa Nui.” (R398.002)
4.4.8. Other quantifiers

4.4.8.1. kē “some, others”
kē is common as an adjective meaning “other, different”, but in modern Rapa Nui it
also serves as a quantifier in the sense “some” or “other(s)”. When used as a quantifier,
it occurs before the noun; the noun phrase has no determiner.
kē is similar in meaning to tētahi, but more than tētahi it singles out a subgroup within
a larger group. Often, two subgroups are juxtaposed: kē ... kē “some ... others”.
(108) Kē ŋā poki he oho he hohopu ꞌi raro
- o te rano.
different PL child NTR go NTR PL:bathe
at below of ART crater_lake
“Some children went for a swim down in the crater lake.” (R157.012)
(109) Kē nuꞌu he tuꞌu, kē he māmate ꞌi vāeŋa ꞌā
- o te ara.
different people NTR arrive different NTR PL:die
at middle IDENT of ART road
“Some people arrived, others died during the voyage.” (R303.002)
This use of kē may be influenced by Spanish, where quantifiers like ciertos and algunos
(both meaning “certain”) occur before the noun.
4.4.8.2. kā “every”
kā “every” is an adaptation of Spanish cada.182 It occurs before the noun and may be
preceded by the article te:
(110) ꞌI te kā kona e ai rō ꞌā te ꞌāua vaꞌehau.
at ART each place IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART enclosure soldier
“In every place there was a garrison.” (Notes)
(111) Ka tutututu- tahi kā hare taꞌatoꞌa.
IMP set_fire:RED all each house all
“Burn every single house to the ground.” (R368.059)
Unlike Spanish cada, which precedes only singular nouns, kā is not limited to
singulars: it may be followed by the plural marker ŋā or the inherently plural noun
nuꞌu “people”.
(112) He uru tahi kā ŋā poki.
NTR enter all
each PL child
“All the children entered.” (R151.016)
(113) E noho era kā nuꞌu ꞌi tōꞌona kona ꞌāua ꞌoka kai.
IPFV stay each people at POSS.3SG.O place enclosure plant food
DIS
“Everyone lived at his plantation.” (R107.038)
4.4.8.3. pura “mere, only”

pura is borrowed from Spanish pura (feminine of puro) and means “mere, only, pure,
sheer, simple”. It may or may not be preceded by the article or the predicate marker
he, depending on the syntactic requirements of the context.
(114) He pura ŋā viꞌe ꞌō te meꞌe o ruŋa i tū vaka era.
PREDonly PL woman really ART thing of above at DEM boat DIS
“There are only women on that boat.” (R416.513)
(115) Te Tāpati Rapa Nui, he tāpati e tahi e hitu nō mahana
ART Tapati Rapa Nui PRED week NUM one NUM seven just day
o te pura ꞌori.
of ART only dance
“The Tapati Rapa Nui is a week, seven days of just dancing.” (R240.003)
182
As intervocalic d is pronounced very weakly in Chilean Spanish, it tends to drop out
completely in Rapa Nui borrowings (→ 2.5.3.1).
(116) Kahu ꞌō, pura kahu teatea - e uru era ꞌi rā tiempo.

clothes really only clothes white:RED IPFV dress DIS at DIS time
“As for the clothes, they wore only white clothes at that time.” (R416.1272)
4.4.9. tahi “all”

tahi is the numeral “one”, and as such it is always preceded by one of the numeral
particles e, ka or hoko. Apart from that, tahi is also used as an adverb in the verb
phrase, in the sense “all”.183 tahi has reference not to the action itself (in which case it
would indicate that the action happens completely), but to one of the arguments of the
verb. This argument is usually plural (whether explicitly indicated or not) and tahi
indicates that all of the entities referred to by the noun phrase are concerned by the
action.
tahi may have reference to an O argument as in (117), an S argument as in (118), or an
A argument as in (119):
(117) He haka hāŋai tahi i tū māmoe era.
NTR CAUS feed all sheep
ACC DEM DIS
“We fed all the sheep.” (R131.008)
(118) ꞌArīnā he turu tahi mai tātou.
today.FUT NTR go_down all hither 1PL.INC
“Today we all go down (to the school).” (R315.384)
(119) He tikeꞌa tahi te ŋā poki i te pahī tuꞌu iho mai.
NTR see all child ACC ART ship arrive just_then hither
ART PL
“The children all saw the ship that had just arrived.” (Notes)
When both arguments of a transitive verb are plural, the reference of tahi may be
ambiguous. In the following example, tahi may quantify either the implied Agent, or
the Patient “the sweet potatoes”.
(120) He keri tahi rāua i te kūmara.
NTR dig all 3PL ACC ART sweet_potato
“They dug up all the sweet potatoes” or “They all dug up the sweet potatoes”
(Notes)
This ambiguity can be avoided by employing a different strategy of expressing “all”,

using a noun-phrase quantifier like taꞌatoꞌa:
(121) He keri rāua taꞌatoꞌa i te kūmara.
NTR dig 3PL all sweet_potato
ACC ART
“They all dug up the sweet potatoes.” (Notes)
183
This use of tahi does not occur in older texts and is probably borrowed from Tahitian, where
tahi likewise occurs as a VP adverb meaning “all”.
(122) He keri rāua i te kūmara taꞌatoꞌa.

NTR dig 3PL ACC ART sweet_potato all
“They dug up all the sweet potatoes.” (Notes)
4.4.10. The quantifier phrase

Unlike numerals, quantifiers are not preceded by obligatory particles. However, like
numerals they can be followed by certain particles; in other words, they are the
nucleus of a quantifier phrase.
Universal quantifiers are often followed by the limitative particle nō “simply, just” (→
5.9.2), which emphasizes that the quantifier involves all people or things, without
exception.
(123) He mau e tahi ꞌi te taꞌatoꞌa nō kona ꞌi rā hora.
PRED abundance NUM one at ART all just place at DIS time
“It (a kind of grass) was abundant just everywhere at that time.” (R106.050)
(124) Ka hāpaꞌo nō i te paurō nō meꞌe o te misione.
CNTG care_for just ACC ART every just thing of ART mission
“He took care of everything of the mission.” (R539-1.067)
After tētahi “some/others”, and occasionally after meꞌe rahi “many” and rauhuru
“diverse”, the directional particle atu is used. After verbs this particle indicates a
movement away from the speaker (→ 7.5), but it may also emphasize a quantity or
extent (→ 7.5.1.5); the latter is relevant when it is used after a quantifier.
(125) He iri te poki ki ꞌuta tuatua i
- te kūmara,
NTR ascend ART child to inland dig:RED ACC ART sweet_potato
ananake ko tētahi atu ŋā poki.
together PROM other away PL child
“The child went to the field to harvest sweet potatoes, together with other
children.” (Mtx-7-25.009)
The same quantifiers may be followed by hakaꞌou “again” (→ 4.5.3.4), here in the
sense “more, others”, which serves to single out a second or further subgroup:
(126) Tētahi ŋā poki he hāpī i te ꞌori rapa nui, tētahi hakaꞌou mo ꞌori
some PL child NTR learn ACC ART dance shine crouch other again for dance
i te cueca.
ACC ART cueca
“Some children learn Rapa Nui dancing, others (learn) to dance the cueca.”
(R334.131)
4.4.11. Conclusions
The sections above have shown that quantifiers occur in different positions in the noun
phrase: after the noun, after the article, without article, sometimes before the article.
The positional possibilities are different for each quantifier, as shown in Table 30 on p.
151; however, there is a general tendency for prenominal placement, as well as a

tendency to omit the article when the determiner is prenominal. In fact, the five most
common quantifiers (taꞌatoꞌa and paurō “all”, rauhuru “diverse”, tētahi “some” and meꞌe
rahi “many”) all occur in the construction Qtf N. For quantifiers occurring in multiple
positions, there may be subtle semantic differences between different placements, but
it does not seem to be possible to formulate general rules across the group.
As Table 28 on p. 150 shows, the quantifier system has undergone significant changes
over the last century:
• Three new quantifiers have emerged, two of which (paurō, taꞌatoꞌa) were
borrowed from Tahitian, while the third (rauhuru) is a language-internal
development.
• At the same time ananake, which used to be the only universal quantifier, has
specialised its meaning to “together”.
• Two less common quantifiers, pura “merely” and kā “each”, have been
borrowed from Spanish.
• The adjective kē came to be used as a quantifier “some, certain”, probably also
under Spanish influence.
Interestingly, while taꞌatoꞌa “all” and paurō “all” were borrowed from Tahitian, their
syntax differs from their Tahitian equivalent. In Tahitian, both quantifiers only occur
after the noun or pronoun they modify (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:172, Acad.tah.
1986:148f). They never occur before the noun, though taꞌatoꞌa does occur
independently: te taꞌatoꞌa “the totality” (Acad.tah. 1986:149). Both elements also occur
after verbs; in the examples given by Lazard & Peltzer (2000:147), they quantify the
subject of the verb, in the same way as tahi in Tahitian and Rapa Nui. By contrast, in
Rapa Nui, taꞌatoꞌa occurs either before or after the noun or independently, but only
rarely after verbs. When taꞌatoꞌa occurs independently in Rapa Nui, it may or may not
be preceded by the article; in Tahitian, the article is obligatory.
Likewise, Rapa Nui paurō is quite different from its Tahitian equivalent pauroa: while
the latter occurs after nouns and verbs, Rapa Nui paurō usually precedes the article and
mainly occurs with time nouns.
The differences are represented in the following table:
Table 31: Distribution of Tahitian and Rapa Nui quantifiers
prenominal: postnominal: postverbal: independent:

(te) — (te) N N— V— — te —
Tah. taꞌatoꞌa no yes yes no yes
RN taꞌatoꞌa yes yes marginal yes yes
Tah. pauroa no yes yes no no
RN paurō yes marginal no no no
We may conclude that, even though the form and meaning of taꞌatoꞌa and paurō were
borrowed from Tahitian, they acquired a distinctive Rapa Nui syntax, which they
partly inherited from ananake. For tahi a different development took place: the word
already existed in Rapa Nui as numeral “one”, but came also to be used as a quantifier-
like adverb in the VP. If this happened under the influence of Tahitian – as seems
likely – this means that an existing word acquired a new syntactic behaviour through
borrowing.
Another language-internal development in Rapa Nui is the change of tētahi “some,
other”, originally a combination of article + numeral, into a monomorphemic
quantifier which does not include a determiner.
Last of all, rahi “much” has undergone a significant syntactic shift. While it used to
function predominantly as an adjectival predicate, it came to be used as an adjectival
modifier of meꞌe “thing” (a construction already found in old texts, but only
sporadically), a combination which subsequently developed into a quantifier.
Summarizing: the Rapa Nui quantifier system has radically changed over the past
century, partly under Tahitian and Spanish influence, partly as a language-internal
development. But even borrowed elements show a syntactic behaviour which is
distinctly Rapa Nui.
4.5. Adverbs
There are two classes of adverbs in Rapa Nui: verb phrase adverbs, which are part of
a verb phrase, and sentential adverbs, which form a separate constituent in the
clause. These two classes are discussed in sections 4.5.1 and 4.5.2, respectively. The
two sets are largely distinct.
In 4.5.3, a number of individual adverbs are discussed.
4.5.1. Verb phrase adverbs

Adverbs in the verb phrase occur immediately after the verb (see the chart in 7.1).
The following words function primarily as verb phrase adverbs:
tahi “all” (→ 4.4.9)

iho “just now, just then, recently” (→ 4.5.3.1)
takoꞌa “also” (→ 4.5.3.2)
hoki “also” (obsolete) (→ 4.5.3.3)
hakaꞌou “again” (→ 4.5.3.4)
mau “really, completely” (→ 4.5.3.5)
tāꞌue “perchance; suddenly”
tahaŋa “simply, spontaneously; without reason”184
koroꞌiti (variant koraꞌiti) “slowly; softly”
184
tahaŋa < PPN *tafaŋa, which has reflexes in many languages in the sense “naked, bare”. The
development to a postverbal adverb in the sense “simply” only took place in Rapa Nui and Rapa
(Walworth 2015a:180; 2015b).
takoꞌa “also” and koroꞌiti “slowly, softly” are also used as sentential adverbs. takoꞌa,
hakaꞌou “again” and mau “really” also occur as adverbs in the noun phrase.
Other words occur both as adjectives and as verb phrase adverbs; this includes words
like rivariva “good; well”, rahi “much/many”, ꞌitiꞌiti “small; a bit”, raꞌe “first” (→
- -
3.6.4.1), riꞌariꞌa “terrible; terribly, very”, kē “different(ly)”, pūai “strong(ly)”. The first
-
two occur very frequently as adverbs, the others somewhat less.

Still other words occur as adverbs very occasionally; they function primarily as
adjectives or verbs. Examples are parautiꞌa “truth; true, truly”, hōrou “quick(ly)”, nuinui -
“big; in a big way, on a large scale”; ora “to live; alive”, reoreo “to lie; lying”, tano -
“correct; somewhat (after an adj.)”, rikiriki “small (pl.); a bit”.

-
Though the verb phrase chart in 7.1 shows a single adverb slot, the verb may be
followed by more than one adverb, as the following examples show:
(127) ...Ki oti ana aŋa iho hakaꞌou e tahi pērīkura.
when finish IRR make just_then again NUM one film
“Later, they may make yet another movie.” (R647.253)
(128) He vahivahi - rivariva takoꞌa a
- mātou i te henua...
NTR divide:RED good:RED also
1PL.EXC ACC ART land
PROP
“We will also divide up the land well...” (R648.224)
All adverb combinations in the corpus occur in a consistent order. For example, V
rivariva takoꞌa is attested, but *V takoꞌa rivariva is not. Therefore it is possible to
- -
establish a number of ordered adverb slots:185
Table 32: Order of postverbal adverbs
1 2 3 4
rivariva “well”
- iho “just then, hakaꞌou “again” mau “really”
kē “differently” recently” takoꞌa “also”
takataka “together”
- tahi “all”
ꞌitiꞌiti “a little”
- koraꞌiti “slowly”
ꞌiti “a little”; tahaŋa “just, without
reason”; hōrou “quickly”; rahi “much”;
ꞌino “badly”; pūai “strongly”; parautiꞌa
“truly”; tahaŋa “just”...
185
All adverbs in this table co-occur with at least one adverb in the contiguous slot(s), i.e. all
adverbs in slot 2 co-occur with an adverb in slot 1 and with one in slot 3, and so on. Adverbs in
the same slot do not co-occur in the corpus. Adverbs in the combined slot 1 + 2, such as ꞌiti, do
not co-occur with any adverb in slot 1 or 2.
Another indication for the existence of multiple adverb slots is found in nominalised
phrases: tahi and koraꞌiti (slot 2) occur before the nominalising suffix, while adverbs
from slots 3 and 4 occur after the suffix (→ 3.2.3.3).
4.5.2. Sentential adverbs

Sentential adverbs are a constituent on their own; they are not part of a noun phrase
or verb phrase.
Sentential adverbs form a small class in Rapa Nui. They include words expressing
temporal notions relating to the future, like ꞌanīrā “later today” and āpō “tomorrow”
(→ 3.6.4).186 Apart from these, there are only a few common sentential adverbs: takoꞌa
“also”, koraꞌiti/koroꞌiti “slowly”, koiꞌite “perhaps, if perhaps”, korohaŋa “even” and
pēaha “perhaps, probably”.187 Some of these these are discussed individually in 4.5.3
below. Two of them, takoꞌa and koroꞌiti, also occur in the verb phrase.
Sentential adverbs occur in different positions in the clause. For example, while takoꞌa
“also” as a sentential adverb is usually clause-initial (see (136) below), pēaha
“perhaps” occurs after the initial constituent as in (129):
(129) Ku toke ꞌā pēaha to tāua tāropa ꞌura.
PRF steal CONT perhaps ART:of 1DU.INC basket lobster
“Our basket of lobsters seems to have been stolen.” (Mtx-7-28.050)
Sentential adverbs can be modified by particles and form an “adverb phrase”. For
example, time adverbs may be followed by mau “really”, nō, postnominal
demonstratives, and the identity marker ꞌā. In the following example, āpō is followed
by no less than three particles:
(130) Āpō mau ena ꞌā he hakaroŋo koe i a ia.
tomorrow really MED IDENT NTR listen 2SG ACC PROP 3SG
“Tomorrow (“Just tomorrow” or “Tomorrow exactly”) you will hear him.”
(Act. 25:22)
4.5.3. Individual adverbs

In this section, a number of adverbs is discussed in more detail. All of these are verb
phrase adverbs, though takoꞌa “also” is also used as a sentential adverb.
4.5.3.1. iho “just then”

iho (< PPN *hifo) is originally a directional particle “downwards”, which is
widespread throughout the Polynesian languages. In all languages apart from Rapa Nui
it is a directional, in the same class as mai “hither” and atu “away” (→ 7.5);
186
Notions like “here” and “there” are not expressed by adverbs, but by a preposition +
locational (→ 4.6.5.1). The same is true for temporal notions related to the past, like “yesterday”.
187
A few other sentential level adverbs are used occasionally, such as pōrā/pōpōrā “quickly” and
-
umarā “hurriedly”. These will not be discussed separately.

additionally, in some languages it is used as a verb in the sense “to descend”. In many
languages, directional particles have additional senses besides the directional one, such
as deictic, aspectual and/or reflexive.188 However, only in Rapa Nui have the following
two developments taken place:
1. iho has lost its spatial meaning altogether; instead, it indicates temporal proximity
or immediacy: “recently; just then, just now”.189
2. iho has moved to the adverb position, directly after the verb. As a result, iho occurs
before rō and nō and may co-occur with directionals (see (131) below).
iho indicates that an event takes place exactly at, or just prior to, the time of reference.
This often implies that something will happen only at the time specified, not earlier. In
a perfective clause, this means that the event has just happened: “recently, just”; in
other aspects, iho can be translated as “just at that moment, exactly then”. When iho
occurs in a main clause with perfective sense, the aspectual tends to be left out, as
(131) shows.
(131) Tutuꞌu
- iho nō mai te ŋā poki ꞌi ꞌaŋataiahi.
PL:arrive
just_then just hither ART PL child at yesterday
“The children arrived just yesterday.” (R245.225)
hour four PROX and hour seven 1PL.INC CNTG arrive just_then
“It is now four o’clock, and we will (not) arrive (before) seven o’clock.”
(R210.198)
Sometimes iho means “for the first time”:

(133) He piri iho mai ki a au te roe taꞌe kai tihota.
NTR get_together just_then hither to PROP 1SG ART ant NEG.CONS eat sugar
“This is the first time I meet an ant which doesn’t eat sugar.” (R214.008)
4.5.3.2. takoꞌa “also”

takoꞌa (variants tokoꞌa, takora) is an additive connective: “also, as well”. It may have
developed by metathesis from PPN *katoa “all” (with added glottal): in several other
EP languages (Rarotongan, Tahitian, Pa’umotu), reflexes of katoa have the same sense
“also”.
takoꞌa is most commonly used to indicate a connection between two clauses. In this
function it normally occurs as an adverb in the verb phrase. The following is an
example:
188
See e.g. Cablitz (2006:427) for Marquesan, Acad.tah. (1986:175, 217, 330) for Tahitian, Elbert
& Pukui (1979:92ff) for Hawaiian.
189
Notice that iho can indicate recent past in Hawaiian (Elbert & Pukui 1979:92) and Tahitian
(Acad.tah. 1986:175).
(134) I hīmene tahi era te ŋā poki i te hīmene o te reva,

PFV sing all DIS ART PL child ACC ART song of ART flag
he hīmene takoꞌa a Tiare.
NTR sing also PROP Tiare
“When all the children sang the national anthem, Tiare also sang.” (R334.340)
(135) E hohopu nō ꞌā,
- he uꞌi atu ko te vave nuinui e
- tahi.
IPFV PL:bathe just CONT NTR look away PROM ART wave big NUM one
He takeꞌa takoꞌa i te ika e tahi.
NTR see also ACC ART fish NUM one
“When they were swimming, they saw a big wave. They also saw a fish.”
(R338.003f)
In these examples, takoꞌa indicates that the event or action applies not only to an
entity mentioned previously, but to another entity as well, e.g. a different subject as in
(134), or a different object as in (135).
In modern Rapa Nui, takoꞌa may also occur clause-initially, sometimes preceded by ꞌe
“and”. This construction may be influenced by Spanish, where (y) además “(and)
moreover” commonly occurs at the beginning of a sentence. This serves to create a link
between what precedes and what follows, but unlike the examples above, there is not
necessarily a constituent which is identical in both clauses.
In the following example (from a text about marriage in the past), the two sentences
linked by takoꞌa describe two aspects of the relationship between the families of the
bride and the groom.
(136) Te huaꞌai o Iovani, ko ꞌite ꞌā taꞌe he huaꞌai o rāua te huaꞌai
NTR family of Iovani PRF know CONT NEG.CONS PRED family of 3PL ART family
o Tiare. Takoꞌa, ꞌina a Iovani kai māhani hia ki a Tiare.
of Tiare also NEG PROP Iovani NEG.PFV accustomed yet to PROP Tiare
“Iovani’s family knew that Tiare’s family was not related to them. Also, Iovani
did not know Tiare yet.” (R238.004f)
takoꞌa also occurs in the noun phrase. Just as in the verb phrase, it occurs in the
adverb position, before other particles (→ 5.9.1). Like takoꞌa in the verb phrase, it
signals that an entity in the clause replaces an entity in the previous clause. It is used
in the following situations:
a. in nominal clauses, where there simply is no verb to attach to, as in (137):
(137) He viri i te moeŋa ꞌi te kahu, ꞌi roto ꞌana a Ure takoꞌa.
NTR roll ACC ART mat at ART cloth at inside IDENT PROP Ure also
“They rolled the mat (in which Ure was sleeping) in a cloth, Ure too was
inside (the cloth).” (Mtx-7-03.016)
b. when the noun phrase in question is preposed, as in (138):

(138) A au takoꞌa e hāꞌūꞌū rō ꞌā ki tōꞌoku matuꞌa hāpaꞌo

PROP 1SG also IPFV help EMPH CONT to POSS.1SG.O parent care_for
i te ꞌanimare pē Mihaera.
ACC ART animal like Mihaera
“I also help my father to take care of the animals, like Mihaera.” (R334.293)
c. in elliptic clauses, where the predicate is omitted. In (139) below, only the
contrastive constituent – the locative phrase – is expressed, and takoꞌa is added to this
constituent.
(139) Te ŋāŋata o te nohoŋa tuai era ꞌā, ꞌi roto i te hare te moeŋa
the men of ART stay:NMLZ old DIS IDENT at inside at art hout ART sleep:NMLZ
haŋa, ꞌi roto i te ꞌana takoꞌa.
NMLZ at inside at ART cave also
“The people of the old times, they slept in houses, and also in caves.” (Ley-5-
02.001)
4.5.3.3. hoki “also”

hoki “also” is only used in older texts,190 apart from a few examples of what could be
frozen usage in newer texts. It occurs at the end of a constituent; this constituent is
typically a noun phrase or verb phrase, but may also be a quantifier phrase (within an
NP). hoki signals that the constituent it modifies is added to another constituent of the
same kind and in some way parallel to it.
hoki can be used to connect NPs or to connect clauses. When it connects two noun
phrases, it indicates that the NP is parallel to an earlier NP. This typically happens in
lists, where a series of NPs all play the same role in a clause. In this case hoki is
attached to the last element of the list.
(140) ꞌI te tapa te matuꞌa, a koro, a nua, te uka riva, te repa
at ART side ART parents PROP Dad PROP Mum PROP girls good PROP young_man
riva hoki.
good also
“To the side are the parents, the fathers, the mothers, the pretty girls, the
handsome boys as well.” (Ley-5-24.013)
When hoki connects two clauses, it signals that the second clause (in which hoki
occurs) is parallel in some way to the first clause. Usually this means that both clauses
190
hoki does not occur in MsE, but is common in Mtx and Ley. As takoꞌa also occurs in these
corpora, the question is whether there is a clear difference between hoki and takoꞌa. As far as
there is any difference, it seems to be that hoki indicates a stronger contrast. For example, while
takoꞌa occurs with implicit subjects, hoki never does (see (141) below). Also, while hoki is used in
preposed (i.e. focussed) noun phrases, takoꞌa is not (see (142)), at least not in older texts.
are identical in one or two constituents,191 while they contrast in one or two other
constituents.192
When hoki connects two clauses, it is usually added to the first constituent of the
second clause. This is normally the verb phrase as in (141), but it may be a preposed
constituent as in (142):
(141) He toꞌo mai te nui, he ꞌakaveŋa. [He toꞌo mai hoki] te ꞌiti,
NTR take hither ART big ART carry_on_back NTR take hither also ART small
he ꞌakaveŋa takoꞌa.
NTR carry_on_back also
“The oldest (girl) took (the food) and carried it on her back. The youngest also
took (food) and also carried it on her back.” (Mtx-7-24.041f)
(142) He toꞌo mai i te ꞌōꞌone... [Hai moa hoki] ana toꞌo mai.
NTR take hither ACC ART soil chicken also IRR take hither
INST
“He took dirt... He also took a chicken.” (Ley-5-28.002-004)
4.5.3.4. hakaꞌou “again”

hakaꞌou193 (older variants hokoꞌou, hakahou) “again” marks various kinds of repetition.
hakaꞌou may indicate that an event which has happened before, is repeated:
(143) He hāŋai hakaꞌou i te māꞌaŋa rikiriki.
-
NTR feed again ACC ART chick PL:small

“He raised chicks again. (He had raised chickens before.)” (Mtx-7-05.021)
More often hakaꞌou has a broader sense, indicating that the event has some element of
repetition, without being repeated exactly. For example, the action expressed by the
verb is performed again, even though the event as a whole is not the repetition of a
previous event. In the following example, oho hakaꞌou signals that the people keep
going, without implying that they had gone to Mount Pu’i before.
(144) ꞌAi ka oho hakaꞌou mai ira ki Pua Katiki.
there CNTG go again from PRO to Pua Katiki
“Then they went (continued their way) from there to Pua Katiki.” (R420.047)
191
An exception are clauses which are only identical in their subjects; these clauses are extremely
common in narrative and don’t warrant the use of hoki.
192
Levinsohn (2007:92) distinguishes several ways in which clauses can be contrasted: “replacing
focus” means that one constituent of the clause is replaced by another, while the rest of the
clause is identical or synonymous; “prototypical contrast” means that clauses have one
constituent in common and two points of contrast. Both of these can be indicated by hoki, as the
examples show.
193
hakaꞌou has cognates in several EP languages: Mangarevan ꞌakaꞌou “again”, Tahitian faꞌahou,
Pa’umotu hakahou. In these languages it consists of the causative prefix (PEP *faka) plus a reflex
of PPN *foꞌou “new”. The Rapa Nui reflex of *fōu is hōꞌou; the form hakaꞌou suggests that the
word was borrowed from Mangarevan, with the initial glottal becoming h by analogy of the RN
causative prefix haka.
In a negated clause, NEG + hakaꞌou means “not any more” (Sp. “ya no”):
(145) ꞌIna koe ko taŋi hakaꞌou.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV cry again
“(to someone who is crying): Don’t cry anymore.” (R349.016)
In the noun phrase, hakaꞌou means “other, another”.

(146) ...kī tū taŋata era ki tū poki era, ki tū taŋata hakaꞌou era.
say DEM man DIS to DEM child DIS to DEM man
again DIS
“...said the man to the child and to the other man.” (R102.020)
4.5.3.5. mau “really”

mau is a marker of emphasis: “really, truly”.194 It occurs both in the noun phrase and in
the verb phrase.
In the verb phrase, mau either underlines that an action really happens, or that it
happens completely, to the full extent.
(147) Iā, i viri mau nō mai.
well PFV fall really just hither
“Well, (the child) really just fell down.” (R102.048)
More commonly, mau occurs in the noun phrase. In this case it may have the sense of
“real”, as opposed to non-real, fake, made-up:
(148) Tōꞌona ꞌīŋoa mau ko Roberto Parrague Singers.
POSS.3SG.O name real PROM Roberto Parrague Singers
“(The people called him Parake, but) his real name was Roberto Parrague
Singers.” (R106.021)
In other cases, no contrast between real and non-real is implied; mau merely serves to
give the noun some emphasis:
(149) Te parautiꞌa mau, e eꞌa ꞌana ki te ika hī.
ART true real IPFV go_out CONT to ART fish fish.V
“The truth (lit. the real truth) was, they went out fishing.” (R303.052)
mau in the noun phrase may co-occur with the particles nō “just, simply” (→ 5.9.2) or
the identity marker ꞌā/ꞌana (→ 5.10), in which case it emphasizes these markers.
4.5.4. Sentential particles

There is another small group of words which can be classified as sentential adverbs:
they form a separate constituent in the clause and specify the clause as a whole. Unlike
the adverbs discussed so far, these elements are not derived from lexical items; they
194
It is either the same lexeme as mau “abundant”, or was borrowed from Tahitian mau “really”;
the second seems more probable. Tahitian mau itself is a reflex of PPN *maꞌu “fixed, firm”, cf.
Rapa Nui maꞌu “to hold, to carry”.
are short, usually monosyllabic, and in this respect they are similar to particles
occurring in the noun phrase and the verb phrase. Also, their sense is more general and
they are less straightforward to translate. In other words, they have a more
grammatical, less lexical character than the adverbs described so far. Hence their
characterisation of “particles”, even though – different from particles occurring in the
NP and the VP – they form a constituent on their own.
These elements are described in the following subsections.
4.5.4.1. Deictic particles

4.5.4.1.1. ꞌī “here”
ꞌī is a deictic particle expressing immediacy. It is used to point towards an object or
event, expressing that it is close in space or time to the speech situation.195 By drawing
attention to the object or event, the latter is put in focus.
ꞌī is used to draw attention to something which is nearby.
(150) ꞌĪ au.
IMM 1SG
“Here I am.” (R363.078)
(151) Ka eꞌa koe, ꞌī tuꞌu pāpā era ꞌi haho.
IMPgo_out 2SG IMM POSS.2SG.O father DIS at outside
“Go outside, here is your father outside.” (R210.094)
Clauses such as (150)–(151) could be labeled “presentational”: ꞌī followed by a

nominal constituent serves to signal the presence of someone or something.196
ꞌī may indicate that an event takes place immediately (right now”):
(152) ꞌĪ au he oho rō ꞌai mai taꞌe pō.
IMM 1SG NTR go from NEG.CONS night
EMPH SUBS
“I’m going now, before it gets dark.” (R153.042)
More generally, ꞌī expresses simultaneity with respect to a time of reference. In (152)

above the time of reference is the present; in narrative discourse the time of reference
is the time when events in the context take place. In combination with perfect aspect
ko – ꞌā, ꞌī underlines that an event has just taken place.
(153) ꞌĪ ku eꞌa hakaꞌou mai ꞌana a ruŋa mai te ꞌara iŋa,
IMM PRF go_out again hither CONT by above from ART look_under_water NMLZ
195
ꞌī is similar in function to focus particles such as idou in Koine Greek and hinneh in Biblical
Hebrew (see Levinsohn 2007:58, 82).
196
This does not mean that ꞌī is a general device to express presentational clauses, e.g. to
introduce participants in narrative. The use of ꞌī in presentational clauses is limited to deictic
contexts, where the entity presented is visible to speaker and hearer.
ka uru mai era ꞌi tū hora era, ka ŋau.

CNTG enter hither DIS at DEM time DIS CNTG bite
“Just when he came up again from looking under water, the (shark) entered
and bit.” (R361.016)
ꞌī may convey immediacy and urgency to a statement or request: “I’m telling you,
listen, look...”.
(154) E Pea ē, ꞌī a Kava e taŋi mai nei ki a au,
VOC Pea VOC IMM PROP Kava IPFV cry hither PROX to PROP 1SG
mai te pōꞌā ki te hora nei.
from ART morning to ART time PROX
“Pea, (listen,) Kava is crying for me, from morning till now.” (R229.017)
(155) ꞌE ꞌī a au ka hatu rō atu ki a koe.
and IMM PROP 1SG CNTG advise EMPH away to PROP 2SG
“Look, I’m advising/warning you.” (R310.294)
Often ꞌī is used in combination with a perception verb. ꞌī has the effect of putting the
perceived object into focus. What the participant sees or hears is something significant
or even surprising. The act of perception may also be implied, as in (157).
(156) ꞌĪ a Vai Ora ka uꞌi atu ena, ꞌina a Tahoŋa.
IMM PROP Vai Ora CNTG look away MED NEG PROP Tahonga
“Vai Ora looked: Tahonga wasn’t there!” (R301.164)
(157) ꞌĪ ka oꞌo atu ena, e haꞌuru nō ꞌā a Makita.
IMM CNTG enter away MED IPFV sleep
just CONT PROP Makita
“He entered, and (look!) Makita was sleeping.” (R243.183)
As (154)–(156) show, the subject of the clause tends to be placed straight after ꞌī,
before the verb (→ 8.6.1.1). This is not obligatory, though.
4.5.4.1.2. ꞌai “there is”

ꞌai is a deictic particle like ꞌī, calling attention to an object or event; it indicates greater
distance.
ꞌai is used to point at things at a certain distance:
(158) ꞌAi te Padre Sebastian ꞌi muri i te mōai.
there ART Father Sebastián at near at ART statue
“There is Father Sebastián, next to the statue.” (R412.180)
(159) ꞌAi a Toroa ꞌai. ꞌAi a Feripe ꞌai.
there PROP Toroa there there PROP Felipe there
“There is Toroa (=Father Seb. Englert). There is Felipe.” (R411.134f)
(160) ꞌAi tuꞌu taoꞌa ko haka topa ꞌā e te kape pahī ꞌi tū hora nei.
there POSS.2SG.O object PRF CAUS descend CONT AG ART captain ship at DEM time PROX
“There are your belongings, which have just been disembarked by the captain
of the ship.” (R231.142)
(159)–(160) are “presentational” clauses, which indicate the presence of an entity in

the distance, just like ꞌī presents entities nearby.197 As (159) shows, initial ꞌai may be
followed by another ꞌai at the end of the clause, just like ꞌī may be followed by clause-
final ꞌī aꞌa.
Like ꞌī, ꞌai may have a temporal function; it marks a clause referring to a subsequent
event:
(161) He haka ekeeke - i te taŋata ki ruŋa ki te vaka, ꞌai ka maꞌu
NTR CAUS go_up:RED ACC ART person to above to ART boat there CNTG carry
ki ruŋa i te pahī.
to above at ART ship
“They made the people embark the boat, then took them on board the ship.”
(R210.042)
As this example shows, ꞌai is usually followed by the contiguity marker ka.
Like ꞌī, ꞌai may lend emphasis to a clause: “I’m telling you...”:
(162) Ko mate era ꞌana, ꞌai koe ka manaꞌu nō e haꞌuru ꞌana.
PRF die DIS CONT there 2SG CNTG think just IPFV sleep CONT
“She has died, and there you are just thinking that she is asleep!” (R229.303)
ꞌai is marginally used as a deictic preposition “there in/at” (→ 4.7.10). Furthermore,

ꞌai is obviously related to the postverbal particle ꞌai, which occurs in the construction
he – rō ꞌai (→ 7.2.3.3). It is similar in function: while deictic ꞌai frequently indicates
sequential events, he – rō ꞌai marks final and culminating events in a series.
4.5.4.1.3. nā “there near you”

The demonstrative nā (which indicates medial distance → 4.6.4.4) is used as a deictic
particle. Like ꞌī and ꞌai it occurs clause-initially, and usually serves to point at
something in the vicinity of the hearer. Different from ꞌī and ꞌai, nā is used only in a
spatial sense, not in a temporal sense.
(163) Nā ka uꞌi rā kōrua, ka hia ꞌumu nei ꞌāꞌaku
MED IMP look INTENS 2PL CNTG how_many earth_oven PROX POSS.1SG.A
197
This use led Fischer (2001a:319) to take ꞌai as derived from Spanish existential marker “hay”.
However, the use of ꞌai to introduce presentational clauses already occurs in old texts.
e kā atu ena.
IPFV light away MED
“Now look, you guys, how many earth ovens I have been cooking!” (R352.089)
(164) ¿Nā ꞌō koe, e māmārūꞌau ē?
MED really 2SG VOC grandmother VOC
“Is that you, grandmother?” (R313.119)
(165) ꞌĒ, ka iri mai koe, nā te vave nā.
hey IMP ascend hither 2SG MED ART wave MED
“Hey, come up, there is a wave!” (R126.025)
As (165) shows, nā may be reinforced by another nā at the end of the clause.
4.5.4.2. hoꞌi and paꞌi

hoꞌi and paꞌi are discourse particles which are very common in spoken language; their
function is not easy to pin down.198 They usually occur after the first constituent of the
clause; they lend emphasis to this constituent and/or provide a connection to the
previous clause.
paꞌi is used to link clauses, indicating that the clause in some way builds upon,
confirms or reinforces the preceding clause. In (166), paꞌi (2x) confirms what the other
speaker has said. In (167), a fragment from an oral text, paꞌi appears to be sprinkled
throughout the discourse without a very specific function.
(166) —¿Taꞌe ꞌō mai ꞌAnakena i haka eke ai? —ꞌĒē, paꞌi.
NEG.CONS really from Anakena PFV CAUS go_up PVP yes in_fact
—ꞌI ꞌAnakena paꞌi tū hora ena i haka eke ai.
at Anakena in_fact DEM time DIS PFV CAUS go_up PVP
“—Didn’t they take (the statue) up from Anakena? —Yes, indeed. —Indeed,
when they took it up, it was in Anakena.” (R412.159f)
(167) He ꞌaroha atu paꞌi ki a kōrua, ꞌiorana paꞌi a kōrua taꞌatoꞌa.
NTR greet away in_fact to PROP 2PL hello in_fact PROP 2PL all
ꞌI te meꞌe, ko haŋa ꞌā paꞌi a au mo vānaŋa atu ki a koe...
at ART thing PRF want CONT in_fact PROP 1SG for talk away to PROP 2SG
“I’m greeting paꞌi you; hello paꞌi to you all. Because, I want paꞌi to talk to
you...” (R403.001ff)
198
Both particles were borrowed from Tahitian. They are very common in modern Rapa Nui
discourse, but do not occur in older texts. Even in Fel and Blx (1970s), they occur hardly or not
(paꞌi 0x, hoꞌi 2x). In Tahitian, paꞌi underlines a statement (“indeed”); hoꞌi may have the same
function, but may also connect a statement to the preceding context, for example providing a
reason (“for, as”), an addition (“also”) or a contrast (“however”). See Acad.tah. (1986:381);
Lazard & Peltzer (2000:117).
More commonly, paꞌi is used in clauses providing the grounds for the previous clause:
“for, as” (Spanish pues):
(168) A Tiare ꞌina kai ꞌite, he turu iho, paꞌi, ki te hāpī.
PROP Tiare NEG NEG.PFV know NTR go_down just_then in_fact to ART learn
“Tiare doesn’t know (the national anthem), as it’s the first time she goes to
school.” (R334.023)
(169) ¿Pē hē a au ana hoŋi atu i a koe? ꞌIna, paꞌi, koe o muri i a au.
like CQ PROP 1SG IRR kiss away ACC PROP 2SG NEG in_fact 2SG of near at PROP 1SG
“How could I kiss you? You are not with me.” (R228.006f)
paꞌi seems to have taken on the range of use of Spanish pues, which both specifies
grounds or reasons (“for, as”) and provides confirmation or emphasis (“well, indeed”).
hoꞌi gives (some) emphasis to the preceding constituent. It is used after a wide range of
elements, such as deictic particles (170) and the negation ꞌina (171). Like paꞌi, it may
have a confirmatory function: “indeed” (172).
(170) ꞌAi hoꞌi te taŋata e haꞌamata era e tari era ki ruŋa i te pahī.
there indeed ART person IPFV begin carry DIS to above at ART ship
DIS IPFV
“Then hoꞌi the people started to be transported on board the ship.” (R210.040)
(171) ꞌIna hoꞌi koe ko riri. He kori nō hoꞌi nei meꞌe.
NEG indeed 2SG PROM angry PRED play just indeed PROX thing
“Don’t hoꞌi be angry. This is just a joke.” (R315.040f)
(172) —¿He ꞌariki hoꞌi rā? —ꞌĒē, hoꞌi.
PRED king indeed INTENS yes indeed
“—Is that a king/chief? —Yes, indeed.” (R415.033)
hoꞌi may occur at the start of a new episode in discourse, marking a new topic or
another initial constituent:
(173) A nua, hoꞌi, e haka rito ꞌā e tahi ꞌavahata kahu.
PROP Mum indeed IPFV CAUS ready CONT NUM one box clothes
“(In the meantime), Mum hoꞌi was preparing a box of clothes.” (R210.027)
The constituent marked with hoꞌi may be emphasized in opposition to another

constituent. In this way, hoꞌi may come to express contrast:
(174) Kai ꞌite mai... Ko koe hoꞌi mo ꞌite i taꞌa kai tunu nei
NEG.PFV know hither PROM 2SG indeed for know ACC POSS.2SG.A food cook PROX
paꞌi e koe.
in_fact AG 2SG
“I don’t know... You hoꞌi are the one who knows what food you have cooked.”
(R236.029f)
Altogether, hoꞌi can be characterised as a spacer: an element which marks the

boundary between two constituents and indicates that the preceding constituent is
special in some way (Dooley & Levinsohn 2001:37). According to Levinsohn (2007:74),
it is not unusual for the same spacer in a given language to occur after a topic, a point
of departure (such as a time phrase), or a constituent in focus.
4.5.4.3. ia “so, then”

The particle ia “so, then” occurs in modern Rapa Nui only.199 When the clause starts
with a verb phrase, ia occurs after the verb phrase; (175) shows that it occurs after the
VP-final particle ꞌana:
(175) Ko koa atu ꞌana ia a Tamy ꞌi tū hora era.
PRFhappy away CONT then PROP Tamy at DEM time DIS
“Tamy was happy at that moment.” (R315.300)
When the verb phrase is not initial in the clause, ia occurs either after the first
constituent as in (176), or after the verb phrase as in (177).
(176) ꞌAi ia e raŋaraŋa mai
- era...
there then IPFV float:RED hither
“Then he floated...” (R108.117)
(177) ꞌI tū hora era he ŋaroꞌa ia e ꞌUriꞌuri i
- te ora.
at DEM time DIS NTR perceive then AG Uri’uri ACC ART life
“At that moment, Uri’uri felt relieved.” (R536.074)
ia indicates that the event in the clause develops from events mentioned before. It may
be the result of, or dependent on, other events (“so, thus”), as in (178) below. In a
weaker sense it marks events which are simply subsequent to other events (“then”), or
marks the apodosis of conditional clauses as in (179).
(178) He haꞌamata ia te moto ꞌi tū ŋā poki era.
NTR begin then ART fight at DEM PL child DIS
“(Some boys mocked Taparahi and he got angry.) So a fight started between
the boys.” (R250.013)
(179) ꞌE mo ai ōꞌona he repahoa ōꞌou, e Okū ē,
and if exist POSS.3SG.O PRED friend POSS.2SG.O VOC Oku VOC
he repahoa takoꞌa ia ōꞌoku!
PRED friend also then POSS.1SG.O
“And if he is your friend, Oku, then he is also my friend!” (R535.151)
Often ia marks a new step in the discourse, for example, at the start of a new scene in a
story, or a new topic in an exposition. The latter can be seen in the following example:
199
ia may be a borrowing from Tahitian: Tahitian ia is “un anaphorique général qui renvoie
d’une manière assez vague à ce qui précède, thème antéposé ou, plus généralement, contexte
antérieur” (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:118).
(180) He oꞌo ia ꞌi te hora nei ki te aŋa iŋa o te hiꞌo.

NTR enter then at ART time PROX to ART make NMLZ of ART glass
“(in an explanation of different aspects of diving:) Now let’s turn to the
making of goggles.” (R360.026)
Some speakers use ia in clauses which simply represent the next event in the discourse.
Others use it sparingly, or not at all. The frequency of ia thus depends to a large degree
on the preference of the speaker, just like “then” in English discourse.
4.5.4.4. The intensifier rā

The intensifying particle rā200 (not to be confused with demonstrative rā) occurs in
content questions and imperatives. It is placed after the first constituent of the clause;
in questions this is the question phrase, in imperatives the verb phrase.201 rā occurs
after the verb phrase-final particle ꞌana as in (182), but before other sentence-level
particles like ia “then”, as in (183).
(181) Ka noho ꞌitiꞌiti - mai rā koe.
IMP stay
little:RED hither INTENS 2SG
“You wait a little.” (R208.164)
(182) ¿E aha ꞌana rā koe?
what CONT INTENS 2SG
IPFV
“What are you doing?” (R212.054)
(183) ¿Ko ai rā ia koe?
PROMwho INTENS then 2SG
“Who then are you?” (R314.099)
rā adds an element of insistence to the question or command.202 It may be used in

rhetorical questions, often adding a note of provocation or rebuke:
(184) ¿Mo aha rā koe i kī ai i taꞌa vānaŋa pē nā?
for what INTENS 2SG PFV say PVP ACC POSS.2SG.A word like MED
“Why did you say something like that?” (R301.301)
It is also used in non-rhetorical questions, to which the speaker expects a reply. rā

conveys a certain vividness and inquisitiveness: the speaker is eager to get an answer.
200
The etymology of rā is unknown, but it is probably related to Tahitian rā, which also occurs
after the first clause constituent. Tah. rā is a contrastive conjunction “but”, but also serves as an
intensifier in commands and conditional clauses (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:98; Acad.tah. 1999:399).
201
rā itself is not part of the verb phrase: in (181) it occurs after the direction mai; in (182) it
occurs after the VP-final particle ꞌana.
202
Du Feu (1987; 1996) labels this particle as [-REA] (as opposed to rō [+REA]), in line with the
fact that it does not occur in statements expressing a fact. R. Weber (2003) labels rā as
DUB(itative).
(185), for example, is spoken by a curious child. (186) is spoken by one (teenage)
friend to another.
(185) ¿A hē nei rā i ŋaro ai? ... ¿ꞌI hē rā e noho era
toward CQ PROX INTENS PFV disappear PVP at CQ INTENS IPFV stay DIS
tōꞌona ŋā repahoa era?

POSS.3SG.O PL friend DIS
“Where did (the fish) disappear? Where do its friends live?” (R301.179,182)
(186) ¿Pē hē rā koe, e Hiero ē?
like CQ INTENS 2SG VOC Hiero VOC
“How are you, Hiero?” (R315.081)
A question like (186), with its somewhat insistent tone, is only appropriate when
talking to friends or close acquaintances. When speaking to strangers, one would use
the more neutral ¿Pē hē koe? “How are you?” (N. Weber, p.c.).
When rā is used in imperative clauses, it marks insistence as well. The context may
involve a certain emotion: enthusiasm as in (187), defy as in (188):
(187) Ka uꞌi mai rā koe. Ko ravaꞌa ꞌā e au e rima tara.
IMPlook hither INTENS 2SG PRF obtain CONT AG 1SG NUM five peso
“Look at me. I found five pesos!” (R334.288f)
(188) ¡Ka kī mai rā ꞌa ꞌai a koe i puꞌa atu!
IMP say hither INTENS of.A who PROP 2SG PFV beat away
“(Soldiers are mocking Jesus:) Now tell us who hit you!” (Mark 14:65)
4.5.4.5. Asseverative ꞌō
The particle ꞌō (etymology unknown, possibly from the exclamation ꞌō “oh!”) is
asseverative. It occurs after the first constituent of the clause and underlines the truth
of the clause. Often, but not always, the clause expresses something unexpected.
(189) ꞌI te rua mahana... he uꞌi ko mate ꞌana ꞌō.
at ART two day NTR look PRF die CONT really
“The next day... they saw that (the sea monster) was dead (something they
had not expected at all).” (R402.015)
(190) ¡Ko pō ꞌana, ꞌina ꞌō kai tuꞌu mai ꞌana!
PRF night CONT NEG really NEG.PFV arrive hither CONT
“Now it’s night, and he hasn’t arrived! (And you told me he would come
today!)” (R229.148)
ꞌō is often used in exclamative constructions (→ 10.4.2), where it underlines that

something is not according to normal expectations.
(191) ¡Ko te ꞌaroha ꞌō i a koe!
PROM ART pity really at PROP 2SG
“Poor you! (How pitiable you are!)” (R490.018)
ꞌō is used in rhetorical questions to which a negative answer is expected. As in other

cases, ꞌō emphasizes that the proposition expressed in the question is not in line with
what one would expect.
(192) ¿Ko haŋa ꞌana ꞌō pēaha koe mo pakoꞌo tōꞌoku rima?
PRFwant CONT really perhaps 2SG for loose POSS.1SG.O hand
“Do you want my hand to come loose?!” (R215.020)
(193) ¿Kai pāhono mai ꞌana ꞌō koe i tū vānaŋa era ꞌāꞌaku?
NEG.PFVanswer hither CONT really 2SG ACC DEM word DIS POSS.1SG.A
“Don’t you answer to what I said?” (R315.264)
4.5.4.6. Dubitative hō
hō – a rather rare particle – adds an element of uncertainty or doubt to questions
(whether polar or content questions): “maybe...”. It occurs after the first constituent of
the clause.
(194) ¿He maꞌu hō e au ꞌo ꞌina?
NTR carry DUB AG 1SG or NEG
“Should I take it or not?” (R460.002)
(195) He aha hō te auraꞌa o te vānaŋa era?
PRED what DUB ART meaning of ART word DIS
“What could be the meaning of those words?” (Luke 1:29)
hō may be used in rhetorical questions to which the expected answer is “no”.203

(196) ¿E ai rō ꞌana hō te meꞌe mo taꞌe rovaꞌa e te ꞌAtua mo aŋa?
exist EMPH CONT DUB ART thing for NEG.CONS obtain AG ART God
IPFV for do
“Would there be anything God is not able to do?” (Gen. 18:14)
4.6. Demonstratives
4.6.1. Forms
Rapa Nui does not have a single class of demonstratives. Rather, it has four classes of
particles with demonstrative functions. Each class consists of three particles indicating
different degrees of distance: proximal (close to the speaker), medial (at some distance,
often close to the hearer) and distal (removed from speaker and hearer).204 The four
classes are similar or even identical in form, but differ in syntactic status; besides, they
exhibit certain differences in function.
— Demonstrative determiners occur before the noun, in the same position as other
determiners. In addition to the proximal, medial and distal forms, there are two forms
which are neutral with respect to distance (glossed DEM).
203
This use of hō is only found in the Bible translation.
204
Forms of all classes are glossed PROX, MED and DIS, respectively.
— Postnuclear (=postnominal and postverbal) demonstratives occur after the noun

or the verb.
— Deictic locationals are a subclass of the locationals (→ 3.6). They point to a
general location: “here, there”, and correspond to what Dixon (2010b:228) labels
“local adverbial demonstratives”. In addition to the proximal, medial and distal forms,
there is also a neutral pro-form ira which syntactically belongs to the same class.
— Demonstrative pronouns are relatively rare and used in limited contexts.
The first two are what Dixon (2010b:225) calls “nominal demonstratives”, elements in
the noun phrase which specify nouns for definiteness, indicate distance with respect to
the speaker or hearer, and enable participant tracking in discourse. The others have a
more independent status.
The forms for each class are as follows:205
Table 33: Classes of demonstratives
demonstrative postnuclear deictic dem.

determiners demonstr. locationals pronouns
proximal nei, nī nei nei nei
medial nā ena nā nā
distal rā era rā rā
neutral tau/tou/tū, hū ira
The four classes will be discussed in the following subsections. First the neutral
demonstrative determiners will be discussed (4.6.2), followed by the postnominal
demonstratives (4.6.3), as these commonly occur together. The other demonstrative
determiners are discussed in 4.6.4. Sec. 4.6.5 deals with deictic locationals, 4.6.6 with
demonstrative pronouns.
Postverbal demonstratives are discussed in chapter 7 (→ 7.6), as their use is closely
tied to other verb phrase elements (especially aspect markers).
205
Clark (1974) reconstructs two sets of demonstratives for PPN: monomoraic unstressed forms
*-ni/*-na/*-ra and bimoraic long forms nei/naa/laa. In Rapa Nui, as in some other languages,
both sets are reflected, with the exception of –ni (nī patterns with the long forms and must have
developed from nei by monophthongisation). Rapa Nui is the only language to have e- in the
short form era; ena occurs in Tongan as well. However, similar forms occur in Rarotongan (Buse
1963b:415f) and Tahitian (pers.obs.), though less overtly. In these languages, the enclitics na and
ra cause lengthening of the preceding vowel, accompanied by stress shift:
[te taˈɁata] [te taɁaˈtaː ra] (Tahitian)
“the man” “that man”
Thus, na and ra in these languages actually consist of a CV syllable preceded by an unspecified
vowel (Vna, Vra), which means that they are quite similar to Rapa Nui ena and era, respectively.
4.6.2. The t-demonstrative

4.6.2.1. Forms
Rapa Nui has a set of demonstrative determiners of the form tVV:
tau206 tou tū
These forms are semantically and syntactically equivalent; they succeed each other in
the history of Rapa Nui. In older texts, tau is predominant; in some corpora it is the
only form in use. tou occurs in both older and newer texts; nowadays, tū is used.
The sources thus show a gradual vowel assimilation tau → tou → tū.207
As the three forms are diachronic variants of the same particle, they will be treated as
a single “t-demonstrative”.
4.6.2.2. Function
The t-demonstrative is a neutral form, which – unlike other demonstratives – is not
differentiated for relative distance.208 It is always accompanied by one of the following
postnominal elements: either a postnominal demonstrative (PND) nei, ena or era or the
identity marker ꞌā or ꞌana, but never both. Of these two options, the PND is by far the
most common one.
In combination with a PND, the t-demonstrative has anaphoric function: it signals that
the entity referred to has been mentioned in the preceding context (and, by
implication, is known to the hearer). In (197), there are three referents: Ure a Ohovehi,
the boat and the men. All have been mentioned before, and all are referred to with the
same combination of a t-demonstrative and a PND.
206
tau is probably related to PEP *taua (see Pawley 1966:60, Green 1985:12), which, however,
only occurs in Tahitic languages. An indication for a relationship between the two is that taua,
like Rapa Nui tau, is an anaphoric determiner which co-occurs with postnominal demonstratives
– obligatorily so in Tahitian (Acad.tah. 1986:64f), optionally in Maori (Bauer 1993:152).
Rigo & Vernaudon (2004:462) consider Tahitian taua to consist of the article te + a cognate of
the demonstrative ua which appears in Hawaiian but has no cognates in any other language.
They tentatively propose that this ua is originally the same morpheme as the perfect aspectual ua
which occurs in both Tahitian and Hawaiian; however, the latter is a reflex of PPN *kua, while
taua also occurs in languages which have preserved PPN *k, like Maori, Rarotongan and
Pa’umotu (see Pollex).
207
A similar monophthongisation process may have taken place in Rapa (=Rapa Iti): the definite
marker tō is probably derived from *taua, through a development taua > tau > tou > tō
(Walworth 2015a:183).
208
According to Anderson and Keenan (1985:280), one-term deictic systems, which do not
indicate relative distance, are crosslinguistically very rare. French ce is another example, but like
the Rapa Nui t-demonstrative, it usually goes together with another demonstrative element
which does express distance. Notice that the t-demonstrative in combination with the identity
marker ꞌā/ꞌana is a true one-term subsystem: in this construction no relative distance is
expressed, despite the presence of a demonstrative. In such a case, as Anderson and Keenan
suggest, the demonstrative is little different from a definite article.
(197) He tikeꞌa e tau kope era, ko Ure ꞌa Ohovehi, tau vaka era
NTR see AG DEM person DIS PROM Ure a Ohovehi DEM boat DIS
o tau ŋāŋata era.
of DEM men DIS
“That man Ure a Ohovehi saw that boat of those people.” (Blx-3.070)
The use of the t-demonstrative with postnominal demonstratives is further discussed in

section 4.6.3.
In combination with the identity marker ꞌā/ꞌana the t-demonstrative expresses identity
with an entity previously mentioned; this is discussed in section 5.10.
As demonstratives are the main anaphoric device to track participants in discourse,

they are much more common than English demonstratives. Example (197) would
sound unnatural in translation if all the demonstratives were translated by
demonstratives.209
4.6.2.3. hū
The demonstrative hū210 is always accompanied by a postnominal demonstrative or an
identity marker, just like the t-demonstrative. It is much less common than the t-forms
and especially occurs in older texts, but is still in use. Like tū, it indicates that the
referent has been mentioned before;211 it may indicate a more “pointed” deixis: “just
that, precisely that”.
(198) —Taꞌe ko Reŋa Roiti taꞌa meꞌe ena. —¿He aha rā
NEG.CONS PROM Renga Roiti POSS.2SG.A thing MED PRED what INTENS
hū meꞌe era?
DEM thing DIS
“—That one is not Renga Roiti. —Then what exactly is it?!” (Ley-9-56.092f)
(199) He kī ki te nuꞌu mo oho a ꞌuta ꞌana mo haka tau mo uꞌi
NTR say to ART people for go toward inland IDENT for CAUS hang for look
ꞌatakea ko hū ŋā io era.
if PROM DEM PL young_man DIS
“He told the people to go ashore and lie in waiting to see whether it would be
those (same) boys.” (R425.011)
209
See Englert (1978:21): “El artícula tou-era (a veces tau-era) es pronombre demostrativo que se
usa frequentemente como simple artículo definido.”
210
hū may be related to Marquesan hua, which likewise serves as an anaphoric article. (Cablitz
2006:62; Bergmann 1963:49.) Bergmann also suggests a tentative link to the Hawaiian
demonstrative ua.
211
Etymologically, hū is more different from tū than its shape may suggest. As hū (unlike tū)
already occurs in older texts, it cannot be derived from tū (e.g. by analogy of te and he).
4.6.3. Postnominal demonstratives

The postnominal demonstratives nei, ena and era (henceforth PND) indicate different
degrees of distance:
nei proximity, close to the speaker
ena medial distance, close to the hearer
era farther distance, removed from both speaker and hearer
PND occur towards the right periphery of the noun phrase (see the chart in sec. 5.1).
As discussed in section 4.6.2, PND are obligatory when the noun is preceded by a t-
demonstrative (tau/tou/tū), unless the noun phrase contains the identity marker
ꞌā/ꞌana. PND also occur in combination with other determiners: articles as in (200),
possessive pronouns as in (201):
(200) te kona hare era
ARTplace house DIS
“home” (R210.021)
(201) tōꞌona koro era
POSS.3SG.O Dad DIS
“his father” (R380.010)
PND may be used either deictically or anaphorically. As deictic markers they serve to
point at something which is visible in the nonlinguistic context. As anaphoric markers
they refer to entities in the discourse context: entities which have been mentioned
before, will be mentioned afterwards, or which are known by some other means. In
practice, the anaphoric use is much more common in discourse.212
In the following sections, the PND are discussed in turn, starting with the most common
form era.
4.6.3.1. Distal/neutral era

When era is used deictically, it serves to point at something at a distance from both
speaker and hearer.
(202) ¿Hē te haraoa o te poki era?
CQ ART bread of ART child DIS
“Where is the bread of that child (over there)?” (R245.041)
(203) Ka noho, ki maꞌu mai tuꞌu māmātia era i te kai māꞌau.
IMP sit to carry hither POSS.2SG.O aunt food BEN.2SG.A
DIS ACC ART
“Sit down, so your aunt (over there) can bring you food.” (R245.065)
Much more commonly, era is anaphoric. era is by far the most common postnominal
demonstrative and the most neutral in sense. In its anaphoric use era usually does not
have a connotation of distance, but is simply a general-purpose demonstrative.
212
Hooper (2010:363) notices the same in Tokelauan discourse: situational (=deictic) use only
plays a “very minor part” in texts.
era is especially common with the t-demonstrative determiner (→ 4.6.2). The

combination tū/tou/tau – era is the most general device in narrative texts to refer to
participants mentioned earlier in the context. This makes its use extremely common in
discourse.213 In the following example, the two main characters of the story, neither of
whom is mentioned by name, are referred to as tau taŋata era “that man” and tau viꞌe
era “that woman”.
(204) He moe rō ꞌavai tau taŋata era. He koromaki ki tau viꞌe era
NTR lie_down EMPH certainly DEM man DIS NTR miss to DEM woman DIS
toꞌo era e tōꞌona matuꞌa. He moe tau taŋata era, kai kai.
take DIS AG POSS.3SG.O parent NTR lie_down DEM man DIS NEG.PFV eat
He ꞌōtea, he pō hakaꞌou, tau taŋata era, he mate tau taŋata era,
NTR dawn NTR night again DEM man DIS NTR die DEM man DIS
he koromaki ki tau viꞌe era.

NTR miss to DEM woman DIS
“The man slept. He longed for the woman that had been taken (back) by her
father. The man slept, he did not eat. Day came, then night again; the man
died, that man, out of longing for the woman.” (Mtx-5-02.057-060)
In the following example, two participants (the father and the child) and one object
(the child’s umbilical cord) are first introduced with the article te. The next time they
are mentioned, all are marked with tou/tū – era.
(205) He poreko te poki o te taŋata e tahi. He uŋa mai te roŋo
NTR born ART child of ART man NUM one NTR send hither ART message
mo eꞌa atu o te taŋata nei, mo oho, mo hahaꞌu i te pito. I eꞌa
for go_out away of ART man PROX for go for tie ACC ART navel PFV go_out
era te taŋata nei, i oho era ki tou pito era o tū poki era
DIS ART man PROX PFV go DIS to DEM navel DIS of DEM child DIS
o tū taŋata era mo hahaꞌu
of DEM man DIS for tie
“A child was born to a certain man. A message was sent for this (other) man
to come, to tie the navel (cord). When man had gone out to tie the navel
(cord)214 of the child of that man...” (Blx-2-1.001-005)
213
Naess (2004:81) notices that demonstratives in Pileni (a Polynesian outlier) are “used to an
extent which appears quite extraordinary for a language of this family, perhaps for any
language”. The same is true for Rapa Nui: over the whole text-corpus, era occurs almost 15,000
times and is the seventh most common word overall (after the determiners te and he and a
number of prepositions). Given the fact that demonstratives not only serve to indicate spatial
deixis but mark definiteness and anaphora as well (functions carried out by definite articles in
other languages), their high frequency is not as surprising as it may seem at first sight.
214
Lit. “gone out to the navel to tie”; for this construction, → 11.6.3.
Another determiner-demonstrative combination is te – era, with the article te instead of

a demonstrative determiner. This combination is used to refer to something which is
known to both speaker and hearer, whether or not it has been mentioned in the
preceding context. This means that te – era indicates definiteness:215 it signals that
speaker and hearer are both able to identify the referent of the noun phrase. It is
therefore the equivalent of the English (or Spanish) definite article, rather than a
demonstrative.
Like tau/tou/tū – era, it may be used to refer to participants in a story who have been
mentioned before. In (206), tau poki era and te poki era refer to the same child:
(206) He oŋa mai tau poki era o tau taŋata era ko Kava te Rūruki.
NTR appear hither DEM child DIS of DEM man DIS PROM Kava te Ruruki
He tikera te poki era...
NTR see ART child DIS
“The child of that man Kava te Ruruki observed him. The child saw it...” (Ley-
9-57.035)
(207) He tupu te poki o te viꞌe, he poreko... He hāŋai, he nuinui -
NTR grow ART child of ART woman NTR born NTR feed NTR big:RED
te poki era.
ART child DIS
“A woman was with child, it was born. The child was raised and grew up.”
(Mtx-7-21.004f)
te – era may also refer to entities which are generally known, or which are presumed to
be present in the context. In the following example, “the cliffs” refers to the cliffs in
general (which all hearers will presumably know to be part of the Rapa Nui coastline);
no specific cliff is meant.
(208) I naꞌa era a ꞌOho Takatore i tū kūpeŋa era, he oho mai
PFV hide DIS PROP Oho Takatore ACC DEM net DIS NTR go hither
ki te kona ꞌōpata era.
to ART place cliff DIS
“When Oho Takatore had hidden that net, he went to the cliffs (lit. the cliff
place).” (R304.110)
te – era may also refer to things which have not been previously mentioned, but which
are definite because they are explained in the noun phrase itself: a modifying phrase or
relative clause after the noun specifies what the noun refers to. In (209) below, the
referent of te haŋa era “the bay” is specified by the genitive phrase o ꞌAkahaŋa; in
(210) te haꞌu era “the hats” is explained by the relative clause e aŋa era hai rau toa
“made with sugarcane leaves”.
215
See the discussion of definiteness in section 5.3.2. The development of demonstratives to
definite markers may have taken place in Tongan as well: Clark (1974) shows how the
“definitive accent” (a stress shift to the final syllable of the noun, marking definiteness) may have
derived from a postposed demonstrative *aa.
(209) ꞌI muꞌa i te haŋa era o ꞌAkahaŋa, te noho haŋa ōꞌona.

at front at ART bay DIS of Akahanga ART stay NMLZ POSS.3SG.O
“His residence was in front of the bay of Akahanga.” (Blx-2-3.002)
(210) O rā hora ꞌā te ŋā viꞌe o nei paꞌari era e hatu rō ꞌana
of DIS time IDENT ART PL woman of PROX adult DIS IPFV weave EMPH CONT
i te haꞌu era e aŋa era hai rau toa...
ACC ART hat DIS IPFV make DIS INST leaf sugarcane
“At that time the older women here wove those hats which are made with
sugarcane leaves....” (R106.049)
In these contexts, where the noun phrase becomes definite by virtue of a modifier, tū –
era is not (or rarely) used. In other words, where Det N era has a unique referent, tū is
used; where Det N era as such does not have a unique referent but needs a modifier to
pinpoint its reference, te is used.
Summarizing:
• te – era is used when the noun phrase is definite for any reason (whether
known from the context, by general knowledge, or defined by modifiers in the
NP)
• tū – era is anaphoric, indicating that the referent of the noun phrase is known
from the preceding context.
4.6.3.2. Proximal nei

nei indicates proximity. It is more commonly used with the article te than with the
demonstrative tū. When used deictically, nei refers to something close to the speaker:
(211) Te kona nei ꞌi te hare nei mo te poki māꞌaŋa nei ꞌāꞌaku.
ART place PROX at ART house PROX for ART child chick PROX POSS.1SG.A
“This place (here) in this house is for my adopted child.” (R229.271)
The proximity indicated by nei may also be temporal: the event takes place close to the
time of speaking. This is especially clear when nei is used with nouns denoting time.
(212) ꞌI te hora nei paꞌi ku ŋaro ꞌana rā mauku.
at ART time PROX in_fact PRF disappear CONT INTENS grass
“Nowadays (lit. “in this time”) that grass has disappeared.” (R106.050)
However, temporal proximity is not necessarily related to the time of speaking. The
reference time may also be the time of other events in the same text. In the following
example, te noho iŋa nei “this time/epoch” refers to the time when the events in the
story happened.
(213) ꞌI te noho iŋa nei, hoꞌi, ꞌina he mōrī, ꞌina he vai...
at ART stay indeed NEG PRED light NEG PRED water
NMLZ PROX
“At this time there was no electricity, no water...” (R539-1.092)
nei also has anaphoric uses. It may refer to something which has been mentioned just
before; the referent is “close” in a textual sense.
(214) ‘¡Ka haka kore te kope ena ꞌe ka haka eꞌa mai a Varavā!’
IMP CAUS lack ART person MED and IMP CAUS go_out hither PROP Barabbas
Te taŋata nei i puru ai ꞌo te haka tumu i te ture.
ART man PROX PFV close PVP because_of ART CAUS origin ACC ART quarrel
“‘Away with that man, release Barabbas!’ This man had been imprisoned for
provoking a riot.” (Luke 23:19)
Unlike other postnominal demonstratives, nei is also used cataphorically, pointing

forward to what follows. One such cataphoric use is at the beginning of stories: here
nei is often used to introduce (main) participants.216 An example is:
(215) ꞌI ꞌOhovehi te noho iŋa o te ŋā roe nei e rua.
at Ohovehi ART stay NMLZ of ART PL ant PROX NUM two
“In Ohovehi was the place where these two ants lived.” (R214.001)
This sentence is the beginning of a story about two ants. The use of nei signals to the
reader that the two ants will be playing an important role in the story that follows.217
This use of nei can be considered as cataphoric: nei directs the hearer to look forward
to provide more information about the indicated participant.
Another cataphoric use of nei is after generic nouns like meꞌe “thing”. Here nei signals
that more specific information follows:218
(216) Te meꞌe nei he ruku e ai te ŋā meꞌe nei: he pātia, he hiꞌo...
ART thing PROX PRED dive EXH exist ART PL thing PROX PRED harpoon PRED glass
“For diving you need the following things: a harpoon, glasses...” (R360.001)
The same use of nei (though not in a noun phrase) is found in the expression pē nei ē
“like this”, which introduces speech or thought (see exx. (236)–(237) on p. 196).
4.6.3.3. Medial ena

ena indicates something removed from the speaker, but close to the hearer:
(217) ꞌIna koe ko kai i te meꞌe ena o roto o te kete ena.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV eat ACC ART thing MED of inside of ART basket MED
“Don’t eat those things in that basket (you have there).” (Blx-3.036)
However, while nei is regularly used with first person pronouns, ena is not used with
second person pronouns.
After time nouns like tāpati “week” or matahiti “year”, ena signifies “next”.
216
This use is common in newer stories, but not found at all in older texts.
217
English has a similar – somewhat informal – use of this, to introduce a participant at the start
of a story: “Yesterday I met this guy...”
218
Again, English provides a parallel use of “this”: “Listen to this: ....”; “This is what you need...”
(218) Matahiti ena he hoki a au ki te hāpī.

year MED NTRreturn PROP 1SG to ART learn
“Next year I return to school.” (R210.003)
Here, ena signifies a referent which is in the future, one step removed from the time of
speaking. To refer to a time one step removed in the past, ena is used in combination
with the verb oti “finish”. The following example occurs in a newspaper published in
May, i.e. it refers to the previous month:
(219) ꞌI tū ꞌāvaꞌe oti ena o Vai Tuꞌu Nui i haꞌamata i keri ai
at DEM month finish MED of April PFV begin PFV dig PVP
o koā Jo Anne...
of COLL Jo Anne
“In the past month of April, Jo Anne and the others started to dig...”
(R647.106)
4.6.4. Demonstrative determiners

nei, nī, nā and rā are demonstrative determiners indicating relative distance. Like the t-
demonstrative they exclude the article, but unlike these, they are not accompanied by
a postnominal demonstrative (except nī).219 In fact, these demonstratives themselves
are very similar in sense to postnominal demonstratives. They are a recent
development: demonstrative determiners are rarely found in older texts. It is not
unlikely that they developed under Spanish influence: nei taŋata “this man” by analogy
of Sp. “este hombre”.220
As rā is the most common (and most neutral) form, it will be discussed first.
4.6.4.1. Distal/neutral rā
rā is similar in meaning to the postnominal era (→ 4.6.3.1): just like era is the neutral
postnominal demonstrative, rā is the neutral, most common, demonstrative
determiner.
rā is used deictically, referring to something which has not been mentioned before,
but which is present in the extralinguistic context and therefore accessible to both
speaker and hearer. It is used in conversation, for example, when pointing out
something at a certain distance, or when indicating something on a picture or map:
219
Chapin (1974:8) also mentions a demonstrative tenei, supposedly used in Egt-02. However, in
Englert (1974), which includes this text, the form in question is printed as to nei. The forms
teenei, teenaa and teeraa, which are common in Nuclear Polynesian languages (Pawley 1966:51),
do not occur in Rapa Nui (see also Langdon & Tryon 1983:21), though they may have existed at
a prior stage: tenā possibly appears in the old chant e timo te akoako (Fischer 1994:426). The fact
that the demonstrative determiners nei, nā and rā hardly occur in older texts, suggests that they
did not develop from the PEP demonstrative determiners *teenei, *teenaa, *teeraa through loss of
tee-, but are an independent recent development.
220
This is pointed out by Fischer (2007:389).
(220) ꞌI rā hare a mātou e noho ena.

at DIS house PROP 1PL.EXC IPFV stay MED
“(discussing a photograph:) In that house we lived”. (R416.961)
Like tū – era, rā is also used anaphorically. In the following examples, the noun in
question has been introduced in the preceding context.
(221) He mate rō ꞌai ꞌi roto ꞌi rā hare.
NTR die at insids at DIS house
EMPH SUBS
“She died inside that house.” (R532-14.034)
(222) Ko ꞌite ꞌā, paꞌi, a ia i rā hīmene ꞌi te hare hāpī.
PRFknow CONT in_fact PROP 3SG ACC DIS song at ART house learn
“For she had learned that song at school.” (R334.341)
This means that tū – era and rā are often used interchangeably. Even so, there are
differences between the two.
1. First of all, rā is somewhat more informal than tū – era. It tends to be more common
in conversation and direct speech, while tū – era occurs more commonly in narrative
texts.
2. There are also collocational differences: rā N is especially common before words
denoting a moment or period of time, like hora “time, moment, hour”, mahana “day”
and noho iŋa “period, epoch”, while tū – era is found more often with concrete nouns
like hare “house” and taŋata “man, person”.
3. The relation between rā and tū – era also has a diachronic aspect. rā is extremely
rare in older texts. The demonstrative rā does occur in these texts, but almost always
as a locational (→ 4.6.5): ꞌi rā “over there”.
In newer texts (most of which date from the 1980s), rā is common, but tū still occurs
about twice as often. However, in the Bible translation – the largest part of which was
done, or at least thoroughly revised, after 2000 – rā is about 50% more frequent than
tū. In the Bible translation, rā is commonly used to track participants in discourse.
Only when the noun phrase contains a modifier (an adjective, a possessor or a relative
clause), tū – era continues to be the default choice, even in the Bible translation:
(223) tū taŋata matapō era
DEM man blind DIS
“that blind man” (John 9:6)
Taking these facts together, we arrive at the following explanation: rā was originally a
deictic locational, used to point at things and locations: “there, over there”. tau/tou
had a different role: tracking participants in discourse, i.e. referring to entities
mentioned earlier in the context.
When rā started to be used as a prenominal demonstrative, it was initially with the
same deictic role it already had, pointing to for example things and locations (“that
house there”, “that place over there”), and points in time (“on that day”). Gradually it
acquired a participant-tracking role as well, but until recently this role has been
predominantly fulfilled by tau/tou/tū. This use of rā is becoming more and more

frequent, to the point where it is now more common than tū/tou. Only in complex
noun phrases is tū still preferred.
4.6.4.2. Proximal nei

Prenominal nei is similar in meaning to postnominal nei (→ 4.6.3): it indicates
proximity in time, location or discourse. It may refer to something near the speaker as
in (224), something just mentioned as in (225), or to a time close to the time of the
preceding discourse as in (226):
(224) Te meꞌe aŋa mai nei e nei viꞌe...
ART thing do hither PROX AG PROX woman
“What this woman (near the speaker) has done...” (Mat. 26:12)
(225) Mai tētahi henua o te norte o Nueva Zelántia i oho mai ai
from other land of ART north of New Zealand PFV go hither PVP
ki nei henua.
to PROX land
“From other countries, to the north of New Zealand, they came to this island
(= New Zealand).” (R346.012)
(226) ꞌE takoꞌa paꞌi, nei noho iŋa kai rahi mai ꞌā te meꞌe
and also in_fact PROX stay NMLZ NEG.PFV much hither CONT ART thing
he ꞌaurī ki nei.
PRED iron to PROX
“And also, at this time (the period just mentioned), there was not much iron
here.” (R353.006)
Pre- and postnominal nei are not completely identical in function: while postnominal
nei may be cataphoric, referring to something which has not been mentioned yet,
prenominal nei always refers something which has been mentioned before.
4.6.4.3. Proximal nī
nī is a relatively rare demonstrative, which is not found in older texts. Its function is
similar to nei; it must have arisen from nei by vowel assimilation. That this only
happened prenominally may be because the prenominal position is phonologically less
prominent: unlike postnominal nei, it never receives phrase stress.
nī often refers to something which has been recently mentioned. In the following
example, nī taŋata refers back to e te taŋata e tahi in the previous sentence.
(227) Pē ira i hīmene ai e te taŋata e tahi... i te hīmene e tahi.
like PRO PFV sing PVP AG ART man NUM one ACC ART song NUM one
Ko Toꞌo Raŋi te ꞌīŋoa o nī taŋata.
PROM To’o Rangi ART name of PROX man
“In that way one man... sang a song. To’o Rangi was the name of this man.”
(R539-1.127f)
Unlike prenominal nei, nī can be accompanied by a postnominal demonstrative.

Interestingly, the latter is not necessarily nei:
(228) Mai rā hora ŋaꞌaha era o nī iate nei i tiaki ai ꞌi nei.
from DIS time burst DIS of PROX yacht PROX PFV wait PVP at PROX
“From the moment this yacht had broken down, they waited here.” (R539-
1.686)
(229) Tītika ki nī
- titi ꞌōpata era o ꞌŌroŋo...
straight to PROX border cliff DIS of Orongo
“Straight opposite these cliffs of Orongo...” (R112.008)
nī tends to be used for referents which are not central participants in the discourse:
minor participants, objects (iate above), places (ꞌōpata above), time words like mahana
“day” and hora “time”.
4.6.4.4. Medial nā
nā is occasionally used as a prenominal demonstrative. It is similar in meaning to
postnominal ena, referring to something not close to the speaker, but close to the
hearer. Therefore it typically appears in direct speech, as in the following example:
(230) Ka toꞌo mai nā matā ka vero ki rote haha.
IMP take hither MED obsidian IMP throw to inside_ART mouth
“Take that obsidian spearhead and throw it into his mouth”. (R304.020)
4.6.5. Deictic locationals

4.6.5.1. nei, nā and rā as deictic locationals
Deictic locationals have the same form as demonstrative determiners (→ 4.6.4): nei, nā
and rā. As locationals, they are a nucleus in their own right, rather than modifiers of a
head noun. Like other locationals (→ 3.6.1), they are preceded by a preposition, but
not by a determiner. They usually have a deictic function. Some examples:
(231) Mai nei te pahī nei i oho ai ki Tahiti.
from PROX ART ship PROX PFV go PVP to Tahiti
“From here (=Rapa Nui) the ship went to Tahiti.” (R239.091)
(232) ¡Ka toꞌo te meꞌe era ka hakarē ꞌi rā!
IMP take ART thing DIS IMP leave at DIS
“Take that and leave it over there!” (R208.173)
(233) E aha ꞌā kōrua ꞌi nā?
IPFV what CONT 2PL at MED
“What are you doing there?” (R416.514)
Preceded by pē “like”, the deictic locationals tend to be used anaphorically rather than
deictically. pē rā is simlar in function to pē ira (see the next section): it refers back to a
state of affairs mentioned before, “like that, in the same manner”. An example:
(234) Pē rā ꞌā e ꞌamo mai era ꞌi te mahana.

like DIS IDENT IPFV carry hither DIS at ART day
“In the same way (as described before) he carried (food) every day.”
(R372.139)
pē nei is used anaphorically as well. As nei expresses proximity, anaphoric pē nei

indicates what can be called “discourse proximity”: it refers back to something which
has just been mentioned.
(235) Pē nei a Nueva Zelántia i noho ai mo te paratane.
like PROX PROP New Zealand PFV stay PVP for the British
“In this way (just described) New Zealand came to belong to the British.”
(R346.022)
Especially common is pē nei ē, which introduces the content of a speech or thought, or

a piece of knowledge.
(236) ꞌIna koe ko taŋi mai pē nei ē: ko au te kai rivariva mai.
-
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV cry hither like PROX thus PROM 1SG ART eat good:RED hither
“Don’t cry (thinking about the fact) that I am eating well” (R304.033)
(237) Nuꞌu rahi te nuꞌu i manaꞌu pē nei ē ko tētere ꞌana ki Tahiti.
-
people many ART people PFV think like PROX thus PRF PL:run CONT to Tahiti
“Many people thought that they had fled to Tahiti.” (R303.051)
4.6.5.2. The anaphoric locational ira

ira221 is a multipurpose anaphor. Whereas personal pronouns serve as anaphors
referring back to animate referents mentioned in the preceding context, ira refers back
to locations or situations.222
When preceded by a locative preposition, ira refers to a location which has been
mentioned before: “that place, there”. In (238) ira refers back to “home” in the
previous clause, in (239) to “his country”:
221
ira does not occur in any other Polynesian language. However, most other EP languages have
a locational anaphor reira/leila (“there”, referring to a place mentioned before); Rapa Nui ira may
be a truncated reflex of the same form. This would mean that *leila is not a PCE innovation as
suggested by Green (1985:12) and Pollex, but a PEP innovation with subsequent shortening in
Rapa Nui.
222
Together, personal pronouns and ira cover a large part of the field of possible referents for
anaphora. For other referents, no anaphor is available, however:
— inanimates. To refer back to an inanimate, the general-purpose noun meꞌe “thing” can be used:
te meꞌe era, lit. “that thing”.
— time. ꞌi ira can only refer to place, not to time. To refer back to a moment in time, phrases like
ꞌi te hora era “at that time” are used.
(238) I tuꞌu hakaꞌou era a Makoꞌi ki te kona hare era, ꞌi ira a Paepae.
-
PFV arrive again Mako’i to ART place house DIS at PRO PROP Paepae
DIS PROP
“When Mako’i arrived home again, Paepae was there.” (R214.071)
(239) He tuꞌu ki tōꞌona kāiŋa ko Maꞌuŋa Terevaka. I tuꞌu era ki ira...
NTR arrive to POSS.3SG.O homeland PROM Mount Terevaka PFV arrive DIS to PRO
“He went to his own place, mount Terevaka. When he arrived there...”
(R314.159f)
One of the contexts in which locational ira can be used, is in a relative clause with
locative relativisation (→ (100)–(101) on p. 511).
Preceded by other than locative prepositions, ira refers to a situation, a state of affairs
which has been mentioned in an earlier clause. This happens with mo ira “therefore,
for that purpose”, ꞌo ira “because of that”,223 and the very common pē ira “like that,
thus”:
(240) Mo ira te puka nei i aŋa ai.
for PRO ART book PROX PFV make PVP
“Therefore I have made this book.” (R531.014)
(241) He meꞌe kore mo kai, ꞌo ira au e taŋi nei.
PREDthing lack for eat because_of PRO 1SG IPFV cry PROX
“There is nothing to eat, therefore I am crying.” (R349.013)
(242) Te mahana te mahana e raŋi era pē ira.
ART day ART day
call DIS like PRO
IPFV
“Day after day he cried like that.” (R213.003)
4.6.6. Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are relatively rare. In order to refer to a situation in general
(“this”, “that”), the dummy noun meꞌe is often used:
(243) Meꞌe rivariva rahi te meꞌe nei mo te oraraꞌa o te mahiŋo o Rapa Nui.
-
thing good:RED much ART thing PROX for ART life of ART people of Rapa Nui
“This (the practices just described) was something very good for the life of the
people of Rapa Nui.” (R231.314)
The demonstratives nei, nā and rā are also used pronominally, but only as subject of a
classifying or identifying clause (→ 9.2.1–9.2.2). In these constructions, the
demonstrative is a constituent by itself; unlike personal pronouns, it is never preceded
223
ꞌO ira (with reason preposition ꞌo) should not be confused with o ira “of there” (with
possessive o), in which ira has a locational sense:
(i) He mātaꞌitaꞌi ararua i te ŋā mōai era o ira.
-
NTR observe the_two ACC ART PL statue DIS of PRO

“The two of them admired the statue there (lit. the statue of there)” (R478.044)
by the proper article or ko, or followed by modifying particles. The constituent order is
always predicate—subject. Two examples:
(244) He ꞌariko nei.
PRED bean PROX
“These are beans” (Notes)
(245) Ko Rusinta rā ꞌi te tapa ꞌuta.
PROM Rusinta DIS at ART side inland
“That is Rusinta on the inland side.” (R411.074)
Just like demonstratives in the noun phrase, the demonstrative pronoun can be used
either deictically (pointing at something in the non-linguistic context) or anaphorically
or cataphorically (pointing back or forward to something mentioned in the text).
Certain postnominal elements belonging to the predicate noun phrase occur after the
subject: genitives as in (246), relative clauses as in (247).
(246) He toru eꞌa iŋa atu nei o Tāpura Reꞌo.
PRED three go_out NMLZ away PROX of Tapura Re’o
“This is the third issue of (the newspaper) Tapura Re’o.” (R649.001)
(247) Famiria hopeꞌa rā oho mai mai kampō, mai ꞌAnakena.
family last DIS go hither from countryside from Anakena
“That was the last family who came from the countryside, from Anakena.”
(R413.889)
Even though the demonstratives in these examples may seem to be postnominal

particles which are part of the predicate noun phrase, in realtity they are pronominal,
i.e. constituents in their own right. This is shown by the following evidence:
1. Postnominal demonstratives have the forms nei, ena, era; the forms under
consideration here are different: nei, nā, rā.
2. While a noun phrase may contain only one postnominal demonstrative, the forms
considered here may co-occur with a postnominal demonstrative, as the following
example shows:
(248) [ꞌAka era] rā [o te parasa era o muꞌa o te hare hāpī].
anchor DIS DIS of ART courtyard DIS of front of ART house learn
“That is the anchor (which is) in the courtyard in front of the school.”
(R413.675)
This means that the nominal predicate in (246)–(248) is split in two, and interrupted
by the subject. Split predicates also occur with other pronominal subjects (→ 9.2.5).
4.7. Prepositions
4.7.1. Introduction
Prepositions express a semantic relationship between a noun phrase and the rest of the
clause. Rapa Nui has a variety of prepositions, some of which (like ꞌi and ki) have a
wide range of uses, while others are more narrowly defined. They also serve to mark
case, especially the prepositions i (direct object) and e (agentive subject).
Syntactically, prepositions are characterised by the fact that they are followed by a
noun phrase. When the preposition is followed by a common noun phrase, this NP
must contain a t-determiner (→ 5.3.3.3). Two prepositions show different behaviour,
however:
— hai “with (instrumental)” is not followed by a determiner (with a few exceptions →
4.7.9);
— pa/pē “like” (not to be confused with pe “toward”) is followed by the predicate
marker he (→ 5.4).
With a proper noun or pronoun complement, prepositions ending in i (with the
exception of hai) are followed by the proper article a, while others are directly
followed by the (pro)noun (→ 5.14.2.1 sub 3).
Most prepositions can be followed by locationals (→ 3.6.2.1); locationals immediately
follow the preposition, without a determiner.
These patterns are summarised in the following table:
Table 34: Preposition classes
1 2 3 4
ki “to” mo “for” hai “with” pē “like”
te hare “the house” ki te hare mo te hare hai hare pē he hare
Māria ki a Māria mo Māria hai Māria224 pē Māria
rātou “3 pl.” ki a rātou mo rātou hai rātou pē rātou
roto “inside” ki roto mo roto — —
Group 1 includes i “object marker”, i/ꞌi “locative”, ki “to” and mai “from”. Group 2
includes a “by, along”, pe “toward”, e “agent marker”, ꞌo “because of”, o/ꞌa
“possessive”, to/ta “possessive”, mo/ma “benefactive”, ko “prominence marker” and ꞌai
“there in/at”. Group 3 only includes hai, group 4 only includes pa/pē.
In the following subsections, prepositions are discussed individually, except the Agent
marker e and the accusative marker i (→ 8.2–8.4), and the possessive prepositions o
and ꞌa (→ 6.2–6.2.4). Sec. 4.7.2–4.7.6 deal with prepositions which are primarily
224
In fact, animate complements of hai are rare. They are found e.g. in the Bible translation: hai
Ietū “with/by Jesus”, hai ia “with/by him”.
locative, such as ꞌi and ki. The causal preposition ꞌo will be discussed together with ꞌi in
sec. 4.7.2.2, as the two are similar in function.
4.7.7–4.7.9 discuss prepositions with other than locative functions, such as benefactive
and instrumental. 4.7.10 discusses the rare preposition ꞌai. Finally, 4.7.11 deals with
the prominence marker ko, which is different in function from other prepositions, but
which is nevertheless a preposition syntactically.
4.7.2. The preposition ꞌi/i “in, at, on”

Etymologically, there is no difference between ꞌi and i; both are reflexes of PPN *ꞌi
(Pollex 2009) or *i (Clark 1976:41) – due to the instable character of glottals in
particles (Clark 1976:22), it is impossible to tell with certainty if the preposition had a
glottal in PPN.
In most Polynesian languages this preposition has a wide range of functions.225 In the
accepted Rapa Nui orthography, certain uses of this preposition are written with
glottal, others without. The inclusion or non-inclusion of glottals in particles is largely
based on whether the particle occurs mainly at the start or in the middle of prosodic
units (→ 2.2.5). This means that functions of i/ꞌi which tend to occur phrase-initially
are written with glottal, while functions mainly occurring in the middle of phrases, or
at the start of phrases prosodically connected to the preceding context, are written
without glottal. As a result, the preposition in a locative sense is written ꞌi, while the
preposition occurring after locationals is i.
In the following sections, uses of i and ꞌi are discussed separately. Because ꞌi/i is largely
used in a locational or temporal sense, it is glossed “at”.
4.7.2.1. ꞌi
ꞌi expresses stationary location: “in, on, at”. In this sense it is often followed by
locationals (→ 3.6.2). Here are examples where it is directly followed by a noun
phrase: in (249)–(250) in a spatial sense, in (251) in a temporal sense.
(249) He noho ꞌi te hare o te huŋavai.
NTR stayat ART house of ART parent_in_law
“She stayed in the house of her in-laws.” (Mtx-5-03.002)
(250) I poreko ena a koe ꞌi Haŋa Roa.
PFV born 2SG at Hanga Roa
MED PROP
“You were born in Hanga Roa.” (R380.156)
(251) ꞌI tū hora era te taŋata taꞌatoꞌa ko riꞌariꞌa tahi ꞌana.
-
at DEM time DIS ART person all PRF afraid all CONT
“At that moment all the people were afraid.” (R210.152)
225
Chapin (1978:428), who does not distinguish between ꞌi and i, mentions “the extreme
polyfunctionality of Polynesian prepositions, and of i in particular”.
Temporal ꞌi may be followed by a nominalised verb, making the ꞌi-marked constituent

similar to a temporal clause.
(252) ꞌI te kī nō o Puakiva ki a Pea i tāꞌana vānaŋa,
at ART say just of Puakiva to PROP Pea ACC POSS.3SG.A word
kai haka mou e Pea.
NEG.PFV CAUS silent AG Pea
“When Puakiva said her words to Pea, Pea didn’t silence her.” (R229.489)
In comparatives, ꞌi marks the quality with respect to which the comparison is made (→
3.5.2.1).
4.7.2.2. Causes and reasons: ꞌi and ꞌo

Causes and reasons may be expressed by a verbal clause (→ 11.6.4). More commonly,
however, they are expressed by a noun phrase marked with either ꞌi or ꞌo. This noun
phrase often contains a nominalised verb or an adjective.
ꞌi is used to express causes. These causes can be events or states as in (253)–(254), but
also non-human entities as in (255)–(256). Cf. the discussion on agentive i in sec.
8.6.4.7.
(253) He viriviri a
- Torometi ꞌi te kata.
NTR roll:RED PROP Torometi at ART laugh
“Torometi fell down laughing.” (R245.105)
(254) ¡He mate taꞌa māhaki ꞌi te maruaki!
NTR die POSS.2SG.A
companion at ART hunger
“Your friend dies from hunger!” (R245.142)
(255) He hati te ŋao o ꞌOto ꞌUta ꞌi te pureva.
NTR break ART neck of Oto Uta at ART rock
“The neck of (the statue) Oto Uta broke by/from the rock.” (MsE-089.002)
(256) Ku ŋarepe ꞌā te kahu ꞌi te ꞌua.
PRF wet clothes at ART rain
CONT ART
“The clothes got soaked by the rain.” (Egt. lexicon)
Causes are also expressed with the preposition ꞌo, but there is a difference. ꞌi is used in
situations where cause and effect are closely linked, i.e. for direct causes which
automatically lead to a certain effect. In (253), for example, laughter is not only the
cause of falling down, but also accompanies the falling down: “He fell while laughing,
he fell down with laughter”. Similarly, in (254), hunger it not only the cause of death,
but hunger and death go together. In some cases – such as (253) – cause and effect are
so closely linked, that the ꞌi-marked constituent is similar to a circumstantial clause.
ꞌo is used in situations where cause and effect are less closely linked.
(257) He taŋi ꞌo te mate o Huri ꞌa Vai.

NTR cry because_of ART dieof Huri a Vai
“He cried because Huri a Vai had died.” (R304.104)
(258) ꞌI tū hora era te tokerau meꞌe hūhū, - ꞌo ira kai hini
at DEM time DIS ART wind thing roar:RED because_of PRO NEG.PFV delay
i oti tahi rō ai tū hare era te vera.
PFV finish all EMPH PVP DEM house DIS ART burn
“The wind roared at that time, therefore it wasn’t long before the whole house
burned down.” (R250.120)
ꞌo is often used to express reasons, i.e. situations where cause and effect are mediated
by a volitional decision:
(259) Hora kai, ꞌina he haraoa māꞌau ꞌo tuꞌu toke i te haraoa
time eat NEG PRED bread BEN.2SG.A because_of POSS.2SG.O steal ACC ART bread
o te poki era.
of ART child DIS
“At dinnertime, there is no bread for you, because you stole the bread of that
child.” (R245.048)
(260) ꞌIna paꞌi o māua kona mo noho. ꞌO ira au i iri
NEG in_fact of 1DU.EXC place for stay because_of PRO 1SG PFV ascend
mai nei ki a koe.
hither PROX to PROP 2SG
“We don’t have a place to stay. Therefore I have come to you.” (R229.210)
4.7.2.3. General-purpose i
The preposition i serves as a general-purpose oblique marker. It is used to mark noun
phrases which are in some way related to the action. Generally speaking, the i-marked
constituent expresses a participant with respect to whom the event takes place; this
constituent can be characterised as the “locus” of the event.
In some cases this noun phrase has a possessive sense:
(261) I a ia i topa ai te ꞌāua era o Vaihū.
at PROP 3SG PFV happen PVP ART enclosure DIS of Vaihu
“To him was assigned the field of Vaihu.” (R250.052)
(262) Ku riro mau ꞌana hoꞌi i tū taŋata era te rē.
PRF become really CONT indeed at DEM man DIS ART victory
“That man became the winner (lit. To that man became the victory).”
(R372.154)
Possessive i is also found in proprietary clauses (→ (88)–(89) on p. 451).

With adjectives, i expresses the possessor of a certain quality, i.e. the entity where the
quality is located. Examples of this are the Ko te X exclamative construction (→ (82)–
(83) on p. 473) and cases such as the following:
(263) Meꞌe ꞌaroha i tū nanue para era ana ai ko ravaꞌa ꞌana e te nuꞌu
thing pity at DEM kind_of_fish DIS IRR exist PRF obtain CONT AG ART people
hī ika.
fish.V fish
“Poor nanue para fish (lit. A pity i that nanue para) if it is caught by fishermen”
(R301.320)
In other cases the sense of i is hard to define more precisely; however, it is clear that
the i-marked NP is involved in the action in some way; the event takes place with
respect to the participant mentioned.
(264) I tatau era, ꞌina he tehe te ū i a Te Manu.
PFV milk DIS NEG NTR flow ART milk at PROP Te Manu
“When they milked (the cows), the milk didn’t flow to Te Manu (he couln’t get
the milk to flow).” (R245.192)
(265) E ko pau i a koe te kona mo rao o tuꞌu vaꞌe.
IPFV NEG.IPFV run_out at PROP 2SG ART place for cross_over of POSS.2SG.O foot
“There are many places where you can go (lit. The places to put your foot do
not finish to you).” (R315.071)
Two other uses of i are discussed elsewhere:

• After locationals, i is the most common preposition introducing locative
complements (e.g. ꞌi roto i “inside” → 3.6.2.2).
• i marks agentive phrases which are not an argument of the verb (→ 8.6.4.7).
4.7.3. The preposition ki “to”

ki (< PPN *ki) indicates movement in the direction of a goal. It is often found with
verbs of movement:
(266) He hoki mai ararua ki te kona hare era.
NTR return hither the_two to ART place house DIS
“The two returned home.” (R166.007)
(267) E tahi mahana he turu a Tiare ki te hare hāpī.
NUM one day go_down PROP Tiare to ART house learn
NTR
“One day Tiare went down to school.” (R170.001)
ki is often followed by a locational indicating the direction in which the movement

takes place (see e.g. (135) on p. 117). It is also used in the “nominal purpose
construction”, in which a directional noun phrase is followed by a bare verb (→
11.6.3).
ki is used when the referent makes a movement touching the endpoint, for example
with the verb tuꞌu “arrive”:
(268) He oho a Teke, he tuꞌu ki te hare o Māꞌeha.

NTR go Teke NTR arrive to ART house of Ma’eha
PROP
“Teke went and arrived at Ma’eha’s house.” (MsE-059.005)
(269) ...ko te kutakuta o te
- vaikava e hāpaki era ki te ꞌōpata.
PRF ART foam of ART ocean IPFV slap DIS to ART cliff
“...the foaming water of the sea was slapping against the cliffs.” (R408.105)
ki is used when a referent is oriented towards an object, even when no movement

towards this object is involved: in (270) the tree bark is exposed to the sun, but not
moved towards the sun.
(270) Ki oti he toꞌo mai, he tauaki ki te raꞌā, he haka pakapaka.-
when finish NTR take hither NTR dry_in_sun to ART sun dry:RED NTR CAUS
“After that they take (the tree bark) and put it in the sun to dry.” (Ley-5-
04.009)
In a temporal sense, ki indicates the end of a stretch of time: “until”, as in (271).226 In

this sense, ki may be reinforced by ꞌātā (< Sp. hasta “until”) as in (272).
(271) ꞌO ira e ko hakarē a au i a koe ki tōꞌoku hopeꞌaraꞌa.
because_of PRO IPFV NEG.IPFV leave 1SG ACC ART 2SG to POSS.1SG.O end
PROP
“Therefore I will not leave you till the end of my days.” (R474.010)
(272) Mai rā hora ꞌātā ki te hora nei kai eꞌa hakaꞌou e tahi Rapa Nui.
from DIS time until to ART time PROX NEG.PFV go_out again NUM one Rapa Nui
“From that time until now, not one Rapa Nui left (the island) anymore.”
(R303.211)
ki has a wide range of metaphorical extensions; it is the default preposition for

semantic roles like Recipient, Beneficiary and Goal (→ 8.8.2) as in (273). ki is used to
indicate an opinion or point of view: “according to”, as in (274). In addition, ki marks
the object of middle verbs (→ 8.6.4.2).
(274) Ki te kī o te nuꞌu te repa nei ko Ure ꞌa Vai ꞌa Nuhe
to ART say of ART people ART young_man PROX PROM Ure a Vai a Nuhe
he kope nehenehe.-
PRED person beautiful

“According to (lit. to the say of) the people, young Ure a Vai a Nuhe was a
handsome man.” (R532-07.006)
226
The preverbal marker ki has the same function (→ (196)–(197) on p. 531).
Finally, in comparative constructions, ki marks the standard of comparison (→

3.5.2.1).
4.7.4. The preposition mai “from”

mai indicates a spatial or temporal point of origin:
(275) Mai Haŋa Roa i iri ai ki ꞌŌroŋo.
from Hanga Roa PFV ascend PVP to Orongo
“From Hanga Roa they went up to Orongo.” (Ley-2-02.054)
(276) Mai te mahana nei ꞌina a nua kai haka uŋa hakaꞌou ki a Tiare.
from ART day Mum NEG.PFV CAUS send again
PROX NEG PROP to PROP Tiare
“From this day on, Mum didn’t send Tiare anymore.” (R179.046)
When mai is followed by a proper noun or pronoun, the proper article a is used (as
with ki and i/ꞌi); however, the preposition i must be added between mai and the proper
article, as shown in the following example:
(277) Ararua nō pāꞌeŋa e tuꞌu mai era, mai Tahiti ꞌe mai i a Tire.
the_two just side arrive hither DIS from Tahiti and from at PROP Chile
IPFV
“The two sides came, from Tahiti and from Chile.” (R539-2.221)
The use of mai as a preverbal marker in subordinate clauses is discussed in 11.5.5.
4.7.5. The preposition pe “toward”

The preposition pe indicates a general direction or orientation.227 Its function is similar
to ki, but it is not goal-oriented: to go ki X implies that one intends to arrive at X; pe X
does not have this implication.
(278) He iri te nuahine, he oho pe ꞌŌroŋo.
NTR ascend ART old_woman NTR go toward Orongo
“The old woman went up, she went towards Orongo.” (Ley-8-52.028)
(279) I ꞌata oho atu era pe haho o te vaikava...
PFV more go away DIS toward outside of ART ocean
“When she went further outside toward the open sea...” (R338.006)
(280) E takeꞌa mai era e au mai te pena nō pe ruŋa.
IPFV see hither DIS AG 1SG from ART belt just toward above
“I saw him from the belt upwards.” (R106.034)
In a temporal sense, pe is used with the locational muꞌa “front” to refer to a period of
time in the future, or posterior to a time of reference (→ (155)–(156) on p. 121).
227
This preposition does not occur in other languages. It may be derived from pē “like”, but its
syntax is different: while pē “like” is followed by the predicate marker he, pe “towards” is
followed by a t-determiner, like most prepositions.
pe may also indicate an approximate location as in (281), or an approximate time as in

(282):
(281) Te meꞌe hau mau o te rahi he māꞌea, pe ruŋa pe raro
ART thing exceed really of ART much PRED stone toward above toward below
o te maꞌuŋa.
of ART mountain
“What’s really abundant (on the island) are stones, up and down the
mountain.” (R350.011)
(282) I ahiahi
- era pe te hora toru, he turu mai tū Tamy era.
PFVafternoon DIS toward ART time three NTR go_down hither DEM Tamy DIS
“Around three o’clock in the afternoon, Tamy went down.” (R315.273)
4.7.6. The preposition a “along; towards”

Unlike other locative prepositions, a is used mainly in a spatial sense, rarely in
temporal expressions.228
a may indicate a spatial relation which is neither stationary (ꞌi), nor involves a
movement towards (ki) or away from (mai) an object. It is used when one object moves
with respect to another object in some other way: by, along or via the other object.
(283) I hoki mai era ki te hare a te ara kē.
NTR return hither DIS to ART house by ART road different
“He returned home by another road.” (R408.038)
(284) Ku oho ꞌā Taŋaroa ki te kāiŋa a roto a te vaikava.
PRF go Tangaroa to ART homeland by inside by ART ocean
CONT
“Tangaroa has gone to the island by way of the sea.” (Ley-1-06.007)
It is also used when a part of something is singled out as the location where an event
takes place.
(285) He haꞌi i a koro ararua ko nua a te ŋao, he hoŋihoŋi-
NTR embrace ACC PROP Dad the_two PROM Mum by ART neck NTR kiss:RED
a te ꞌāriŋa.
by ART face
“She embraced Dad and Mum by the neck and kissed them on the face.”
(R210.012)
(286) E hā taura: a muꞌa, a tuꞌa, a te mataꞌu, a te maui.

NUM four rope by front by back by ART right by ART left
“There are four ropes (tied to the statue): at the front, at the back, to the right,
to the left.” (Ley-5-29.010f)
228
The preposition a (different from possessive a or ꞌa) occurs in a few languages as a locative
preposition (Pollex) and is reconstructed as PEP *aa.
a often indicates a general direction; this direction is expressed by a locational (such as

muꞌa in (287)), but there is no second referent involved with respect to which this
movement takes place.
(287) He oho, he ao a muꞌa, he pū a muꞌa.
NTR go NTR rush by front NTR come by front
“They went, they came forward, rushed forward.” (Ley-4-05.012)
(288) He takeꞌa e Tahoŋa he rere a ruŋa ꞌi te koa.
NTR see Tahonga NTR jump by above at ART happy
AG
“When Tahonga saw this, he jumped up from joy.” (R301.210)
a indicating a direction is similar to pe “toward” (→ 4.7.5 above.) A difference

between the two is, that a is far more common with locationals than pe. Another
difference is, that some expressions with pe have a temporal rather than a spatial
sense, whereas a is usually spatial.
Certain combinations of a + locational have a lexicalised meaning: a raro, a vāeŋa (→

4.4.2.3) and a tuꞌa (→ 4.4.2.4).
4.7.7. The benefactive prepositions mo and mā

The benefactive prepositions mo and mā express benefactive relations in a broad sense;
they are used in situations where an event or object is destined for or aimed at the
participant.229 This pair of prepositions displays the o/a distinction between two classes
of possessives (→ 6.3.2). This distinction is only made with proper nouns and singular
pronouns: with proper nouns either mā or mo is used; singular benefactive pronouns
start with māꞌa- or mōꞌo- (→ 4.2.3). With common nouns and with plural pronouns, mo
is used in all situations.
Regarding the etymology of these prepositions, the PPN forms are *moꞌo, *maꞌa.230 In
Rapa Nui the glottal is still present in the singular pronouns māꞌaku etc.; the
lengthening in these forms is the result of a general tendency to lengthen the first
vowel of three-syllable words. In the prepositions as separate words, the glottal has
disappeared.231
A benefective relation is in fact a possessive relationship in which a possessee is

destined/intended for the possessor. Whether mo or mā is used, depends on the
relationship between the prospective possessor and possessee, as discussed in section
229
In Polynesian linguistics, these forms are sometimes characterised as “irrealis possessives” (see
e.g. Clark 2000b:262, Wilson 1982:48): they indicate not-yet realised possession, in contrast to
the “realis possessives” starting with n- or Ø (→ fn. 288 on p. 277). The likely origin of the m-
forms is an irrealis marker m- (Clark 1976:115).
230
The original form of both particles, with glottal, appears in other languages that preserved the
PPN glottal: East Uvean, Rennell and Tongan (Pollex).
231
See Wilson (1985) on the loss of the glottal in t-possessives and benefactives. For benefactives,
he uses the term “irrealis”.
6.3.2: mā is used when the possessor has control, authority or responsibility over the
possessee, mo in all other cases. Thus, mā is used for possessions over which the
possessor has control, as in (289). mo is used for means of transport as in (290).
(289) He aŋa e tōꞌona matuꞌa vahine i te manu parau māꞌana.
NTR make AG POSS.3SG.O parent female ACC ART bird paper BEN.3SG.A
“His mother made a paper bird for him.” (R476.002)
(290) He puꞌa i te hoi e tahi mōꞌona, e tahi mo te matuꞌa.
NTR cover ACC ART horse NUM one BEN.3SG.O NUM one for ART parent
“He saddled one horse for himself, one for the priest.” (R167.001)
With certain verbs, possessive mo/mā may express a Goal or Recipient, indicating that
the object of the verb is destined for this participant; this is discussed in 8.8.2.
Apart from the uses discussed so far, both mo and mā have uses of their own.
— mo indicates the participant in view of whom the action is performed. This may be
the beneficiary of the action, the participant for whose benefit the action is carried out.
(291) Ka turu mai hāꞌūꞌū mai te aŋa; taꞌe mōꞌoku, mo tātou
IMP go_down hither help hither ART work NEG.CONS BEN.1SG.O for 1PL.INC
mo te tātou kāiŋa.
for ART 1PL.INC homeland
“Go down to help with the work; not for me (but) for us, for our island.”
(R204.020)
(292) Ko ꞌOrohe he huri i te vai mo te moa.

PROM Orohe NTR turn ACC ART water for ART chicken
“Orohe poured water for the chickens.” (R169.006)
— mo may indicate the person towards whom an action or attitude is directed. This
happens for example with the verbs riri “be angry” and ꞌaroha “be sorry”:
(293) ꞌIna koe ko riri mōꞌoku, e nua ē.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV angry BEN.1SG.O VOC Mum VOC
“Don’t be angry with me, Mum.” (R229.497)
(294) He ꞌaroha a Vai Ora mo Tahoŋa.
NTR compassion PROP Vai Ora for Tahonga
“Vai Ora felt sorry for Tahonga.” (R301.249)
— Finally, mo may indicate a participant from whose perspective the event expressed
in the clause is true: “for X, as far as X is concerned”.232 This use may have been
influenced by Spanish para. In (295), the things described in the preceding context are
news, not necessary for everyone, but for the person mentioned: as far as he is
concerned, they are news. In (296), the clause expresses a point of view which is true
for the person expressed with mo:
232
Cf. the use of ki to express a point of view (→ 4.7.3).
(295) ꞌE te ŋā meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa nei he parau ꞌāpī mōꞌona.

and ART PL thing all word new BEN.3SG.O
PROX PRED
“And all of this was news for him.” (R363.055)
(296) Mōꞌoku ꞌina he ꞌati te noho mai o rāua ꞌi te kona era.
BEN.1SG.O NEG PRED problem ART stay hither of 3PL at ART place DIS
“For me (as far as I am concerned), it is no problem if they live there.”
(R647.163)
— mā marks the Agent in the imperfective actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3):

(297) Māꞌaku ꞌā a koe e hāpaꞌo atu.
BEN.1SG.A IDENT PROP 2SG IPFV care_for away
“I will take care of you myself.” (R310.067)
4.7.8. The preposition pa/pē “like”

pē is an equative preposition: it serves to compare two entities, expressing that one is
“like” the other.233 Equative constructions are discussed in sec. 3.5.2.3; in this section
other syntactic and semantic particularities of pē will be discussed.
First of all, pē is usually followed by the predicate marker he,234 not only when the
compared entity is generic as in (298), but also when it is a single, identifiable entity
as in (299):
(298) He uꞌi atu a Eva ko te meꞌe pē he tiare ꞌā ka ꞌī.
NTR look away PROP Eva PROM ART thing like PRED flower IDENT CNTG full
“Eva saw something like flowers, in great numbers.” (R210.193)
(299) Pē he korohuꞌa era ko Iovani ꞌItiꞌiti te
- ꞌāriŋa.
like PRED old_man DIS PROM Iovani Iti’iti ART face
“His face (looks) like the old man Iovani Iti’iti.” (R416.1180)
Before he, pē is often dissimilated to pa. The choice between pē and pa is free; certain
speakers favour one over the other.
(300) ꞌArero nei pa he ꞌarero rapa nui ꞌā.
tongue PROX like PRED tongue Rapa Nui IDENT
“This language is like the Rapa Nui language.” (R231.272)
Occasionally pē is followed by a t-determiner as in (301), or a proper noun or pronoun

as in (302):
233
pē (< PPN *pee “like”) occurs in Hawaiian and Maori, but only or mainly as a bound root,
followed by a demonstrative. It is more common in non-EP languages.
234
Interestingly, the same is true for the preposition me “like” in Hawaiian, Marquesan and Maori
(→ 5.3.4 sub 2).
(301) ¿Pē tū huru ꞌā te kī iŋa o te ŋā vānaŋa nei?

like DEM manner IDENT ART say NMLZ of ART PL word PROX
“Are these words pronounced the same way (lit. is the saying like that [same]
way)?” (R615.231)
(302) Pē ia ꞌā te huru.
ART manner like 3SG IDENT
“He looks like him.” (R415.886)
As most of the examples above show, the comparison may be reinforced by the
identity particle ꞌā (→ 5.10).
In modern Rapa Nui, pē also expresses the category to which someone belongs. In
(303) below, pē he ꞌōtare does not mean that the speaker resembles an orphan, but that
he is an orphan. This usage may be influenced by Spanish como.
(303) ꞌIna ōꞌoku matuꞌa, ꞌo ira a au e noho nei pē he ꞌōtare.
NEG POSS.1SG.O parent
because_of PRO PROP 1SG IPFV stay PROX like PRED orphan
“I don’t have parents, therefore I live as an orphan.” (R214.013)
4.7.9. The instrumental preposition hai

hai235 is an instrumental preposition, indicating the means or tool with which
something is done: “with, using, by means of”:
(304) He puꞌapuꞌa hai pāoa; he mate.
-
NTR beat:RED INST club NTR die

“They beat her with a club and she died.” (Egt-01.082)
As discussed in sec. 4.7.1, hai is not followed by a determiner, but by a bare noun. This
correlates with the meaning of hai, which tends to occur with non-specific referents as
in (304) above. Occasionally, however, hai is followed by pronouns or proper nouns as
in (305), or by definite nouns (preceded by a demonstrative) as in (306):
(305) Hai Eugenio ꞌi te pūꞌoko e aŋa era ananake.
INST Eugenio at ART head IPFV work DIS together
“With Eugenio at the head they worked together.” (R231.307)
235
This preposition is not found in any other language. It may have developed from PPN *fai,
which occurs in several languages as a verb or prefix meaning “have, possess”. Reflexes of PPN
*fai occur in many non-EP languages; the only EP language in which it occurs, is Maori (Pollex,
cf. Greenhill & Clark 2011). The fact that Rapa Nui hai is followed by a bare noun suggests that it
originated from a prefix *fai- (itself related to the root *fai just mentioned) rather than a full
word. As a prefix, it occurs for example in Nukuoro, where hai is – among other things – prefixed
to nouns to form derived verbs: hai hegau “do work.N” = “to work”; hai bodu “do spouse” = “to
marry”. It would be a relatively small step for such a prefix to develop into a preposition taking a
bare noun complement.
(306) E puru rō ꞌā te ꞌāriŋa ararua hai tū paratoa era o rāua.

IPFV close EMPH CONT ART facethe_two INST DEM coat DIS of 3PL
“The two covered their faces with their coat.” (R215.038)
The semantic range of hai is large. It may indicate the instrument or material with
which an action is done, as in (304) above and the following examples:
(307) ꞌIna he ruku hai raperape, ni hai haŋuhaŋu.
- -
NEG NTR dive INST swim_fin nor INST breathe:RED

“They didn’t dive with swimming fins or with snorkels.” (R360.004)
(308) E paru rō ꞌā i te rāua hakari hai kīꞌea.
IPFV paint EMPH CONT ACC ART 3PL body INST red_earth
“They painted their bodies with red earth.” (R231.095)
hai may mark various kinds of noun phrases which are in some way instrumental to
the action, such as the price paid as in (309), or the language spoken as in (310).
(309) E ko hoꞌo atu ki a koe hai moni tire, ni hai torare...
IPFV NEG.IPFV
trade away to PROP 2SG INST money Chile nor INST dollar
“They wouldn’t pay you with Chilean money, nor with dollars...” (R239.077)
(310) A au i haŋa ai mo vānaŋa atu hai ꞌarero o tātou ꞌā.
PROP 1SG PFV want PVP for talk away INST tongue of 1PL.INC IDENT
“I wanted to speak in our own language.” (R201.002)
As hai expresses the means by which something happens, it may indicate a resource.
Used in a more abstract way, it indicates a reason or motive: “because of, on account
of, thanks to”.
(311) Hai heruru o tuꞌu vaikava a au e ꞌara nei.
INST sound of POSS.2SG.O ocean 1SG IPFV wake_up PROX
PROP
“I wake up with/from the sound of your ocean.” (R474.002)
(312) Hai haꞌere mai o Kontiki i ai ai te haŋu.
INST walk hither of Kontiki PFV exist PVP ART breath
“Thanks to Kontiki’s coming, there was relief (for the people).” (R376.077)
The NP marked with hai may also be a resource which is needed but not found yet.
This sense is found with verbs of asking or searching as in (313), but also in other
contexts as in (314):
(313) He nonoꞌi e te
- korohuꞌa nei hai haraoa.
NTR request AG ART old_man PROX INST bread
“This old man asked for bread.” (R335.019)
(314) He eꞌa tau viꞌe era mai tōꞌona hare hai ahi.
NTR go_out DEM woman DIS from POSS.3SG.O house INST fire
“The woman left her house (to look) for fire(wood).” (Mtx-7-35.013)
Finally, hai may mark Patient arguments (→ 8.6.4.3), especially when their role is
similar to Instruments.
4.7.10. The deictic preposition ꞌai

ꞌai is a deictic particle (→ 4.5.4.1.2). Occasionally it is used as a preposition to point at
something which is at a certain distance: “there at/in/on...”. Like other prepositions, it
may be followed by locationals as in (315)–(316) or nouns as in (317):
(315) E pāpā, ka uꞌi koe ꞌai ruŋa i te maꞌuŋa te moa e rua.
VOC father IMP look 2SG ther_ate above at ART mountain ART chicken NUM two
“Father, look, there on the mountain are two chickens.” (R104.052)
(316) Te pūtē ꞌai roto i te hare.
ART sack there_at inside at ART house
“The bag is there inside the house.” (R333.349)
(317) ꞌE ꞌai te pāꞌeŋa era a mātou.
and there_at ART side 1PL.EXC
DIS PROP
“And we were there on that side.” (R623.047)
This preposition may be a contraction of the deictic particle ꞌai + the preposition ꞌi.
(The glottal in ꞌi is not pronounced when it is not preceded by a prosodic boundary, →
2.2.5.)
4.7.11. The prominence marker ko

The prominence marker ko precedes common nouns, proper nouns and pronouns.236
Even though it does not mark grammatical or semantic relations in the same way as
other prepositions do, it is a preposition syntactically:
1. It is never preceded or followed by another preposition.
2. When ko is followed by a common noun, this noun always has a t-determiner.
Proper nouns and pronouns follow ko without proper article. This places ko in group 2
of the prepositions (→ 4.7.1).
ko has many different uses, which can be summarised under the heading of
prominence: ko signals that the noun phrase is in some way prominent within the
context. Three important functions of ko are:
— marking prominent topics in verbal clauses (→ 8.6.2.1):
(318) Ko ia i eke ki tuꞌa o tū hoi era.
PROM 3SG PFV climb to back of DEM horse DIS
“(He put the child on his horse, at the front.) He (himself) mounted on the
back.” (R399.046)
236
Rapa Nui also has two other particles ko, which should not be confused with the prominence
marker: the negation (e) ko (10.5.4) and the perfect marker ko/ku (7.2.7).
— marking predicates in identifying clauses (→ 9.2.2):

- ꞌAnakena.
“The most beautiful place (of the island) is Anakena.” (R350.013)
— marking noun phrases in focus in cleft constructions (→ 9.2.6):

(320) Ko te nūnaꞌa era ꞌa ꞌŌrare te nūnaꞌa i rē.
PROM ART group of.A Orare ART group PFV win
DIS
“Orare’s group was the group that won.” (R539-3.313)
Other uses of ko are also discussed elsewhere in this grammar:

— ko marking non-topicalised verbal arguments (→ 8.6.4.5).
(321) He poreko ko te heke ꞌAkaverio.
NTR born octopus Akaverio
PROM ART
“The octopus Akaverio was born.” (Mtx-7-14.003)
— ko in comitative constructions (→ 8.10):

(322) He noho Rano rāua ko tāꞌana poki, ko te viꞌe.
NTR stay Rano 3PL PROM POSS.3SG.A
child PROM ART woman
“Rano lived with his child and his wife.” (Mtx-7-18.001)
— ko in appositions (→ 5.13):
(323) He oho mai era te ꞌariki ko Hotu Matuꞌa.
NTR gohither DIS ART king PROM Hotu Matu’a
“King Hotu Matu’a came.” (Mtx-2-02.043)
— the interrogative pronoun ko ai “who” (→ 10.3.2.1).

(324) ¿Ko ai koe?
PROM who 2SG
“Who are you?” (R304.097)
— ko in exclamative clauses (→ 10.4.2):

of ART pretty
“What an extremely pretty animal!” (R345.072)
— ko te + verbal noun to express continuity of action (→ 3.2.3.1 sub 1d):

“Mum kept searching and shouting.” (R236.082)
In the following subsections, only those uses of ko are discussed which do not have a
place elsewhere in this grammar. This is followed by a general discussion on the nature
of ko.
4.7.11.1. ko in lists and in isolation

ko is used to mark items in a list. These items may be proper nouns or common nouns
with definite reference. The list may be isolated from the syntactic context as in (327),
but it may also have a syntactic role in the clause: in (328) the noun phrases
introduced by ko are direct object, yet they are marked with ko rather than the
accusative marker i.237
(327) ...i tētere ai ꞌi ruŋa i te
- vaka te nuꞌu nei: ko Parano,
PFV PL:run PVP at above at ART boat ART people PROX PROM Parano
ko Hoi Hiva, ko Māꞌaŋa, ko Feri ꞌe ko Tira.
PROM Hoi Hiva PROM Ma’anga PROM Feri and PROM Tira
“(On 2 March 1944) the following people fled by boat: Parano, Hoi Hiva,
Ma’anga, Feri and Tira.” (R539-1.592)
(328) He ꞌapa tahi ko te ŋā poki, ko te hare, ko te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa.
NTR gather all child PROM ART house PROM ART thing all
PROM ART PL
“She gathered all the children, the house, everything.” (R352.103)
ko also marks noun phrases used in isolation, i.e. without a syntactic context. In a
running text, examples of isolated noun phrases are hard to detect, as a noun phrase
which seems to be isolated, may actually be the predicate of a nominal clause with
implied subject (→ (15)–(16) on p. 437). Clearer examples of isolated noun phrases are
found in titles of stories and other texts. The following examples show that isolated
pronouns and proper nouns are marked ko, while common nouns in isolation are
marked with either ko or he (→ 5.4.2).
(329) He tiare ko au he raŋi he hetuꞌu
PRED flower PROM 1SG PRED sky PRED star
“The flower, me, the sky and the stars” (R222.000)
(330) Ko Petero ꞌe ko tōꞌona repahoa
PROM Peter
and PROM POSS.3SG.O friend
“Peter and his friend” (R428.000)
4.7.11.2. ko as locative preposition

Very occasionally, ko is used as a preposition with a locative sense. This usage only
occurs before locationals. In modern Rapa Nui, it indicates immediacy: something is in
a location without delay, in a flash.
(331) He tuꞌu ki ꞌApina, ko raro te rūꞌau nei, ko roto i te hare,
NTR arrive to Apina PROM below ART old_woman PROX PROM inside at ART house
237
Common nouns in lists may also be marked with he (→ 5.4.2).
ki rote piha o Vai Ora.

to inside_ART room of Vai Ora
“When she arrived at Apina, the old woman got off (her horse) straightaway,
inside the house (she went), into Vai Ora’s room.” (R301.111)
In older texts, its use is somewhat different. The sense of immediacy is not obvious; ko
seems to be similar in sense to other locative prepositions like ꞌi.
(332) He nunui ararua pāꞌiŋa ko
- tuꞌa ko te ꞌana, ko haho
PRED PL:big the_two side PROM back PROM ART cave PROM outside
ko te motu.
PROM ART islet
“Both groups of children grew up, those in the back of the cave and those
outside on the islet.” (Mtx-3-01.293)
(333) Ka varu mai te pūꞌoko ki toe ꞌitiꞌiti
- ko vāeŋa nō o te rauꞌoho.
IMP shave hither ART head to remain little:RED PROM middle just of ART hair
“Shave the head, so a little hair will remain only in the middle.” (Ley-6-44.033)
4.7.11.3. Lexicalised ko
In a number of cases, ko has become lexicalised, i.e. become part of a word or
expression. In these expressions, ko is always used, even in syntactic contexts in which
it would not occur otherwise. One example is the construction ko ŋā kope “the people,
the guys” (→ 5.6.2). Another example is taꞌe ko ꞌiti, which acts as a frozen expression
meaning “not a few, a considerable number, many”:238
(334) He turu ia te taŋata taꞌe ko ꞌiti ki tū kona era o te pahī.
NTRgo_down then ART person NEG.CONS PROM small to DEM place DIS of ART ship
“Quite a few people went down to the place where the ship was.” (R250.211)
Thirdly, the word tetu “huge, enormous” is usually preceded by ko. This combination
ko tetu is lexicalised, that is, its use cannot be predicted from ko + tetu.239 ko tetu is
used very flexibly: as an adjective modifying a noun, but also freestanding as in (335).
(335) Nā, te vave e tahi ko uru mai ꞌā ko tetu.
MED ART wave NUM one PRF enter hither CONT PROM huge
“Look, there comes a huge wave.” (R243.028)
4.7.11.4. What is ko?

Section 4.7.11 started out with the observation that ko is a preposition. The question
remains, how the function of ko should be characterised in general – if this is possible
at all.
238
All other adjectives are negated by taꞌe without the use of ko (→ (147) on p. 486).
239
ko in ko tetu may have found its origin in the exclamatory ko, discussed in sec. 10.4.2.
The multitude of uses of ko discussed in various parts of this grammar make clear that
ko is a marker with an extremely wide range of use. The most common (and probably
syntactically most significant) uses are those where ko marks a core constituent: a
topicalised subject of a verbal clause, the predicate of an identifying clause, or a noun
phrase in focus in a cleft construction.
So on the one hand, ko marks NPs in focus, a function associated with high
information load: focus highlights new and significant information. On the other hand,
ko marks topical NPs, a function associated with a relatively low information load –
topicalised NPs represents information already established in the context (cf.
Levinsohn 2007:51f). Several authors have pointed out this dual nature of Polynesian
ko (e.g. Clark 1976 on PPN, Bauer 1991 and Pearce 1999 on Maori; Massam et al 2006
on Niuean240).241 Pragmatically, these two functions can be combined under the label
“prominence”: in both functions, the noun phrase is in some way prominent or
highlighted. For this reason, ko is uniformly glossed as PROM.
However, the list in sec. 4.7.11 above shows that the range of functions of ko is much
wider than topic and focus. Some uses can be reduced to the categories above; for
example, ko ai in questions is a constituent in focus; the same may be true for ko in
exclamative clauses, while ko in isolated NPs such as titles may be topical. Not all uses
are easy to categorise, however: it is less clear how ko in appositions, lists, comitative
constructions (“X with ko Y”) and with verbal nouns should be analysed as either topic
or focus. The only feature connecting these functions, is that they involve a function
not marked by any other preposition. The conclusion seems justified that ko is a
default preposition for noun phrases which have no thematic role in the clause (i.e.
no role marked by any other preposition), an analysis proposed by Clark (1976:45) for
Proto-Polynesian, and adopted by Massam et al (2006) for Niuean. This analysis is
plausible for Rapa Nui as well. Most uses of ko involve a noun phrase which either
does not have a semantic role, or which has been moved out of its normal argument
position. (The only exceptions are non-topicalised subjects marked with ko → 8.6.4.5.)
In many functions, ko is in complementary distribution with the nominal predicate

marker he. (This does not imply that both are structurally identical: while ko is a
preposition, he is a determiner.) The following table shows how both are used in
similar contexts:
240
In Niuean, ko has an even wider range of uses than in Rapa Nui, as it also occurs before verbs.
Incidentally, Massam et al. (2006:15) mistakenly assume that the same is possible in Rapa Nui,
based on confusion of the prominence marker ko and perfective ko.
241
According to Clark (1976:46), the functions of ko can possibly be reduced to “nominal
predicate” and “topic”, and the two should not be confused.
Table 35: Comparison of ko and he
proper nouns, common nouns

incl. pronouns
topicalisation in verbal ko 8.6.2.1 ko or he 8.6.2.1;
clauses 8.6.2.2
complement of naming verbs ko 8.6.4.5 he 8.6.4.5
NP predicates ko 9.2.2 he or ko 9.2.1; 9.2.2
appositions ko 5.13.2 he or ko 5.13.1
content questions ko 10.3.2.1 he 10.3.2.2
(ko ai “who”) (he aha “what”)
in isolation ko 4.7.11.1 he 5.4.2
in lists ko 4.7.11.1 ko or he 5.4.2
As discussed in 5.4.1, he marks non-referential noun phrases, while other determiners

indicate referentiality. We may conclude that noun phrases in non-thematic positions
are either non-referential, in which case they are marked with the predicate marker he,
or referential, in which case they get the default preposition ko. For common nouns,
both strategies are possible. Pronouns and proper nouns, on the other hand, are
necessarily referential, so they are always marked with ko.
4.8. Conclusions
Closed word classes in Rapa Nui can be placed on a continuum ranging from full words
(= open classes of words occurring in the nucleus of a phrase which is a constituent of
the clause) to particles (= closed classes occurring in the periphery of a phrase).
Pronouns are close to the full word end of the continuum: they are a closed class, but
serve as clause constituents and may take some of the same noun phrase modifiers as
proper nouns. They are differentiated for singular, dual, and plural, though the
dual/plural distinction was lost in the second and third person.
Both numerals and quantifiers show a massive shift between older and modern Rapa
Nui under Tahitian influence. All numerals above seven (or even above five) were
replaced by Tahitian equivalents, and in certain contexts the Tahitian terms are used
even for lower numerals. On the other hand, a set of reduplicated numerals unique to
Rapa Nui (the definite numerals) was preserved, though their use is on the wane
(except ararua “the two”, which was lexicalised).
Three quantifiers were introduced from Tahitian, while existing quantifiers underwent
semantic shifts. Interestingly, the introduced quantifiers were incorporated into Rapa
Nui in ways not predictable from their Tahitian origin; their syntax shows features not
found in Tahitian.
Demonstratives are very common in Rapa Nui. One set of demonstratives is
differentiated for distance (proximal, medial, distal); it actually consists of four subsets
with similar forms, which occur in different syntactic contexts: as determiners,
pronouns, locationals and postnuclear particles. The other set consists of a single
member tū, not differentiated for distance. Demonstratives are extremely common in
discourse; in combination with articles, they serve to indicate definiteness, deixis and
anaphora.
Rapa Nui has about a dozen prepositions. Prepositions impose restrictions on the
following noun phrase: after most prepositions the noun phrase must be introduced by
a determiner. The instrumental preposition hai, however, precludes the use of a
determiner (perhaps reflecting its origin as a prefix), while pē “like” is usually followed
by the predicate marker he, just like its counterparts in other Polynesian languages
(even when these are not etymologically related to pē).
The most versatile preposition is ko; it marks noun phrases with a wide range of
functions: prominent topics, constructions in focus, nominal predicates, et cetera. It
can be characterised as a default preposition, marking all noun phrases not marked
otherwise.
5. The noun phrase
5.1. Introduction: the structure of the common noun phrase
As discussed in section 3.2, Rapa Nui has three types of nominal elements: common
nouns, personal nouns and locationals. This chapter discusses the different elements
occurring in the noun phrase. The largest part (sections 5.1–5.13) is devoted to the
common noun phrase and its constituents. Proper noun phrases may only contain a
subset of these constituents; these are discussed in 5.14.
A prototypical common noun phrase consists of a noun, preceded by a determiner and

possibly other elements, and possibly followed by adjectives and other elements.
Within the noun phrase, a large number of different positions can be distinguished.
Some of these contain a single word, others may contain a phrase. Each position may
be empty, including – under certain circumstances – the nucleus. Some positions are
mutually exclusive; for example, of the three possessive positions, only one
(occasionally two) can be filled in a given noun phrase.
The tables below represent the structure of the common noun phrase.
Table 36: The common noun phrase – prenominal elements
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
preposition quantifier collective determiner quantif./ possessor plural nucleus
phrase marker numeral marker
phrase
e, i, ꞌi, ki, QtfP kuā te; QtfP Ø-poss. ŋā; noun;
mai etc. t-possessive; NumP mau compound
demonstr.det; noun
he
§ 4.4 5.2 5.3; 5.4; 4.6.2, 4.4; 5.5 6.2.1 5.6 5.7; 5.8
4.6.4; 6.2.1
Table 37: The common noun phrase – postnominal elements
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
modifiers quantif. adverb emph. limit. postnom. ident. numeral possessor deictic
phrase mkr mkr demonstr. mkr phrase part.
AdjP QtfP hakaꞌou; mau nō nei; ꞌā; NumP Ø-poss; ai
takoꞌa ena; ꞌana poss. phrase
era
§ 5.8 4.4 5.9 5.9 5.9 4.6.3 5.10 5.5 6.2.1 5.11
Apart from these, the noun phrase may contain the following elements:
• appositions (→ 5.13)
• relative clauses (→ 11.4)
• vocative particles (→ 8.9)
Below are examples illustrating the different noun phrase positions. The constituents
are numbered according to the numbering in the tables above.
(1) e0 kuā2 tōꞌoku3 pāpā7 era13
AG COLL POSS.1SG.O father DIS
“My father and others (said)” (R412.383)
(2) mo0 te3 nuꞌu7 paꞌari8 taꞌatoꞌa9 mau11 nei13 ꞌā14
for ART people adult all really PROX IDENT
“for all the older people here” (R207.017)
(3) ki0 tū3 taŋata7 hakaꞌou10 era13
to DEM man again DIS
“(he said) to that other man” (R102.020)
(4) i0 tāꞌana3 [poki vahine]7 mau11 nō12 [e tahi]15
ACC POSS.3SG.A child female
really just NUM one
“(to look at) his really only daughter” (Luke 8:41-42)
(5) i0 te3 pāpā7 era13 [o Pētero]16 ai17
ACC ART father DIS of Peter
there
“(look at) Petero’s father there” (Notes)
(6) rauhuru1 te3 meꞌe7 mātāmuꞌa8
diverse ART thing past
“(he saw) many things from the past” (R423.021)
(7) [meꞌe rahi nō atu]4 rāua5 ŋā6 poki7
thing many just away 3PL PL child
“many children of theirs (were born)” (R438.049)
(8) tōꞌona3 [hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā hitu]4 matahiti7
POSS.3SG.O one tenplus seven year
“his seventeen years” (R461.013)
In the sections 5.2–5.13, different elements in the common noun phrase will be
discussed in turn. Some elements are discussed in other chapters: quantifiers and
demonstratives are discussed in chapter 4, possessors in chapter 6. See the references
in the table above.
Chapter 5: The noun phrase 221
5.2. The collective marker kuā
kuā (etymology unknown; there is also a less common variant koā, which does not
occur in older texts) indicates a human collectivity, a group of people belonging
together. With a singular noun, as in examples (9) and (10) below, it has an associative
sense (Dixon 2012:50): kuā N means “N and the ones around him/her, N and the
others”. When the noun itself has plural reference, as in (11)–(14) below, kuā refers to
“the group of N”.
In older texts kuā is rare and only occurs before proper names. Nowadays its use has
increased in frequency, and it occurs before the following elements:
1. proper names:
(9) Pē ira a kuā Tiare i iri ai ki ꞌuta e tahi mahana.
like PRO PROP COLL Tiare PFV ascend PVP to inland NUM one day
“Thus Tiare and the others went to the countryside one day.” (R151.048)
2. kinship terms like koro “Dad”, nua “Mum”:
(10) He nonoho a
- kuā koro he kakai. -
NTR PL:sit PROP COLL Dad NTR PL:eat

“Dad and the others sat down and ate.” (R333.538)
3. some other nouns referring to persons, like māhaki “that person”:

(11) E Tiare, e hāpaꞌo rivariva koe i
- a kuā māhaki.
VOC flower EXH care_for good:RED 2SG ACC PROP COLL companion
“Tiare, take good care of the little ones.” (R496.015)
4. pronouns:
(12) ¿O kuā kōrua i aŋa?
of COLL 2PL PFV make
“Did you (pl.) make it together?” (R415.808)
In short, kuā occurs before the same words which can also be preceded by the proper
article a, i.e. proper nouns (→ 3.3.2). This may have led DuFeu (1987:474) to classify
kuā as a proper article as well. However, kuā is different from the proper article. As
examples (9), (10) and (11) show, kuā can co-occur with the proper article. This
indicates that the two do not belong to the same class of particles, but occupy different
slots in the noun phrase.
In fact, the syntactic behavior of kuā shows it to be quite different from a. kuā occurs
in a number of contexts in which a is impossible:
a. Even though kuā usually occurs before proper nouns, it occasionally occurs before
common nouns. repa “friend” is a common noun which never takes the proper article
a, but it can be preceded by kuā:
(13) Ka oho mai, e kuā repa ē.

IMP go
hither VOC COLL young_man VOC
“Come, my friends.” (R313.004)
b. Unlike the proper article a, kuā occurs after the preposition o, as in (12) above.
c. Unlike the proper article, kuā can be followed by a possessive pronoun:
(14) Ko kuā tōꞌoku ŋā poki taina rikiriki
- era ko tōꞌoku
PROM COLL POSS.1SG.O PL child sibling small:PL:RED DIS PROM POSS.1SG.O
pāpārūꞌau era.
grandfather DIS
“We were with my little brothers and my grandfather.” (R123.014)
d. Unlike the proper article, kuā can be followed by the plural marker ŋā, as in (14)
above.
e. kuā occurs in the vocative, as in (13) above, something which is not possible with a.
All of this shows that kuā not only occurs in the proper noun phrase (→ 5.14.1), but
also in the common noun phrase. The fact that kuā mostly occurs before the same
nouns as the proper article, may have semantic rather than syntactic reasons. The
proper article a precedes nouns which have a unique referent, and similarly, kuā
indicates reference to a group which is identified by a unique referent. This unique
referent is either a central member of the group (kuā koro “father and company”, kuā
Tiare “Tiare and the others”), or identified with the group as such (e kuā repa ē “you
friends”, kuā ŋā kope “guys”).
5.3. The article te
5.3.1. Introduction: determiners

The following elements occur in the determiner position:
1. the article te
2. demonstrative determiners
3. possessive pronouns of the t-series
4. the predicate marker he
A noun phrase can only contain one of these: the article te, demonstrative determiners
and possessive pronouns of the t-series are mutually exclusive.
In this section, the article te is discussed. Demonstrative determiners are discussed in
sec. 4.6.2 and 4.6.4; possessive pronouns are discussed in 4.2.2 (forms) and 6.2.1
(use). The nominal predicate marker he is discussed in 5.4; in 5.4.3 it is argued that
this element is in the determiner position, even though it is very different in function
from the other three categories of determiners. The latter (1–3) will be referred to as t-
determiners, as most of these elements start with t-.
5.3.2. The function of the article te

The article te is widespread in Polynesian languages.242 Older descriptions characterise
it as a definite article, while he is described as an indefinite article. According to
DuFeu (1996:11) te in Rapa Nui is a [+specific] article, while he is [±specific].
However, in actual fact he and te are not two articles which can be substituted for each
other. They occur in quite different syntactic contexts. he mainly introduces noun
phrases which serve as predicates of non-verbal clauses (→ 5.4). It does not occur, for
example, in noun phrases serving as subject or object of a verbal clause:
(15) *He oho he taŋata ki te hare.
NTR go PRED man to ART house
“A man went home.”
(16) *Ko tikeꞌa ꞌā a au (i) he honu.
PRF see CONT PROP 1SG ACC PRED turtle
“I have seen a turtle.”
This means that te is the only full-fledged article in Rapa Nui. It is in complementary
distribution with the other t-determiners: demonstratives and possessive pronouns of
the t-series.
te occurs with all common nouns, that is, all nouns which do not take the proper
article a (→ 5.14.2). As is common in Polynesian language, it is not specified for
gender or case. Neither is it specified for number:243 both singular and plural nouns are
introduced by te. Number is indicated by the plural marker ŋā, by numerals, or
understood from the context.
te can be used with count nouns as in (17), mass nouns as in (18) and abstract
concepts as in (19):
(17) He tuꞌu mai te taŋata, te viꞌe, he popo mai ki roto ki te hare.
NTR arrive hither ART manwoman NTR pack hither to inside to ART house
ART
“Men and women arrived and crowded into the house.” (Ley-5-34.009)
(18) Ko mate atu ꞌana ki te vai mo unu.
PRF dieaway CONT to ART water for drink
“I’m dying for water to drink.” (R303.032)
(19) Te haŋa rahi pa he manu era he paloma...
ART love much like PRED bird DIS PRED dove
“Great love is like a dove...” (R222.036f)
242
In fact, cognates of te occur in all Polynesian languages, though in some language PPN *te
underwent an irregular change: Tongan he, Samoan le. Interestingly, te as a definite or specific is
not reconstructed for any protolanguages prior to PPN; however, Clark (2015) shows that
possible cognates occur in various Oceanic languages, mostly as an indefinite article. If these are
indeed cognates, this article extended its use to definite NPs in PPN.
243
unlike the situation in some other EP languages, where the plural marker is in determiner
position; see fn. 258 on p. 238.
Is te a definite article, as older descriptions suggest? Lyons (1999) defines definiteness

in terms of identifiability: the definite article signals that the hearer is in a position to
identify the referent of a noun phrase. When a speaker says “Pass me the hammer”, the
hearer infers that there is a single hammer that he/she is able to identify.244
In this sense, te cannot be considered a definite article. In many cases, te introduces
noun phrases with indefinite reference.
(20) Ko tuꞌu ꞌana a au ki ruŋa i te henua e hitu.
PRF arrive CONT PROP 1SG to above at ART land NUM seven
“(In my dream) I arrived on seven islands.” (R420.014)
Even when not definite, te usually refers to a specific entity. Thus in the following
example, te taŋata e tahi refers to a specific man; his name is mentioned straight
afterwards.
(21) ꞌI te noho iŋa tuai era ꞌā te taŋata e tahi te ꞌīŋoa
at ART stay NMLZ ancient DIS IDENT ART man NUM one ART name
ko Tuꞌuhakararo.
PROM Tu’uhakararo
“In the old times (there was) a man called Tu’uhakararo.” (R477.002)
However, te can also be used in non-specific contexts. This is for example the case in
general statements, in which the noun phrases have generic reference:
(22) E tano nō mo maꞌu i te mōai e hoꞌe ꞌahuru toneladas ...
IPFV correct just for carry ACC ART statue NUM one ten tons
e te taŋata e hoꞌe hānere vaꞌu ꞌahuru.
AG ART man NUM one hundred eight ten
“It is possible to transport a statue of ten tons... by one hundred and eighty
men.” (R376.062)
This sentence does not refer to any specific situation involving a certain statue and
certain specific people, but to statues and people in general.
A noun phrase is also non-specific when its referent is hypothetical. This happens for
example when the item is desired or sought as in (23)–(24), denied as in (25), or its
existence is questioned as in (26). In all these examples, the referent has not been
mentioned in the preceding context, but even so, te is used:
(23) ...mo ai o te moni mo hoꞌo mai i te haraoa.
for exist of ART money for trade hither ACC ART bread
“(He sells food) in order to have money to buy bread.” (R156.023)
244
As the notion of identifiability is not without problems, Lyons (1999) also uses the notion of
inclusiveness: the definite article signals that there is only one entity satisfying the description
used, relative to the context. Thus in “There was a wedding. The bride was radiant,” the hearer
cannot identify the bride (he does not know who she is), and yet The bride is definite: the article
indicates that in the given situation there is only one bride.
(24) He kī ōꞌoku ki tōꞌoku ŋā poki taina era mo oho o mātou

NTR say POSS.1SG.O to POSS.1SG.O PL child sibling DIS for go of 1PL.EXC
mo kimi i te pipi.
for search ACC ART shell
“I told my brothers and sisters that we would go to look for shells.” (R125.002)
(25) ꞌIna ko kai i te kai mata.
NEG NEG.IPFV eat ACC ART food raw
“Don’t eat raw food.” (R. Weber 2003:61)
(26) —¿E ai rō ꞌā te ika o roto? —ꞌIna e tahi.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART fish of inside NEG NUM one
“—Are there any fish inside? —Not one.” (R241.058)
We may conclude that the article te in Rapa Nui does not indicate definiteness or
specificity. Rapa Nui does have other devices to indicate these:
• The article in combination with a postnominal demonstrative indicates
definiteness (→ 4.6.3.1).
• To indicate a specific number, numerals are used. The numeral e tahi “one”
may function almost as the equivalent of an indefinite article (→ 5.5.3).
In section 5.3.4, the semantics of te will be further discussed. But first, the syntactic
behaviour of te will be explored: in which contexts is it excluded, optional, or
obligatory?
5.3.3. The syntax of t-determiners

In the preceding section I showed that te does not indicate definiteness nor specificity.
In this section I will show that the use of te is largely determined by syntax. In many
contexts, a t-determiner is needed; if no other determiner is present, te is used as
default determiner.
In the following sections I will list the syntactic conditions under which a t-determiner
is or is not used. First the conditions will be listed under which t-determiners cannot be
used (5.3.3.1), secondly contexts in which the determiner is optional (5.3.3.2). What
remains, is a list of all other contexts, in which a t-determiner is obligatory (5.3.3.3).
Unless otherwise stated, all conditions apply to the class of t-determiners as a whole: if
the determiner is excluded, this means that neither the article nor a t-possessive
pronoun or a demonstrative determiner is possible; if the t-determiner is obligatory,
either the article or another determiner has to be present.
According to Chapin (1974), Rapa Nui is much more flexible than other Polynesian
languages in the omission of the article, and the circumstances under which the article
can be omitted are not completely clear. A close look reveals, however, that te can only
be omitted in a limited set of specific contexts.
5.3.3.1. Contexts in which t-determiners cannot be used

1. t-determiners cannot be used when the noun phrase is introduced by the predicate
marker he (→ 5.4). This happens when the noun phrase is in predicate position, in
appositions, after the preposition pē “like”, and after the negator ꞌina.
Neither is it used with nouns in appositions, whether the latter are preceded by he or
not:
(27) ...mo haŋa ki a Ure Potahe, taŋata haka kē mo te aŋa.
for love to PROP Ure Potahe person CAUS different for ART work
“...to love Ure Potaha, an excellent worker.” (R539-1.036)
2. In a number of contexts neither t-determiners nor the predicate marker he are used
(→ 5.5.1.):
a. When the noun phrase contains a cardinal numeral245 before the noun.
(28) He oho (*te) e tahi taina he haka hāhine ki te matuꞌa tane.
NTR go ART NUM one sibling NTR CAUS near
to ART parent male
“One brother went and approached his father.” (Fel-64.109)
When the numeral occurs after the noun, the determiner does occur:
(29) He oho tātou ki *(te) kona e tahi.
NTR go 1PL.INC to
place NUM one
ART
“We are going to a certain place.” (Notes)
b. When the noun is followed by aha “what” or hē “which” (→ 10.3.2.2, 10.3.2.3):

(30) ¿ꞌI kona hē te māmoe nei?
at place CQ ART sheep PROX
“Where is this sheep?” (R536.037)
c. When the noun phrase is preceded by the instrumental preposition hai (→ 4.7.9):
(31) He puꞌapuꞌa hai pāoa;
- he mate.
NTR beat:RED INST war_club NTR die
“They beat her with a club and she died.” (Egt-01.082)
d. In a few expressions in which the noun phrase is nonreferential. These are typically
repeated noun phrases with a distributive sense:
(32) He eꞌa rā matuꞌa Iporito ki hare era ki hare era.
NTR go_out DIS parent Hippolyte to house DIS to house DIS
“Father Hippolyte went here and there (lit. to that house to that house).”
(R231.282)
245
With ordinal numerals, the article is obligatory (→ 4.3.3).
(33) He oho hare ꞌiti hare nui ki te taŋata.

NTR go house small house big to ART man
“He went to all the houses (lit. small house big house) to the people.”
(R368.056)
In these cases the noun phrase does not refer to any house in particular: hare era in
(32) does not refer to a certain house, but to houses in general. In other words, the
noun phrase is nonreferential. If the article were used (ki te hare era), the noun phrase
would refer to a specific house.
5.3.3.2. Contexts in which the t-determiner can be omitted

Secondly, there are some contexts in which the t-determiner is normally used, but can
be left out.
1. In a somewhat informal style, the determiner can be left out in the second and
following items of enumerations or lists:
(34) Māuruuru ki a
- rāua ꞌe ki te nuꞌu era huaꞌai, matuꞌa, nuꞌu paꞌari...
thank fo PROP 3PL and to ART people DIS family parent people old
“Thanks to them, and to the family members, parents, old people...”
(R202.004)
2. Occasionally when the noun phrase contains the plural marker ŋā (→ 5.6.2).
3. Sometimes the t-determiner is omitted in sentence-initial noun phrases which

contain a postnominal demonstrative (nei, ena or era). The noun phrase may be the
subject of a verbal (35) or nominal clause (36), or a left-dislocated constituent (37):
(35) Nuꞌu nei ko hoki mai ꞌā mai Tahiti ki Rapa Nui.
people PROX PRF return hither CONT from Tahiti to Rapa Nui
“These people had returned from Tahiti to Rapa Nui.” (R231.086)
(36) Kai ena i a kōrua, kai rivariva. -
food MED at PROP 2PL food good:RED

“That food you have is good food.” (R310.262)
(37) Taŋata nei ko Pāpuꞌe, ꞌi Māꞌea Makohe tōꞌona hare.
man Papu’e at Ma’ea Makohe POSS.3SG.O house
PROX PROM
“This man Papu’e, his house was in Ma’ea Makohe.” (R372.035)
In these cases the absence of the article makes no difference in meaning; the omission
is a purely stylistic matter, and limited to a somewhat informal style.246
246
Note that aspectual particles are also left out occasionally at the beginning of a sentence (→
7.2).
4. The t-determiner is left out in the predicate of attributive clauses (→ 9.2.7), where
an anchor noun is followed by an adjective or other modifier. This is illustrated in the
second noun phrase (kai rivariva) in (36) above.
-
5. The t-determiner is optional with some quantifiers: taꞌatoꞌa (→ 4.4.2), rauhuru (→

4.4.5), meꞌe rahi (→ 4.4.7.1); in old texts ananake (→ 4.4.4.2).
6. The t-determiner can be left out after koia ko “with”, which indicates attendant
circumstances (→ 8.10.4.2).
5.3.3.3. The “elsewhere” case: the t-determiner is obligatory

In all other cases, the noun phrase obligatorily contains a determiner:
1. Noun phrases not marked by a preposition (most commonly as subject of the clause)
must have a t-determiner.
2. All prepositions must be followed by a t-determiner, with the exception of pē “like”
and hai “with” (→ 4.7.1).247
Now there is a difference between contexts 1 and 2. In 1 (unmarked noun phrases), the
t-determiner is normally obligatory, but this constraint can be overruled by the
presence of elements which do not allow a determiner: prenominal numerals and the
quantifier meꞌe rahi “much/many”. The former do not allow a determiner (→ 5.5.1),
while the latter only allows a determiner following it, not preceding it (→ 4.4.7.1).
When such an element occurs in a noun phrase not preceded by a preposition, the
determiner is simply omitted.
Constraint 2, however, cannot be overruled. If the noun phrase is preceded by a
preposition, it must have a t-determiner.248 This leads to an interesting question: what
happens if a prenominal numeral or quantifier occurs in a noun phrase which should
have a preposition? In certain cases, the preposition and the article are both omitted;
this happens especially with the accusative marker i. But not all preposition can be
omitted: the genitive marker o cannot and neither can most other prepositions. When
these occur, prenominal quantifiers are simply not possible; the numeral has to come
after the noun.
247
NB These constraints only apply to common nouns, which have a determiner position in the
noun phrase. With personal nouns, the proper article a is used, but not in exactly the same
contexts as common noun determiners (→ 5.14.2.1).
248
Even to this rule there are exceptions, but to my knowledge only in two well-defined contexts:
when the noun is followed by hē “which” (see (30) above), and in the nonreferential distributive
construction in (32)–(33) above.
5.3.4. te as marker of referentiality

As concluded in section 5.3.2, the article te implies neither definiteness nor
specificity.249 This raises the question whether te has any meaning at all. Its role seems
to be purely syntactic as a default determiner: whenever a determiner is needed and
the noun phrase has no other determiner, te is used. However, this begs the question
why the syntax requires a determiner at all in the contexts discussed in the previous
sections. To recapitulate: te is required in core grammatical roles and after
prepositions, but cannot occur when the noun phrase serves as a predicate. This
suggests that te does have a semantic function: the article te turns a common noun into
a referential expression.
A common noun as such is not referential; it denotes a certain property or class of
entities. A determiner is needed to create an expression which refers to one or more
entities belonging to this class, and only on this condition can the noun be used as a
subject or object, or as complement of a preposition. The noun phrase may refer to a
specific entity (whether known to the hearer or not, i.e. definite or indefinite) or to
some unspecified one: referentiality is not the same as specificity.
This explains why a noun phrase in argument position or after a preposition needs to
be preceded by a determiner. Any determiner will do: a demonstrative, a possessive
pronoun, or – by default – the article te.250 On the other hand, in order for a noun to
function as predicate, t-determiners are excluded: the predicate should not be
referential, but denote a property.
This analysis explains why determiners are used with noun phrases in argument
positions and after prepositions, while he is used with predicate noun phrases. It is
confirmed by a number of other phenomena.
1. As discussed in the section on quantifiers, the article is often omitted with a
prenominal quantifier (→ 4.4.2 on taꞌatoꞌa “all”; 4.4.5 on rauhuru “diverse”; 4.4.7.1 on
meꞌe rahi “many”). While referential noun phrases presume the existence of an entity,
noun phrases with the universal quantifier “all” do not; in other words, they are non-
referential.
It is thus not surprising that with the universal quantifier, the article can be left out.
Now this does not yet explain why the article can also be left out with rauhuru and
meꞌe rahi: unlike the universal quantifier, these do imply the existence of a set of
entities. However, they do not single out a definite number of individuals from a set;
rather, they denote an unspecified subset from the total set of entities denoted by the
249
One could wonder whether an element not encoding definiteness or specificity still qualifies as
an article. Dryer (2007c:157) answers this question in the affirmative.
250
Rigo & Vernaudon (2004:467) apply the same analysis to the Tahitian article te. They refer to
Lemaréchal (1989), who analyses such elements as translating a “nom” into a “substantif”. A
“nom” expresses a quality (e.g. “doctor” = the quality of being a doctor), while a determiner
converts this into a referring expression (a person who has the quality of being a doctor). Gorrie
et al (2010) give a partly similar analysis for determiners in Niuean: determiners are the
obligatory elements which allow a noun to function as an argument. They separate this function
from referentiality, which in their analysis is provided by other noun phrase elements.
noun. “many people went” implies that there exists a subset from the class of “people”
for whom the predicate “went” is true, but without being specific about the extent of
this subset. While I would hesitate to call this “non-referential”, these expressions do
appear to be lower on the referentiality scale than expressions referring to
individuated entities. These quantifiers are similar in meaning to distributional
expressions (→ 5.3.3.1), which likewise exclude the article te:
(38) He eꞌa rā matuꞌa Iporito ki hare era ki hare era.
NTR go_out DIS parent Hippolytus to house DIS to house DIS
“Father Hippolytus went here and there (lit. to that house to that house).”
(R231.282)
2. As discussed in section 5.3.3.1, t-determiners are excluded – and the predicate

marker he is used – not only with nominal predicates, but with other non-referential
noun phrases as well:
a. noun phrases in apposition. Noun phrases in apposition do not refer to an entity or
set of entities, but depend for their reference on the preceding head noun. The function
of the apposition is to specify a further property of this head noun; they are more like
predicates than referential expressions.
b. noun phrases after the comparative preposition pē “like” (→ 4.7.8). Interestingly,
the same constraint applies to the preposition me “like”, which occurs in Marquesan
(Cablitz 2006:135ff), Hawaiian (Cook 1999:53; Elbert & Pukui 1979:156), Maori
(Polinsky 1992:237; Bauer 1993:356) and Tuvaluan (Besnier 2000:224). In all these
languages, me must be followed by the predicate marker se or he. The use of he after
prepositions meaning “like” can be explained from the non-referential character of the
noun phrase after these prepositions: the noun phrase does not refer to any concrete
entity, but involves a comparison with a class of category of entities, in which case the
predicate marker he is appropriate rather than referential te (cf. Polinsky 1992:236; cf.
the discussion of he in sec. 5.4.1).
3. Noun phrases in interrogative and negative sentences could be considered non-

referential: in both cases, the noun phrase does not refer to an entity whose existence
is presupposed.251 Now the use of t-determiners is not excluded in interrogative and
negative contexts per se. Two examples from the previous section are repeated here:
(39) ꞌIna ko kai i te kai mata.
NEG NEG.IPFV eat ACC ART food raw
“Don’t eat raw food.” (R. Weber 2003:61)
(40) —¿E ai rō ꞌā te ika o roto? —ꞌIna e tahi.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART fish of inside NEG NUM one
“—Are there any fish inside? —Not one.” (R241.058)
251
Chung, Mason and Milroy (1995:437) explain the use of he in Maori in (among others)
interrogative and negative constructions precisely from the non-referential character of the noun
phrase in these contexts.
On the other hand, there is one negative and one interrogative construction in which t-
determiners are excluded:
— when the noun itself is questioned by the interrogative adjective hē “which”: see
example (30) in 5.3.3.1.
— when the noun phrase occurs immediately after the negator ꞌina (→ 10.5.1, esp.
(94)–(96)):
(41) ꞌIna he rūꞌau nei he turu mai ki Haŋa Roa.
NEG PRED old_womand PROX NTR go_down hither to Hanga Roa
“This old woman did not go down to Hanga Roa.” (R380.006)
Notice that the use of he rather than te in this example cannot be explained as an
existential construction. This sentence is not a negation of “there was an old woman
who went down to Hanga Roa”, but refers to a definite woman, as the demonstrative
nei indicates. Even so, the negation triggers the use of the predicate marker instead of
the referential article.
5.4. The predicate marker he
5.4.1. he as predicate marker

he in the noun phrase is an element of a different kind than the article te and the other
determiners discussed in the previous section. Its distribution is limited. As discussed
in section 5.3.3, in most environments the noun phrase needs a t-determiner (the
article te, a possessive or a demonstrative). This includes noun phrases as subjects of
verbal and non-verbal clauses, and noun phrases preceded by most prepositions.
he is mainly used to mark noun phrases as predicates of a verbless clause. In the
following example, he taŋata is the predicate of the clause: “man” is predicated of the
subject tau manu era. The clause is classifying (→ 9.2.1): it expresses that the subject
belongs to the class of human beings. taŋata does not refer to any man in particular,
nor to a group of men or even to men in general; rather, it denotes the property of
“being man”.
(42) He taŋata tau manu era.
PRED man DEM bird DIS
“That bird was a human being.” (Mtx-7-12.069)
In short, he is not the indefinite counterpart of te, but marks non-referentiality.

Apart from classifying clauses, he is also used in existential clauses (→ 9.3.1).
As a nominal predicate marker, he also marks the complement of the copula verbs riro
“become” and ai “be” (→ 9.6).
5.4.2. Other uses of he

Apart from marking the predicate of a verbless clause, he has a number of other uses.
1. he is used in appositions (→ 5.13):

(43) He kī e te matuꞌa tane era o Te Rau, he taŋata pūꞌoko

NTR say AG ART parent male DIS of Te Rau PRED man head
o te nuꞌu o Kapiti...
of ART people of Kapiti
“The father of Te Rau, the leader of the people of Kapiti, said...” (R347.089)
2a. he is used before common nouns in isolation (i.e. without a semantic role as verb
argument or complement of a preposition), for example in titles:
(44) He aŋa vaka, ꞌe he eꞌa iŋa ki haho i te tai
PRED make boat and PRED go_out NMLZ to outside at ART sea
“Building boats, and going out to sea” (R200 title)
(45) He tiare ko au he raŋi he hetuꞌu
PRED flower PROM 1SG PRED sky PRED star
“The flowers, me, the sky and the stars” (R222 title)
2b. Noun phrases in enumerations or lists may also be syntactically isolated, in which
case they are also marked by he:
(46) Te aŋa nō ꞌa Reŋa he tunu i te kai: he moa, he tarake,
ART work just of.A Renga PRED cook ACC ART food PRED chicken PRED corn
he kūmā, ika ꞌe tētahi atu.
PRED sweet_potato fish and other away
“What Renga used to do was cooking food: chicken, corn, sweet potato, fish
and other things.” (R363.119)
(Proper nouns and pronouns in isolation and in lists are marked with ko; common
nouns are marked with ko when uniquely identifiable; → 4.7.11.1.)
3. he is used after the preposition pē “like” (→ 4.7.8).
4. he is used after the negator ꞌina, whether the noun phrase is referential or not (→
10.5.1):
NEG PRED old_woman PROX NTR go_down hither to Hanga Roa
“This old woman did not go down to Hanga Roa.” (R380.006)
5. he occasionally marks topicalised subjects in a verbal clause (→ 8.6.2.1):

(48) He taŋata he oho he ruku i te ika mo te hora kai.
PRED man NTR go
dive ACC ART fish for ART time eat
NTR
“The men went diving for fish for lunch.” (R183.019)
Cognates of he occur in most Polynesian languages. In the past these have often been
analysed as an indefinite article (see references in Polinsky 1992:230). For Rapa Nui,
Englert (1978:18 [1948]) already realised that he was something different from an
ordinary indefinite article: he “se emplea cuando se trata de denominaciones generales
de personas u objetos”.
The Proto-Polynesian ancestors of te (PPN/PNP *te) and he (PPN *sa, PNP *se) did
function as definite and indefinite (or specific and non-specific) article respectively
(see Clark 1976:47ff; Hamp 1977:411). In non-EP languages, he continued to function
as an indefinite article, which commonly introduces referential noun phrases
functioning as verb arguments.252 In EP languages, however, he is mainly used as
nominal predicate marker, though it is occasionally used to mark argument noun
phrases253 (→ 5.3.4 on referentiality).
5.4.3. he is a determiner
The discussion so far has shown that the distribution of he is quite different from that
of t-determiners: it usually does not mark verbal arguments, does not occur after most
prepositions, but instead is mainly used when the noun phrase functions as predicate
or is in another non-argument position. Even so, he is most plausibly analysed as a
determiner, that is, an element occurring in the same structural position as the t-
determiners. There are different reasons for doing so.254
1. he excludes other determiners. he and te never occur together, and neither can he co-
occur with a t-possessive pronoun; if a he-marked noun phrase has a possessive
pronoun, this must be postnominal:
(49) Te meꞌe nei he toto ōꞌoku.
ART thing PROX PRED blood POSS.1SG.O
“This is my blood.” (Luke 22:20)
(50) *Te meꞌe nei he tōꞌoku toto.
2. Although he is precluded after almost all prepositions, there is one exception: he

does occur – and is even obligatory – after the preposition pē “like” (→ 4.7.8), as the
following little riddle shows:
(51) ꞌItiꞌiti
- pē he kioꞌe, hāpaꞌo i te hare pē he paiheŋa haka_ꞌāriŋa.
small:RED like PRED rat care_for ACC ART house like PRED dog insolent
“Small like a mouse, guarding the house like an insolent dog.” (R144.007)
252
See e.g. Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992:261ff) on Samoan, Besnier (2000:365) on Tuvaluan, and
Anderson and Otsuka (2006:22) on Tongan.
253
In Maori (Polinsky 1992; Chung, Mason and Milroy 1995) and Hawaiian (Cook 1999), *he
occasionally marks objects or non-agentive subjects. In Rapa Nui its use with argument noun
phrases is equally marginal, but not limited to non-agentives: it may mark topicalised noun
phrases, regardless the nature of the verb (→ 8.6.2.1). Clark (1997) provides a reconstruction of
the shifts in the use of he in PEP.
254
Cook (1999) proposes the same analysis for Hawaiian he, based on the fact that it can be
preceded by the preposition me “like”, cannot be followed by another determiner, and does not
occur before pronouns.
3. Just like t-determiners, he is placed before quantifiers like taꞌatoꞌa, rauhuru and
tētahi:
(52) Te meꞌe nō e noho era he rauhuru nō atu o te taro.
ART thing just IPFV stay DIS PRED diverse
just away of ART taro
“The only thing that was still there, was many kinds of taro.” (R363.004)
(53) Te vaka o Pakaꞌa pē he tētahi vaka era ꞌā.
ART boat of Paka’a like PRED other boat DIS IDENT
“Paka’a’s boat was just like other boats.” (R344.040)
4. Like other determiners, he does not occur before pronouns or proper names. Rather,
pronouns and proper names are preceded by ko or the proper article a (see sections
5.14.2).
5. When noun phrases contain a prenominal numeral phrase, t-determiners are not
used (→ 5.5.1). Now the same constraint applies with he: he cannot co-occur with a
prenominal numeral. This means that he is left out when the noun phrase contains a
prenominal numeral, even when it would normally be required in the context. This
applies for example after the negator ꞌina as in (54).
(54) ꞌIna e tahi meꞌe o mātou mo kai.
NEG NUM one thing of 1PL.EXC for eat
“We didn’t have anything to eat (lit. there was not one thing of ours to eat).”
(R130.002)
This evidence clearly shows that he is a determiner, even if its distribution is different
from other determiners.
5.5. Numerals in the noun phrase
Section 3.5 discusses numerals in general; in the present section, their occurrence in
the noun phrase is discussed. Numerals can appear either before or after the noun;
both positions will be discussed in turn.
5.5.1. Numerals before the noun

Numeral phrases very often appear before the noun. In this position they cannot co-
occur with a determiner, whether a t-determiner or the predicate marker he. In other
words, when the noun phrase contains a prenominal numeral phrase, the determiner is
omitted. As prenominal numerals do not co-occur with a prenominal quantifier either,
it is impossible to decide whether the numeral occupies the determiner position or the
quantifier position just after that (cf. the chart in 5.1).
Just as the numeral phrase cannot be preceded by a determiner, it cannot be preceded

by a preposition. Whether the noun phrase is a subject (55), direct object255 (56),
oblique argument (57) or adjunct (58), it does not have any marking when it contains
a prenominal numeral (→ 5.3.3.3).
(55) He poreko e toru poki.
NTR born NUM three child
“Three children were born.” (R352.010)
(56) He aŋa e tahi paepae.
-
NTR make NUM one shack

“He built a shelter.” (Blx-2-1.015)
(57) E ko ꞌavai e au e tahi taŋata i tāꞌaku poki.
IPFV NEG.IPFVgive AG 1SG NUM one person ACC POSS.1SG.A child
“I won’t give my child to anybody.” (R229.069)
(58) He noho e toru marama ꞌi Aro Huri.
NTR stay NUM three month at Aro Huri
“He stayed three months in Aro Huri.” (MsE-109.013)
As mentioned above, prenominal cardinal numerals do not co-occur with a determiner.

A numeral preceded by a determiner is necessarily interpreted as an ordinal numeral
(→ 4.3.3).
However, for numerals higher than ten this constraint is weaker: prenominal high
numerals are sometimes preceded by a determiner. Here is an example:
(59) Ko ia o roto i te hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā maha henua rikiriki - ena
PROM 3SG of inside at ART one ten plus four land small:PL:RED MED
ꞌi te harani e kī ena ‘Sociedad’.
at ART French IPFV say MED Society
“It (Tahiti) is in the 14 small French islands, called ‘Society’.” (R348.002)
5.5.2. Numerals after the noun

Despite the wide range of contexts in which prenominal numerals appear, they cannot
occur in noun phrases in every position and in any semantic role. Prenominal numerals
are common when the noun is subject, object or temporal adjunct, but less so with
arguments normally marked with oblique ki (such as the Recipient in (57) above) and
locative adjuncts. In other situations they are entirely ruled out; in those cares,
numerals are placed after the noun:
255
The same constraint applies in Tahitian: with prenominal numerals, the object marker is
omitted (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:184).
1. When the noun phrase is preceded by a preposition requiring a determiner (→

5.3.3.3), for example, possessive o (60), or a preposition following a locational (61):256
(60) te hare o te taŋata e tahi
ART house of ART man one NUM
“the house of one man” (Notes)
(61) He eke ki ruŋa i te māꞌea e tahi.
NTR go_up to above at ART stone NUM one
“He climbed on a stone.” (R229.347)
2. After the preposition hai “with”, even though hai is not followed by a determiner (→
4.7.9):
(62) E ꞌauhau era ꞌi te ꞌāvaꞌe hai māmoe e hā.
IPFV pay DIS at ART month INST sheep NUM four
“He was paid four sheep (lit. with four sheep) per month.” (R250.053)
Likewise, prenominal numerals do not occur after the preposition pē “like”, which is
not followed by the article te but the predicate marker he (→ 4.7.8):
(63) Taꞌatoꞌa mata e ai rō ꞌana te rāua taŋata pūꞌoko... pē he suerekao
all tribe IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART 3PL man head like PRED governor
e tahi te haka auraꞌa.
NUM one ART CAUS meaning
“All tribes had a leader... someone like a governor (lit. like one governor the
meaning).” (R371.006)
3. When the noun phrase must contain a determiner for discourse reasons. When a
participant is definite, this is indicated by a determiner + a postnominal
demonstrative (→ 4.6.3). In such cases, which are very common in narrative texts,
numerals must come after the noun. Consider the following example:
(64) A Makemake i
- hakaroŋo mai era ki te ani atu
PROP Makemake PFV listen hither DIS to ART request away
o tou ŋāŋata era e rua.
of DEM men DIS NUM two
“Makemake listened to the request of those two men.” (Fel-40.044)
256
The only case in which a numeral does occur after a locative expression, is when the noun
phrase is headless. In the following example, the noun phrase e tahi o kōrua consists of a numeral
phrase and a possessive; there is no head noun.
(i) ...ꞌo topa tāꞌue rō atu te ꞌati a ruŋa e tahi o kōrua.
lest happen perchance EMPH away ART problem by above NUM one of 2PL
“lest a disaster may fall on one of you” (R313.010)
In this case there is no postnominal position available (alternatively, one could assume that the
numeral is in postnominal position, which cannot be distinguished from the prenominal position
anyhow).
The two men have been mentioned before and are therefore known; this is signalled by
anaphoric tou – era. The numeral e rua necessarily appears at the end of the noun
phrase.
5.5.3. Optional numeral placement; e tahi “one”

Section 5.5.1 above describes contexts in which the numeral can be prenominal. This
does not mean that the numeral must be prenominal in these contexts. Syntactically, in
most of these cases the numeral can be placed after the noun as well. Here are
examples with a postnominal in a subject noun phrase (65) and a direct object noun
phrase (66):
(65) He oho mai te Miru e rua, ko Tema ko Pau ꞌa Vaka.
NTR go
hither ART Miru NUM two PROM Tema PROM Pau a Vaka
“Two Miru men came, Tema and Pau a Vaka.” (Mtx-3-06.024)
(66) He tute mai i te moa e tahi.
NTR chase hither ACC ART chicken NUM one
“He chased a (lit. one) chicken.” (Mtx-7-03.033)
In cases like (65)–(66) the choice between pre- and postnominal numerals is
syntactically free; however, there may be a subtle difference in meaning. This is
especially the case with e tahi “one”. In prenominal position, e tahi tends to have a
non-specific sense. This sense is especially clear after negations, when tahi can often be
translated as “any”:
(67) He hāhaki mai, pero ꞌina kai ravaꞌa e tahi meꞌe.
NTR gather_shellfish hither but NEG NEG.PFV
obtain NUM one thing
“She went to gather shellfish, but she didn’t get anything.” (R178.026)
Similarly, in existential clauses, ꞌina e tahi is used in the sense “not any, none at all”:
(68) ꞌIna e tahi kona toe mo moe.
NEG NUM one place remain for sleep
“There was no place left to sleep.” (R339.027)
When the numeral is placed after the noun, its sense is often specific, “one, a certain”:
(69) He moe ki te uka e tahi...
NTR lie_down to ART girl NUM one
“He married a (certain) girl...” (Blx-3.002)
There is no absolute distinction between the two, though. For example, in narrative
texts, both prenominal and postnominal e tahi are common to introduce participants at
the beginning of stories:
(70) E tahi taŋata hōnui, te ꞌīŋoa o tū taŋata era ko ꞌOhovehi.
NUM one man respected ART name of DEM man Ohovehi DIS PROM
“There was a respected man, the name of that man was Ohovehi.” (R310.001)
(71) He taŋata e tahi ko Marupua te ꞌīŋoa.

PRED man one PROM Marapua ART name
NUM
“There was a man called Marupua.” (R481.001)
5.6. Plural markers
5.6.1. The plural marker ŋā

5.6.1.1. The position of ŋā
The plural marker ŋā always occurs immediately before the noun.
(72) He tuꞌu mai tou ŋā uka era.
NTRarrive hither DEM PL girl DIS
“Those girls arrived”. (Blx-3.053)
As this example shows, ŋā is not an article.257 It occurs in a different position than the
article te and often co-occurs with it. This is different from its cognates in most other
Eastern Polynesian languages, which are usually plural articles.258
The fact that the plural is always contiguous to the noun, is an indication of its close
syntactic association to the noun. Other indications are:
• The plural of taŋata “man” coalesced from *ŋā taŋata into ŋāŋata.
• Unlike any other prenominal element, ŋā can precede a noun which modifies
another noun:
(73) Taꞌe he aŋa ŋā viꞌe rā.
NEG.CONS PRED work PL woman DIS
“That’s not women’s work.” (R347.103)
5.6.1.2. Use and non-use of ŋā

ŋā is not obligatory. When it is clear that the noun phrase has plural reference, ŋā can
be left out:
1. When the noun phrase contains a numeral:
257
Pace DuFeu (1987:474).
258
Hawaiian naa, Maori nga, Marquesan na and the possible cognate Tahitian nā are all
determiners, which do not co-occur with te. In Hawaiian and Maori this article denotes plurality,
in Marquesan and Tahitian it is used for a dual or limited plural (see Elbert 1976:19; Biggs
1973:20; Zewen 1987:11; Acad.tah. 1986:16). In Tahitian, according to Acad.tah. (1986:18), nā
is incompatible with the article te and composite determiners containing te (despite Tryon’s
(1970:17) example tāꞌu nā ꞌurī), but it may co-occur with the demonstrative taua: taua nā tamariꞌi
a Noa... “those children of Noah” (Gen. 9:18).
In Rarotongan, on the other hand, the particle ŋā – which is most commonly used for pairs – is
commonly preceded by the article or another determiner: tōku ngā metua “my parents” (Buse
1963b:405f); te ngā pēre pūtē “the two bales of sacks” (Sally Nicholas, p.c.).
(74) Viꞌe nei e ai rō ꞌā e rua poki vahine.

woman PROX IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM two child female
“This woman had two daughters” (R491.008)
2. When the noun is subject of a verb which has a plural form as in (75), or is modified
by a plural adjective:
(75) He ŋaro tū pereꞌoa era, he ŋāŋaro - te vaꞌehau.
NTR disappear DEM car DIS NTR PL:disappear ART soldier
“The carriage disappeared and the soldiers disappeared.” (R491.039)
3. When the noun phrase contains the collective marker kuā (→ 5.2).
4. When there are other indications in the context that the noun phrase has plural
reference. The following example occurs in a story about a party. No plural marker is
needed to indicate that a party involves more than one man and more than one
woman.
(76) He hoki te taŋata, te viꞌe, te ŋā poki... ki to rātou hare.
NTR return ART man ART woman ART PL child to ART:of 3PL house
“(When the party is finished,) men, women and children go home.” (Mtx-7-
30.037)
In conclusion, ŋā can be omitted when it is clear that reference is plural. However, this
does not mean that ŋā is only used when there is no other clue for plurality. It may co-
occur with a numeral or other quantifier as in (77) or a plural verb form as in (78):
(77) He eꞌa mai tou ŋāŋata e ono mai roto mai te hare ki haho.
NTR go_out hither DEM men six from inside from ART house to outside
NUM
“Those six men came out of the house.” (Ley-4-01.023)
(78) Ko ꞌaꞌara
- ꞌana tū ŋā vārua era.
PRF PL:wake_up CONT DEM PL spirit DIS
“Those spirits woke up.” (R233.026)
The only case in which ŋā is obligatory, is with the noun io “young man”, which
(almost) only occurs as a plural ŋā io. ŋā io is especially common in older stories, but is
still in use. It is so much a unit that Englert (1978, 1980) writes it as one word.
5.6.1.3. Semantics of ŋā
In older texts, ŋā is almost exclusively used with nouns referring to humans: taŋata
“man”, viꞌe “woman”, poki “child”, matuꞌa “father”, taina “brother”, et cetera.259
Nowadays, ŋā is frequently used with inanimate nouns as well, including abstract
nouns:260
259
Englert (1978:26) states that ŋā is only used for persons.
260
According to Schuhmacher (1993:170), this development occurred under influence of Tahitian
(79) Te ŋā vaka raꞌe tuꞌu mai era e ueue

- nō ꞌana ꞌi rote vai
ART PL boat first arrive hither DIS IPFV sway:RED just CONT at inside_ART water
ꞌi te reherehe.
-
at ART weak
“The first boats that arrived rocked in the water because they were so flimsy.”
(R539-1.550)
(80) E taiꞌo ꞌi raꞌe ꞌe ꞌai ka pāhono iho te ŋā ꞌui ena.

EXH read at first and there CNTG answer just_then ART PL ask MED
“First read, then answer these questions.” (R534.013)
The sense of ŋā is very general. It can be used for small and large numbers alike:
(81) tāꞌana ŋā poki e rua
POSS.3SG.A PL child NUM two
“his two children” (R376.033)
(82) He pōrekoreko meꞌe rahi nō atu
- rāua ŋā poki.
NTR born:RED thing many just away 3PL PL child
“They had many children (lit. many their children were born).” (R438.049)
It can be used for items forming a group as in (83), or for a plurality of separate items
as in (84):261
(83) I taŋi era te oe, he tāhuti tahi te ŋā poki he haka kāuŋa.
PFV cry DIS ART bell NTR PL:run all ART PL child NTR CAUS line_up
“When the bell sounded, all the children ran and stood in line.” (R334.012)
(84) Te nua rakerake mo te
- ŋā meꞌe haꞌere tahaŋa nō a te ara.
ART cloth_cape bad:RED for ART PL thing walk aimlessly just by ART road
“The ordinary capes were for the ones (=people) who just walked along the
road.” (Ley-5-04.012)
In conclusion, ŋā may indicate any kind of plurality with any noun.
5.6.2. Co-occurrence of ŋā and the determiner

As shown above, the occurrence of ŋā is independent of the occurrence of the article.
However, there are some noun phrases containing ŋā which do not have any
determiner, even though there should be a determiner according to the conditions
listed in section 5.3.3. Here are some examples:
(85) ¿Ki hē kōrua ko ŋā kope?
to CQ 2PL PROM PL person
“Where are you going, guys?” (Ley-4-05.066)
nā; more likely, it was influenced by Spanish – where plurality is consistently marked – or a
(quite natural) language-internal development.
261
Pace DuFeu (1996:135; 1987:485).
(86) Ka raŋi ŋā kope ka oho mai.

IMP call PL person IMP go hither
“Call the guys to come.” (R232.058)
(87) E tahi pihi o te taꞌu o ŋā poki o Miru, he ora hakaꞌou
NUM one decade of ART year of PL child of Miru NTR live again
ŋā poki o Tūpāhotu.
PL child of Tupahotu
“After ten years of (the reign of) the children of Miru, the children of
Tupahotu revived.” (Mtx-3-07.016)
(88) He oho au ki ŋā hare he noꞌinoꞌi - hai kona mahute.
NTR go 1SG to PL house NTR request:RED INST place mulberry
“I’m going to the houses to ask for mulberry fibres.” (R352.025)
Although these examples are unusual, they are grammatical and can be explained in
one of several ways:
— In (85) and (86) the noun is kope. (kōrua) ko ŋā kope is more or less a frozen
expression, though (86) shows that it also occurs without ko. It expresses endearment:
“those dear boys”.
— The noun phrase in (87) can be regarded as similar to a name: ŋā poki o Miru “the
Miru people”. Rapa Nui has more cases where names are introduced by ŋā:
(89) E ono Ŋā Ruti Matakeva... He oho e tahi Ŋā Ruti,
NUM six Nga Ruti Matakeva NTR go NUM one Nga Ruti
“There were six (men called) Nga Ruti Matakeva... One Nga Ruti went...” (Mtx-
3-11.001,005)
— (88) may be an example of nonreferential use. In such expressions the noun phrase
does not refer to any house, but to houses in general. (See (32)–(33) on p. 226.)
5.6.3. Other words used as plural markers

Sometimes plurality is expressed by other words than ŋā.
1. Some speakers use the Tahitian plural marker mau (not to be confused with the
emphatic marker → 5.9). Tahitian mau, like Rapa Nui ŋā, is a marker which occurs
after the article. For speakers familiar with Tahitian, the similarity in syntax would
facilitate using the Tahitian form.
(90) te mau matahiti i noho era ꞌi Rapa Nui
ART PL year PFV stay DIS at Rapa Nui
“the years when he lived on Rapa Nui” (R231.306)
(91) mo te mau māꞌohi o Rapa Nui
for ART PL indigenous of Rapa Nui
“for the indigenous people of Rapa Nui” (billboard in the street)
Like most Tahitian borrowings, this is a relatively recent phenomenon.

2. nuꞌu “people” (an inherently plural noun, borrowed from Tahitian nuꞌu “army,
collectivity”) can be placed in front of another noun and play the same role as a plural
marker. It implies a group of people being and/or acting together.
(92) Mai ira ia māua i oho ai ki te hare o tōꞌoku nuꞌu huŋavai.
from PRO then 1DU.EXC PFV go PVP to ART house of POSS.1SG.O people parent-in-law
“From there we went to the house of my parents-in-law.” (R107.018)
(93) Tāꞌana meꞌe haŋa... he reka ananake ko tōꞌona nuꞌu repahoa.
POSS.3SG.A thing want entertaining together PROM POSS.3SG.O people friend
PRED
“What he likes is... having a good time with his friends.” (R489.003)
This does not mean that nuꞌu is a plural marker like ŋā. Syntactically nuꞌu is a head
noun modified by another noun. It can even be preceded by ŋā (tū ŋā nuꞌu era “those
people”).
5.7. The noun: headless noun phrases
In most contexts, the noun is obligatory; headless noun phrases are uncommon in Rapa
Nui. They do occur, but only in certain specific contexts.
1. With numerals, and with quantifiers like tētahi (→ 4.4.6.2) and taꞌatoꞌa (→ 4.4.2).
(94) E tahi i vaꞌai ki a tōꞌona māmātia. Tētahi atu i vaꞌai
NUM one PFV give to PROP POSS.3SG.O aunt other away PFV give
ki tētahi nuꞌu.
to other people
“One she gave to her aunt. The others she gave to other people.” (R168.006f)
(95) Taꞌatoꞌa e tahuti era, e tari mai era i te kai.
all IPFV run DIS carry hither DIS ACC ART food
IPFV
“All ran, carrying the food.” (R210.155)
2. After a t-possessive pronoun, in the partitive construction “possessive o te noun” (→

6.2.2). In this construction the noun phrase does not have a head noun; instead, the
main concept is expressed by a genitive phrase:
(96) Kai toe tāꞌana o te ika, o te ꞌura, o te kōꞌiro,
NEG.PFVremain POSS.3SG.A of ART fish of ART lobster of ART conger_eel
“There was no fish, lobster or conger eel left for her.” (Mtx-4-04.003)
In other cases it is also possible to leave out the noun after a t-possessive pronoun. The
implied head noun may be expressed in a preceding clause as in (97), or not at all as in
(98).
(97) Ka rovaꞌa e Hete i te māmari ka puā takoꞌa a Kikio ki tāꞌana.

-
CNTG obtain AG Hete ACC ART egg CNTG touch also

Kikio to POSS.3SG.A
PROP
“When Hete got an egg, Kikio also touched his (one).” (R438.042)
(98) He vaꞌai tāꞌana, tāꞌana, he tuhaꞌa.
NTR give POSS.3SG.A POSS.3SG.A NTR distribute
“He gave everyone his share, distributing it.” (R372.123)
3. Similarly, a possessive phrase may occur without head noun; the head noun is
understood from the context. The noun phrase starts with to, which is a contraction of
the article te and the possessive marker o (→ 6.2.3):
(99) Ko Koka te ꞌīŋoa o tōꞌona hoi... ko Parasa to te rūꞌau era
PROM Koka ART name of POSS.3SG.O horse PROM Parasa ART:of ART old_woman DIS
ꞌāꞌana.
POSS.3SG.A
“Koka was the name of his horse, Parasa the (name) of his old wife.” (R539-
1.420)
(100) ¿Ko ai te ꞌīŋoa o te taŋata? ¿To te viꞌe?

PROM who ART name of ART name womanART:of ART
“What is the man’s name? And the woman’s?” (Notes)
4. Headless noun phrases are marginally possible in noun phrases containing

adjectives. Adjectives in the noun phrase usually need a noun. If need be, a generic
noun like kope “person” or meꞌe “thing” is used.
(101) He kī te poki (kope, meꞌe) nuinui ki te
- poki (kope, meꞌe) ꞌitiꞌiti... -
NTR say ART child person thing big:RED to ART child person thing small:RED
“(There were two children.) The big one said to the small one...” (Notes)
But with a few adjectives in a specific idiomatic sense, the noun can be left out:
(102) Te pepe nei mo te hōnui. Te pepe era mo te rikiriki.
-
ART chair PROX for ART respected ART chair DIS for ART small:PL:RED
“These chairs are for the authorities. Those chairs are for the small people.”
(Notes)
In the (infrequent) cases above, the nounless construction refers to a referent

possessing a quality. These should be distinguished from nominally used adjectives
which refer to the quality as such. The former can be considered as ellipsis of a noun,
the latter as conversion of an adjective to a noun (Bhat 1994:96). In the following
examples, nuinui “big” is used as a noun in the sense “bigness, size, greatness”. It
-
cannot be used in the sense “big one”.

(103) Te nuinui o Tahiti e
- ꞌāmui atu tāua e ono nuinui nei o Rapa Nui.
-
ART big:RED of Tahiti IPFV add away 1DU.INC NUM six big PROX of Rapa Nui
“The size of Tahiti altogether is six times the size of Rapa Nui.” (R348.003)
Relative clauses (→ 11.4) can never be headless, but need to be preceded by a noun.
When no other noun is available, the dummy noun meꞌe is used. This happens for
example in clefts (→ 9.2.6).
5.8. Modifiers in the noun phrase
5.8.1. Introduction: types of modifiers

The noun may be modified by various elements: nouns, adjectives or – less commonly
– verbs.262 A modifying noun may in turn be modified by another noun, verb or
adjective, and so on. Modifying verbs may be followed by a direct object; modifying
adjectives may be modified by various elements, such as degree markers.
At first sight a modifying noun or verb seems to have the same status as a modifying
adjective, but there are important differences between the two. Syntactically, a
modifying noun or verb is incorporated into the head noun; it is always a bare noun or
verb, not preceded or followed by particles. Modifying adjectives, on the other hand,
form an adjective phrase, which may contain elements like degree modifiers, negators
and adverbs (→ 5.8.3.2). This correlates with a difference in position: when a noun
phrase contains both a modifying noun or verb and an adjective, the former is usually
closer to the head noun.
Semantically, a modifying noun or verb tends to express a single concept together with
the head noun; in other words, the combination is a compound, a single lexical item.
Adjectives, on the other hand, express some additional property of the concept
expressed by the head. For example, in the following noun phrase, pūꞌoko haka tere
“head CAUS run” is a compound noun with the sense “leader, head”, consisting of a
noun and a modifying verb. The adjective phrase taꞌe tano “not correct” =
“unrighteous” modifies this compound noun.
(104) te [pūꞌoko haka tere] [taꞌe tano] era o te hare ture
ART head CAUS run NEG.CONS
correct DIS of ART house judgment
“the unrighteous head of the courthouse” (Luke 18:6)
We may therefore assume a distinction between modifiers as part of a compound and

modifiers in a post-nominal modifier position; in other words: noun adjuncts versus
noun phrase adjuncts. This coincides with another syntactic difference: the order of
elements within a compound is fixed, while the relative order of adjectives is
sometimes free (→ (132)–(133) on p. 252).
Now the distinction between nominal and adjectival modifiers is not absolute. In the
following example the adjective ꞌāpī and the proper noun rapa nui both modify the
noun poki; there is no functional difference between the two modifiers.
262
Cf. Vernaudon (2011:325), who gives examples of an adjective, noun and verb modifying a
noun in Tahitian.
(105) Poki ꞌāpī te meꞌe era, poki rapa nui te meꞌe ena.
child new ART thing DIS child Rapa Nui ART thing MED
“That one is a young child, that one is a Rapa Nui child.” (R416.238)
In the following example the noun+adjective combination tuki tōumāmari is further

removed from the noun than the adjective teatea; here the modifying noun tuki is
-
obviously not incorporated into the head noun pokopoko, but is a modifier on the same
-
level as adjectives.
(106) Ka maꞌu mai taꞌa pokopoko teatea
- - tuki tōuamāmari.
IMP carry hither POSS.2SG.A container white:RED dot yellow
“Bring your white, yellow-dotted bowl.” (Notes)
Also, the fact that a certain noun+noun combination is a semantic unit does not imply
that it is necessarily a syntactic unit as well, occupying the head position as a whole.
Syntactic structure does not always mirror semantic structure. The underlined
expressions in the following examples have an idiomatic sense, but they are not a
syntactic unit. While there is a compound vare/ŋao “slimy” + “neck” = “to crave”,
here the same two elements are used in a verb + subject construction:263
(107) He vare te ŋao ki te kai hāhaki ꞌi tai.
NTR slimy ART neck to ART food gather_shellfish at sea
“They were craving to get shellfish on the seashore. (Mtx-7-30.043)
(108) He mate te manava o tau ŋā uka era ki tau ŋā io era.
NTR die stomach of DEM PL girl DIS to DEM PL lad DIS
ART
“The girls fell in love with those boys.” (Mtx-6-03.079)
Thus, the fact that a collocation is a semantic unit does not imply that its parts are in a
single position in the noun phrase. Moreover, some noun-adjective combinations also
express a single concept, just like noun + noun compounds.
(109) parau ꞌāpī haraoa mata
word264 new “news” bread raw “flour”
In conclusion, there is no absolute distinction between modifying nouns and modifying

adjectives. However, the following things are clear:
1. the noun phrase may contain various modifiers;
2. modifiers closer to the noun are semantically closer to it as well. This is
illustrated in (104) above; see also (132)–(133) on p. 252;
3. modifying nouns and verbs are usually incorporated into the head noun,
occurring as bare modifiers immediately after the head noun. They tend to
express a single concept together with the head noun;
263
However, idioms like this do have a tendency to become syntactically united. In newer texts
the expression mate te manava is not found; instead, the compound verb manava mate is used.
264
This compound was borrowed from Tahitian as a whole. “word” is the Tahitian sense of parau;
in Rapa Nui parau on its own does not mean “word”, but “paper”, “document” or “authority”.
4. modifying adjectives are not incorporated into the head noun. They may be
further removed from the head noun and form an adjective phrase; they tend
to express an additional property of the concept expressed by the head.
Because of the distinction between 3 and 4, the noun phrase chart in section 5.1 places
compounds as a whole in the head position, while modifying adjectives are placed in a
separate slot.
In the following sections, the different types of modifiers will be discussed: section
5.8.2 deals with compounds, section 5.8.3 with modifying adjectives. Even though this
section is part of the chapter on noun phrases, verb compounds (i.e. compounds with a
verb as head and occurring in a verbal context) will be discussed in 5.8.2.4.
5.8.2. Compounds
As shown in the previous section, compounds in Rapa Nui are formed by simply
juxtaposing two words. The head word comes first, then the modifier. The structure
may be recursive: the modifier may itself be the head to a second modifier. The
modifying element may be a noun or verb. Most compounds are nouns (that is, have a
noun as their head), but the discussion in these sections includes examples of
compound verbs and adjectives as well.
A distinction can be made between lexical and syntactic compounds (see Dryer
2007c:175). Lexical compounds have a meaning which is not predictable from the
meaning of their parts, while syntactic compounds are productive constructions with a
predictable meaning. Both are found in Rapa Nui and are discussed separately below.
There is, however, no sharp distinction between the two. Certain compounds have a
somewhat specialised, not quite predictable sense, yet it is easy to see how this sense
could have arisen from the sense of their components. In fact, the distinction between
lexical and syntactic compounds can be thought of as a continuum. At one end are
completely predictable and productive compounds, at the other end are compounds
with a completely unpredictable (e.g. figurative) sense. Below are examples illustrating
different points along this continuum.
Table 38: Syntactic and lexical compounds
semantic relation example sense of parts sense of whole

predictable ivi ika bone + fish fish bone
specialised, transparent hare pure house + prayer church
less transparent manu/pātia265 insect + sting wasp
metaphorical manu/rere bird + to fly airplane
manu/uru bird + to enter guest
idiomatic, opaque
vare/ŋao slimy + neck to crave
265
For compounds written as one word in the standard orthography, the parts are separated by a
slash.
5.8.2.1. Lexical compounds

As discussed in the previous section, there are various degrees of lexical compounding.
Some compounds are specialised in meaning (i.e. the sense of the compound cannot be
predicted from the sense of the parts), but it is still clear how their meaning is derived
from the meaning of the parts:266
(110) a. manu/meri insect + honey bee
b. manu/pātia insect + sting wasp
c. manu/rere bird + to fly airplane
d. kiri/vaꞌe skin + foot shoe
e. tuke/ŋao leaf vein + neck nape of the neck
f. mata/vai eye + water tear
g. repa/hoa friend + friend friend
In the last two examples above, the relation between the two words is not that
between head and modifier. In matavai, the second noun vai is semantically the
head.267 In repahoa, both components are synonyms which together yield a third
synonym.
The compound may also be a verb or adjective:
(111) a. maꞌu/rima take hold + hand catch in the act, surprise
b. tunu/ahi cook + fire to roast on a fire
c. aŋa/rahi work + much difficult
Some compounds are more than specialised in meaning: their sense is to a greater or
lesser degree opaque.
(112) a. hua/tahi fruit + one only child
b. manu/piri bird + join friend
c. vare/ŋao slimy + neck to crave, desire
Opacity goes even further in compounds where one or both components do not occur
at all in Rapa Nui (at least, not in the sense underlying the compound); the origin of
these components may or may not be reconstructible.
(113) a. hata/uma PPN *fatafata “chest” + sternum
RN uma “chest”
b. hatu/kai RN hatu “clod” + ? coagulated blood
c. hānau/tama PPN *fānau “give birth” pregnant; pregnant woman
+ PPN *tama “child”
These compounds must have developed at a stage when both components were still in
use in the sense they had in the protolanguage. Opaque compounds may also have a
266
In the tables in this section, the second column gives the meaning of the component parts, the
third column the meaning of the whole compound.
267
Another example is motore vaka “motor boat”, noted by Fischer (2001a:322); this is probably
a calque from English.
more recent origin, being borrowed as a whole. One such word is hare toa “store”,
borrowed from Tahitian. The first part means “house” (Rapa Nui hare, Tahitian fare),
the second part means “store” in Tahitian (from English) but is not used in other
contexts in Rapa Nui.268
In other cases, both components are known as Rapa Nui words, but one of them is no
longer in use, or at least archaic.
(114) a. rau/huru hundred (archaic) + sort manifold, diverse
b. hiri/toe braid + hairlock (archaic) hairband
c. koro/haŋa when (archaic) + want maybe
Such “compounds” function practically as single words: the original sense of their parts
no longer plays a role.
Near the other end of the spectrum, i.e. similar to syntactic compounds, are
compounds which are quite transparent in meaning, but which are still lexicalised to a
certain degree; that is, they may be a single unit in the mental lexicon of speakers of
the language. Though it is impossible to say exactly whether a compound is or is not
lexicalised, two indications for lexicalisation of a compound are:
— it is used frequently;
— it expresses a single concept, and is often a single word in other languages.
Some examples are:
(115) a. maꞌori hāpī expert + learn teacher
b. hare hāpī house + learn school
c. hare pure house + pray church
d. hiꞌo mata glass + eye eyeglasses, spectacles
e. kona hare place + house home
5.8.2.2. Syntactic compounds

Syntactic compounds are transparent in sense: their meaning can be predicted from the
meaning of the parts. Syntactic compounds are productive and may express a wide
variety of semantic relations. Here are some examples:
(116) compound sense of parts sense of whole semantic relation
a. kete kai basket + food basket of food A containing B
b. hare oru house + pig pigsty A destined for B
c. kūpeŋa ika net + fish fishnet A destined for B
d. karone pure necklace + shell shell necklace A made of B
A of the kind B, or:
e. tumu ꞌānani tree + orange orange tree
A producing B
f. ꞌāꞌati vaka contest + boat rowing contest A of the kind B
268
hare toa is written as two words, because (at least some) speakers know the origin and
meaning of the second part.
g. ꞌau ꞌumu smoke + earth oven earth oven smoke A originating from B
h. pūꞌoko ika head + fish fish head A part of B
In syntactic compounds, the plural marker ŋā may intervene between the two nouns:
(117) Taꞌe he aŋa ŋā viꞌe rā.
NEG.CONS PRED work PL woman DIS
“It’s not women’s work.” (R347.103)
As illustrated in the previous section, the second element of a lexical compound may
also be a verb. This also happens with syntactic compounds. The noun may refer to a
location where the event expressed by the verb takes place (as in a and b below), or an
instrument used to perform the action expressed by the verb (as in c).
(118) a. ꞌana haꞌuru cave + to sleep cave for sleeping
b. henua poreko country + be born country of birth
c. hau hī line + to fish fishing line
Compounds may also consist of three members. The third word is a noun (119), verb
(120) or adjective (121) modifying the second noun; together they modify the head
noun. (On modifying verbs, → 5.8.2.3 below.)
(119) a. kona nūnaꞌa hare place [group + house] village
b. kona tumu pika place [tree + fig] figtree grove
(120) a. pūtē hare hāpī bag [house + learn] schoolbag
b. hāipoipo hare pure
- wedding [house + pray] church wedding
(121) a. nuꞌu kiri teatea - people [skin + white] light-skinned people
b. kona ꞌōꞌone rivariva - place [soil + good] place of good soil
5.8.2.3. Incorporation of objects and verbs

A verb as modifier may in turn be followed by its object. Like any modifying noun, the
object is a bare noun, not marked with a determiner and/or object marker. This is a
case of object incorporation: the object loses its object marking and its status as a noun
phrase, and is directly adjoined to the verb.
(122) a. kona haꞌamuri ꞌAtua place [to worship + God] temple
b. hiꞌo uꞌi ꞌāriŋa glass [to watch + face] mirror
c. taŋata keukeu henua
- man [to labour/till + land] farmer
d. ꞌāua ꞌoka kai garden [to plant + food] plantation, field
A combination of noun and verb modifiers and object incorporation may lead to even
longer compounds, as the following examples show:
(123) ꞌi te mahana taꞌe noho ꞌi te kona ꞌāua [ꞌoka kai] nei ꞌāꞌana
at ART day NEG.CONS
stay at ART place enclosure plant.V food PROX POSS.3SG.A
“on a day when he did not stay in his garden plot” (R381.004)
(124) Hai meꞌe potupotu niuniu

- - taratara [haro ꞌāua]
- ena e aŋa era
INST thing piece:RED wire:RED spine:RED pull enclosure MED IPFV make DIS
te meꞌe vivi rikiriki.
-
ART thing chain small:PL:RED

“With pieces of barbed fence wire they made little chains.” (R364.005)
It is also possible to incorporate the verb into the noun which is semantically its
object. These compounds are unusual in that the noun is syntactically the head of the
compound (it retains its status as a regular noun, i.e. head of a noun phrase), even
though it is semantically an argument of the verb.269 These compounds may appear in
any nominal context, just like any noun or noun compound. (In (125)–(126), the
compound is the predicate of a nominal clause.)
(125) ꞌI tōꞌona mahana he ai mai te aŋa he ꞌāua titi,
at POSS.3SG.O day NTR exist hither ART work PRED enclosure build
ꞌo he rau kato.
or PRED leaf pick
“On certain days there were jobs like making fences or picking leaves.”
(R380.084)
(126) He kai toke nō mai o te taŋata te aŋa.

PRED food steal just hither of ART man ART do
“Stealing the people’s food was what she did all the time.” 270 (R368.017)
Noun + verb compounds are similar to bare relative clauses (→ 11.4.5): in the latter,
the verb – which is always initial in relative clauses – is not preceded by an aspectual;
just as in a compounds, it follows immediately after the head noun. There are two
important differences, however.
1. A bare relative clause is still a clause: the verb is part of a verb phrase which may
contain postverbal particles, such as iho in (127); moreover, arguments of the verb
may be expressed by independent case-marked noun phrases, such as the subject e ia
(with agentive marking) in (128).
(127) He aŋa i te paepae e
- tahi ꞌi tuꞌa o tōꞌona hare ꞌāpī aŋa iho.
NTR make ACC ART shack one at back of POSS.3SG.O house new do just_then
NUM
“He built a shelter behind his new house he had just built.” (R250.131)
269
For a somewhat similar mismatch between syntax and semantics, cf. the nominal purpose
construction discussed in 11.6.3. There as well as here, an event is expressed by a nominal
construction, with one of the arguments of the verb in question as syntactic head.
Both of these are among the many instances in Rapa Nui where a nominal construction serves to
express an event (→ 3.2.5).
270
The noun kai has a genitive modifier o te taŋata; this is leapfrogged over by the incorporated
verb. The construction is similar to nominal purpose constructions (→ 11.6.3).
(128) He ꞌamo tahi mai ia i tū ŋā kai haka rito era e ia.

NTR carry allhither then ACC DEM PL food CAUS ready DIS AG 3SG
“He carried all that food he had prepared.” (R304.078)
By contrast, a modifying verb in a compound does not form a clause. No other VP

elements can be included.
2. A bare relative clause expresses an event which happens or happened at a specific
time, whether once or repeatedly. By contrast, an incorporated verb denotes something
which characterises the noun, irrespective of whether the event has really taken place
or not. For example, a plot of land may be ꞌāua ꞌoka kai (garden for planting food),
even when nothing has been planted yet.
5.8.2.4. Compound verbs

Though the vast majority of compounds in Rapa Nui function as nouns, compound
verbs are also found. Some of these were mentioned in section 5.8.2.1, e.g. the lexical
compound tunuahi (cook + fire) “to roast on a fire”.
Most compound verbs consist of a verb + noun. The noun may have various semantic
roles in relation to the verb; interestingly, it is usually not the direct object, but often
the instrument with which the action is performed:
(129) He toꞌo mai era he tunu pani, he tunuahi.
NTR take hither DIS NTR cook pan NTR cook.fire
“They took the food and cooked it in the pan, roasted it on a fire.” (R107.049)
(130) He tunu māꞌea vera, haka hopu i te poki hai vai vera.
NTR cook stone hot CAUS bathe ACC ART child INST water hot
“He cooked (the water) with hot rocks, and bathed the child with hot water.”
(Mtx-1-07.016)
In the following example, the modifier rapa nui can also be considered as an
instrument in a loose sense.
(131) ꞌE nuꞌu taꞌe rahi ꞌi te raꞌā nei e ꞌaroha rapa nui nei.
and people NEG.CONS many at ART day PROX IPFV greet Rapa Nui PROX
“Few people today greet each other in Rapa Nui (with this Rapa Nui
greeting).” (R530.038)
That these combinations are compounds is clear from the fact that the noun is not
preceded by a determiner, nor by a preposition indicating its semantic role. (For
example, the instrumental role would normally be indicated by hai.) Also, postverbal
particles follow the noun (nei in (131) above), showing that the noun has been
incorporated into the verb phrase.
5.8.3. Modifying adjectives

As discussed in section 5.8.1, modifying adjectives are usually semantically different
from modifying nouns. This section discusses a few issues concerning adjectives in the
noun phrase.
Several elements occurring in the adjective position are discussed elsewhere:
• the ordinal numeral raꞌe “first” (→ 4.3.3)
• the interrogative adjective hē “which” (→ 10.3.2.3)
• the quantifier-like element rahi “much, many” (→ 4.4.7)
• the noun negator kore “without; lack of” (→ 10.5.7)
5.8.3.1. Multiple adjectives

As (106) shows, the noun phrase may contain more than one adjective. The order of
the adjectives is not fixed:
(132) He aŋa i te hare teatea
- nuinui.
-
NTR make ACC ART house white:RED big:RED

“He built a big white house.” (Notes)
(133) He aŋa i te hare nuinui teatea.
- -
NTR make ACC ART house big:RED white:RED

“He built a big house, which was white.” (Notes)
As the translation shows, there is a subtle difference between the two examples above.
The adjective closest to the noun denotes the quality that is most fundamental in the
context; this noun + adjective combination is in turn modified by the second
adjective. This is in line with the general principle noted in section 5.8.1: elements
closest to the noun are semantically closer to it as well; they form a unit with the noun
which may in turn be modified by other modifiers.
Cases of multiple adjectives are uncommon, though. The contrasting examples above
were given during a discussion session. An example from the text corpus is the
following:
(134) He uꞌi mai i te ꞌohe tītika
- rivariva.
-
NTR look hither ACC ART bamboo straight good:RED

“You look (= one looks) for a straight, good bamboo stick.” (R360.015)
More commonly, multiple adjectives are separated by a pause or the conjunction ꞌe

“and”; for an example, see R215, sentence 02 in Appendix A (p. 551).
5.8.3.2. The adjective phrase

The adjective constituent which modifies the noun is not always a bare adjective, but
can be a phrase containing other elements: adverbs and/or particles.
The adjective may be preceded by a modifier of degree: ꞌapa “to a moderate degree,
somewhat, sort of” or ꞌata “to a higher degree, more”. ꞌata is discussed in section
3.5.1.1; here are examples of ꞌapa:
(135) he vere ꞌapa meamea -
PRED beard part red:RED

“a reddish beard” (R. Weber 2003:77)
(136) He oti ꞌā te henua māꞌohi ꞌapa hāhine ki te ŋā henua ena
NTR finish CONT ART land indigenous part near to ART PL land MED
o te America_del_Sur.
of ART South_America
“This is the only Polynesian island sort of close to the countries of South
America.” (R350.003)
The adjective may be followed by an intensifying adverb rahi “much”, riꞌariꞌa “very, -
terribly”, taparahi-taꞌata “terribly” (a Tahitian phrase which literally means “killing

people”), tano “in a moderate degree”, mau (in (139) emphasized by the identity
particle ꞌā):
(137) Meꞌe rivariva rahi te meꞌe nei mo te oraraꞌa o te mahiŋo o Rapa Nui.
-
thing good:RED much ART thing PROX for ART life of ART people of Rapa Nui
“This was something very good for the life of the people of Rapa Nui.”
(R231.314)
(138) Pē he ꞌariki te haꞌaauraꞌa, meꞌe moꞌa riꞌariꞌa.

-
like PRED king ART example thing respect very

“The king, for example, was very sacred.” (R371.009)
(139) ꞌI nei i nonoho i
- uꞌi ai kāiŋa rivariva mau ꞌā.
-
at PROX PFV PL:stay PFV look PVP homeland good really IDENT
“Here they stayed and saw that it was a really good country.” (R420.054)
The adjective may also be followed by a prepositional phrase as in (140):

(140) ꞌI Haŋa Roa te nonoho haŋa, ꞌi te
- kona [hāhine
at Hanga Roa ART PL:stay NMLZ at ART place near
[ki te ꞌōpītara tuai era]].
to ART hospital ancient DIS
“They lived in Hanga Roa, in a place close to the old hospital.” (R380.003)
5.9. Adverbs and nō in the noun phrase
5.9.1. Adverbs
As the position chart in 5.1 shows, after the quantifier phrase there is a position for
adverbs. The only adverbs found here are hakaꞌou “again”, takoꞌa “also” and mau
“really”. hakaꞌou and takoꞌa are more common in verb phrases, but do appear in noun
phrases occasionally; they are discussed in sections 4.5.3.4 and 4.5.3.2, respectively.
mau may co-occur with another adverb (just as in the verb phrase, → 4.5.1), hence its
separate slot in the noun phrase chart in section 5.1. It is discussed in section 4.5.3.5.
5.9.2. The limitative marker nō

nō is a marker of limitation, which is also common in the verb phrase (→ 7.4.1). In the
noun phrase, nō has a number of uses. In several constructions it serves to restrict the
reference of a noun phrase, though – as will be illustrated below – not necessarily the
noun phrase it occurs in. In other cases it is used in the sense “just, simply” in much
the same way as in verb phrases.
1. “the only one”. In initial subject NPs, nō indicates that the class referred to by the
noun phrase has only one entity, viz. the one described in the rest of the sentence. The
sentence can be paraphrased as: “There is only one [NP], and that is [rest of
sentence]”, or more simply: “[rest of sentence] is the only [NP].” For example in (141):
“There was only one thing on board, and that was a piece of pumpkin”, or “A piece of
pumpkin was the only thing on board.”
(141) Te meꞌe nō o ruŋa, he parehe mautini, he oti mau nō.
the thing just of above PRED piece pumpkin NTR finish really just
“The only thing (they had with them) on board was a piece of pumpkin, that
was all.” (R303.054)
(142) ꞌE tōꞌona ꞌīŋoa nō paꞌi i ꞌite era e tātou ko Sebastián Englert.
and POSS.3SG.O name just in_fact PFV know DIS AG 1PL.INC PROM Sebastián Englert
“And the only name we knew him by, was Sebastián Englert.” (R375.005)
2. With noun phrases in other positions, nō signals that the rest of the sentence applies
only to the entities described by the noun phrase with nō. The sentence can be
paraphrased as: “only for [NP] is it true that [rest of sentence]”. For example in (143):
“Only for lobster and crab is it true that they fished with it”; in other words: “Lobster
and crabs were the only (bait) they fished with.”
(143) Te taŋata o nei e hī era hai ꞌura nō rāua ko te pīkea.
ART man of PROX IPFV fish.V DIS INST lobster just 3PL crab
PROM ART
“The people here used to fish only with lobster and crab.” (R354.029)
(144) ꞌI te pō nō te ika nei ana hī.
at ART night just ART fish PROX IRR fish.V
“Only at night this fish can be fished.” (R364.007)
This is also common with nō in predicate noun phrases. nō indicates that there is only
one entity to which the subject applies, viz. the one referred to in the noun phrase
containing nō. The sentence can be paraphrased as: “Only [predicate] is [subject]”, or
more naturally: “[predicate] is the only [subject].” This happens for example in the
identifying clause (→ 9.2.2) in (145) below: “Only she was the new child inside” =
“She was the only new child inside.”
(145) Ko ia nō te poki ꞌāpī o roto.

PROM 3SG just ART child new of inside
“She was the only new child inside (the class).” (R151.020)
3. In all cases above, nō limits the reference of a noun phrase. It may also have a
weaker sense: “just, simply, no more than”:
(146) He tāvini nō māua ōꞌou.
PREDservant just 1DU.EXC POSS.2SG.O
“We are just your slaves.” (R214.015)
(147) He repahoa nō au ōꞌou.
PRED friend just 1SG POSS.2SG.O
“I am just your friend.” (R308.032)
4. nō is used in a number of expressions indicating a contrast. The noun phrase te N nō,

placed initially in the clause, functions as a connective which signals that the following
clause is an exception to what has been stated before. An appropriate translation is
“however”. The noun may express how this contrast is to be evaluated, whether
negatively as in (148), positively as in (149), or neutral as in (150). In (148), the
contrast is reinforced with the Spanish conjunction pero.
(148) Pero te ꞌino nō, ꞌina e tahi materiare mo aŋa.
but ART bad just NEG NUM one material for make
“(He wanted to build a house.) But unfortunately (=the problem was), there
were no building materials.” (R231.156)
(149) Te riva nō, e taꞌero era, ꞌina he tiŋaꞌi i tāꞌana huaꞌai.
ART good just IPFV drunk DIS NEG NTR strike ACC POSS.3SG.A family
“(He used to drink.) Fortunately (=the good thing was), when he was drunk,
he did not beat his family.” (R309.056)
(150) Te meꞌe nō, ꞌi ruŋa i tū vaka era ōꞌona e ai rō ꞌā
ART thing just at above at DEM boat DIS POSS.3SG.O IPFV exist EMPH CONT
e tahi pēꞌue, e rua miro ꞌi te kaokao o te
- vaka.
NUM one mat NUM two wood at ART side:RED of ART boat
“(His boat was like the other ones;) however, in his boat there was a rug, and
two poles on the sides of the boat.” (R344.040)
5.10. The identity marker ꞌā/ꞌana
ꞌā and ꞌana are variant forms of the same particle.271 This particle functions as a
continuous marker in the verb phrase and as an identity marker in the noun phrase.
This section deals with its use in the noun phrase; its use in the verb phrase is
discussed in 7.2.5.5.
The choice between ꞌā and ꞌana is partly a stylistic one. ꞌā is somewhat more informal
(and therefore more common in oral language), while ꞌana is more formal. Rhythm
may also play a role: in some contexts a one-syllable particle may yield a better
rhythm than a two-syllable one, or the opposite.
Other euphonic effects may play a role as well. For example, after the particle ena, one
usually finds ꞌā, not ꞌana: the alliterating ena ꞌana is avoided.272
Part of the difference is ideolectical, as shown by the fact that some (groups of) texts
show a strong preference for one variant. For example, in Ley ꞌā is about six times as
common as ꞌana (296 against 58 occurrences), while in MsE ꞌana is predominant (121
against 23 occurrences). One recent text (R539) shows an extraordinary preference for
ꞌana (557x ꞌana against 30x ꞌā), while some oral texts use ꞌā almost exclusively. In
most texts, however, the two occur in more equal proportions, though ꞌā is more
common overall.
Concerning the use of ꞌā/ꞌana: with a pronoun it may be used when the pronoun has a
reflexive sense, i.e. is coreferential with the subject of the clause. The pronoun may be,
for example, the direct object or an oblique argument:
(151) Ko riꞌariꞌa ꞌana ꞌi
- tū māuiui era ōꞌona
- e maꞌu era ꞌi roto
PRF afraid CONT ACC DEM sick DIS POSS.3SG.O IPFV carry DIS at inside
i a ia ꞌā.
at PROP 3SG IDENT
“She was afraid of the sickness she carried inside herself.” (R301.091)
(152) He noho ꞌi ruŋa i te māꞌea e tahi, he kī ki a ia ꞌā...
NTR sit at above at ART stone NUM one NTR say to PROP 3SG IDENT
“He sat down on a stone and said to himself...” (R229.365)
However, ꞌā/ꞌana as such is not a reflexive marker: a noun phrase containing ꞌā does
not need to be syntactically bound to its antecedent. In the following example, ꞌā
appears with a subject pronoun, coreferential with the subject of the preceding
sentence:
(153) He kī atu ia e tōꞌoku koro era ki a au... ꞌAi ka kī
NTR say away then AG POSS.1SG.O Dad DIS to PROP 1SG there CNTG say
271
In other Eastern Polynesian languages, cognates of ꞌana are used in the verb phrase, but not in
the noun phrase (→ fn. 326 on p. 313).
272
By contrast, after era both ꞌā and ꞌana are commonly used.
hakaꞌou atu e ia ꞌā...

again away AG 3SG IDENT
“Then my uncle (lit. father) said to me.... Then he himself said again...”
(R230.254-6)
It is more accurate to analyse ꞌā/ꞌana in broader terms: it serves as a marker of

identity. As such, it can be used in different ways. Sometimes it indicates that the
referent of the noun phrase is identical to another referent in the same clause, as in the
reflexive examples (151)–(152) above. In other cases it indicates that the referent of
the noun phrase is identical to another referent mentioned earlier in the text, as in
(153). It may also underline that the referent is identical to an entity known in some
other way (“the same”). Some examples:
(154) I oti era te kai, he haꞌuru rō ꞌai a Taparahi ꞌi tū kona era ꞌā.
PFV finish DIS ART eat NTR sleep Taparahi at DEM place DIS IDENT
EMPH SUBS PROP
“When he had finished eating, Taparahi slept at that same place.” (R250.032)
(155) I poreko ai a ia ꞌi te motu mau nei ꞌā ꞌi te matahiti 1922.
PFV born 3SG at ART islet really PROX IDENT at ART year
PVP PROP 1922
“He was born on this very same island here in the year 1922.” (R487.041)
In (154), the place where Taparahi sleeps is the same place where he has just eaten. In
(155), the island where the person in question is born is the same island where the
story is being told.
These examples also illustrate the syntax of ꞌā/ꞌana: when ꞌā/ꞌana follows a noun, the
noun phrase also has a demonstrative: usually prenominal (tū in (154)), occasionally
postnominal (nei in (155)). When ꞌana follows a pronoun, no demonstrative is used.
After a possessive pronoun, ꞌā (often preceded by mau) stresses the identity of the
possessor: “one’s own”.
(156) ¿E ai rō ꞌā tuꞌu vaka ōꞌou mau ꞌā?
exist EMPH IDENT POSS.2SG.O boat POSS.2SG.O really IDENT
IPFV
“Do you have your own boat?” (Notes)
One more nominal construction in which ꞌā/ꞌana is used, is Ko te V iŋa ꞌā/ꞌana (→

3.2.3.1 sub 1d).
5.11. The deictic particle ai
The deictic particle ai is used when pointing at something; it can only be used when
the entity referred to is visible.
(157) ¿O huaꞌai hē te rūꞌau era ai?
of family CQ ART old_woman DIS there
“Of which family is that old woman over there?” (R413.305)
(158) ꞌAi ꞌō te meꞌe pē Mariana ꞌā ai.

there really ART thing like Mariana IDENT there
“There is someone (who looks) like Mariana.” (R415.423)
As these examples show, ai is usually preceded by a postnominal demonstrative (era,

nei or ena) or an identity marker (ꞌā or ꞌana).
This particle is similar in function to the sentence-initial particle ꞌai “there is”; the
particles are phonetically different, however: NP-final ai has no glottal, why initial ꞌai
does. Even so, the two could be etymologically related (→ 2.2.5 on glottals in
particles). Another possibility is that final ai has developed from the existential verb ai.
This verb is used postnominally to construct certain types of relative clauses (→
11.4.3):
(159) te nuꞌu ai o te vaka
ART people exist of ART boat
“the people who had a boat” (R200.086)
It is conceivable that the deictic particle ai developed from a relative clause which was
truncated, and of which only the verb was left.
5.12. Heavy shift
Sometimes longer subphrases are placed at the end of the noun phrase. This is in
accordance with a universal tendency to move long constituents to the end of the
phrase or clause, a phenomenon known as heavy shift (Payne 1997:326).
In (160) below, the noun is modified by a complex adjective phrase “smaller than it”.
The adjective itself is in its normal position, but its complement ki a ia “than it”, which
expresses the standard of comparison, is placed after the postnominal demonstrative
era. In (161), the whole adjective phrase is placed at the end of the noun phrase, even
after the relative clause:
(160) He takeꞌa taꞌatoꞌa mai e tāua te taꞌatoꞌa maꞌuŋa ꞌata rikiriki
- era
NTR see all hither AG 1DU.INC ART all hill more small:PL:RED DIS
ki a ia.
to PROP 3SG
“We will also see all the mountains smaller than it (=Terevaka).” (R314.002)
(161) ꞌI tū hora era ia i uꞌi atu ai a Kālia ko te meꞌe teatea -
at DEM time DIS then PFV look away PVP PROP Kalia PROM ART thing white:RED
e tahi [e takeꞌa mai era mai ruŋa i tū pahī era] ꞌata nuinui-
NUM one IPFV see hither DIS from above at DEM ship DIS more big:RED
ki te taŋata e tahi.
to ART man NUM one
“At that moment Kalia saw something white, which was seen on the ship,
bigger than a man.” (R345.061)
5.13. Appositions
5.13.1. Common nouns in apposition

Common noun phrases in apposition are never preceded by a t-determiner. They may
be marked in several ways: without any marker (“bare appositions”), with the
predicate marker he, or with the prominence marker ko.
1. Bare appositions may have generic reference, indicating that the head noun belongs
to a certain class of referents. In (162), the apposition tells that Renga Roiti belongs to
the class of female children.
(162) He poreko ko Reŋa Roiti, poki tamahahine.
NTR born PROM Renga Roiti child female
“Renga Roiti, a girl, was born.” (Mtx-7-15.002)
(163) ꞌI ira e noho era tū taŋata era, taŋata keukeu - henua ꞌoka kai.
at PRO IPFV stay DIS DEM man DIS man
labour:RED land plant food
“There that man lived, a farmer who planted crops.” (R372.036)
They may also have specific reference, identifying the head noun with a certain
referent. For example, the apposition in (164) tells that Papeete is the same place as
the capital of Tahiti.
(164) te kona ko Papeꞌete, kona rarahi
- o Tahiti
ART place PROM Papeete place important of Tahiti
“the city of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti” (R231.045)
2. Appositions introduced by he may also be either specific as in (165) or generic as in

(166).273 In the Bible translation, appositions tend to be marked with he – possibly
because it employs a relatively polished/formal style.
(165) He oho ki Vērene ꞌi Hūrea, he kona poreko o tōꞌona hakaara
NTR go to Bethlehem at Judea PRED place born of POSS.3SG.O ancestor
ko Tāvita.
PROM David
“They went to Bethlehem in Judea, the birth place of his ancestor David.”
(Luk. 2:4)
273
Though he is a marker of nonreferentiality (→ 5.4.1), in some constructions it introduces noun
phrases which seem to have specific and even definite reference. See also 9.2.3.
(166) He haka hāhine rā nuꞌu ki a Feripe, he kope o Vetetaira.

NTR CAUS near people to PROP Philip PRED person of Bethsaida
DIS
“Those people approached Philip, a man from Bethsaida.” (John 12:21)
Bare and he-marked appositions are used as the equivalent of nonrestrictive relative
clauses, clauses which provide information about a noun phrase without limiting its
reference.274 In Rapa Nui, relative clauses must be restrictive, and therefore they
cannot be attached to nouns which already have a unique reference, like proper
names. To add a clause providing more information to such a noun, a noun with
generic meaning (e.g. meꞌe “thing”, kope “person”) is placed in apposition; a relative
clause is attached to this apposition, limiting the reference of the generic noun:
(167) He oho ia a Vakaiaheva ki Rano Raraku, kona [ꞌi ira te kape
NTR go then PROP Vakaiaheva to Rano Rarako place at PRO ART boss
e noho era].
IPFV stay DIS
“Vakaiaheva went to Rano Raraku, the place where the boss lived.” (R440.028)
(168) He turu a Rovi, he taŋata [hāpaꞌo i te poki ꞌa Hotu ꞌariki].
NTR go_down PROP Rovi NTR person care_for ACC ART child of.A Hotu king
“Rovi came down, the man who took care of the child of king Hotu.”
(R422.002)
3. Sometimes a common noun apposition is marked by the prominence marker ko (→

4.7.11), followed by a determiner.275 This happens when the apposition refers to an
entity uniquely identifiable by the hearer (cf. 9.2.1 on the distinction between ko-
marked and he-marked noun phraes).
(169) He tuꞌu mai te ꞌavione raꞌe ko te ꞌavione ena e kī ena he DC 10.
NTRarrive hither ART airplane first PROM ART airplane MED IPFV say MED PRED DC 10
“The first airplane, the airplane called DC 10, arrived.” (R203.062)
(170) te mahiŋo i haka maraŋa ena ꞌi ruŋa i te henua nei ko te kāiŋa
ART people PFV CAUS scattered MED at above at ART land homeland
PROX PROM ART
“the people who spread over the land, over the homeland” (R350.016)
5.13.2. Proper nouns in apposition

If the apposition is a proper noun, it is introduced by ko. This is to be expected, as
proper nouns are inherently uniquely identifiable in a given context (→ 9.2.1).
274
Andrews (2007b:207) does not consider nonrestrictive clauses as relative clauses, as relative
clauses (in his definition) delimit the reference of the noun phrase.
275
ko in appositions is common in Polynesian languages, see Clark (1976:45).
(171) He oho mai era te ꞌariki ko Hotu Matuꞌa, he rarama era.

NTR gohither DIS ART king PROM Hotu Matu’a NTR inspect DIS
“King Hotu Matu’a came and examined it.” (Mtx-2-02.043)
(172) te kona ko Papeꞌete, kona rarahi- o Tahiti
ART place PROM Papeete place important of Tahiti
“the city of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti” (R231.045)
The examples above illustrate the most common way to express a combination of a
common noun and a name: the common noun is the head noun; the name follows as
apposition, introduced by ko. There are exceptions though: sometimes ko is not used as
in (173); sometimes the name precedes the common noun as in (174):
(173) Te kona noho o te ꞌariki Hotu Matuꞌa ꞌi Hiva Maraꞌe Reŋa.
ART place stay of ART king Hotu Matu’a at Hiva Mara’e Renga
“The place where king Hotu Matu’a lived in Hiva was Mara’e Renga.” (Ley-2-
01.002)
(174) He turu a Rovi, he taŋata hāpaꞌo i te poki ꞌa Hotu ꞌariki.

NTR go_down PROP Rovi PRED man care_for ACC ART child of.A Hotu king
“Rovi came down, the man who took care of the child of king Hotu.”
(R422.002)
5.14. The proper noun phrase
Proper noun phrases are those headed by proper nouns. As discussed in section 3.3.2,
the class of proper nouns in Rapa Nui not only includes names of persons, but a
number of kinship terms and other nouns as well, as well as pronouns. These items are
grouped together on syntactic grounds: they do not take the determiner te, but the
proper article a.
What proper nouns have in common semantically, is that they refer to a unique entity.
Unlike common nouns, which denote a property or class, they do not need a
determiner to be referential. Anderson (2004:456) argues that proper names and
pronouns belong to the same category as determiners and deictics like this: while
determiners turn a common noun into a referential expression, proper nouns are
inherently referential. While common nouns can function as predicates, proper nouns
cannot. In Rapa Nui this means that they cannot take the predicate marker he. And as
they do not need a determiner to acquire referentiality, they do not take the common
noun article te.
In section 5.14.1, the structure of the proper noun phrase is discussed. Section 5.14.2
examines the distribution and structural position of the proper article a.
5.14.1. Structure of the proper noun phrase

As Dixon (2010a:108) points out, proper nouns usually have fewer syntactic
possibilities than common nouns. In Rapa Nui, most proper noun phrases consist only
of a proper noun preceded – if syntactically appropriate – by the proper article a. Even

so, the proper noun phrase may contain a range of other elements as well. The full
structure of the proper noun phrase, including the preceding preposition, is shown in
the following tables.
Table 39: The proper noun phrase – prenominal elements

0 1 2 3 4
preposition proper collective (determiner) nucleus
article marker
ꞌi, ki, mai etc. a kuā t-possessive proper
noun
§: 5.14.2 5.2 6.2.1 3.3.2
Table 40: The proper noun phrase – postnominal elements

5 6 7 8 9 10
adverb emphatic limitative postnominal identity possessor
marker marker demonstrative marker
takoꞌa mau nō nei; ꞌā; possessive
ena; ꞌana phrase
era
§: 5.9 5.9 5.9 4.6.3 5.10 6.2.1
The head is obligatory, and so are the preposition and the proper article, if required by
the syntactic context. All other elements are optional.
With the exception of the proper article, all items occur in the common noun phrase as
well. They have been discussed in the preceding sections (see the paragraph references
in the table above).
The following examples illustrate different possibilities; each word or phrase is
numbered according to the numbering in the tables above.
(175) ki0 a1 tōꞌoku3 [matuꞌa vahine]4
to PROP POSS.2SG.O parent female
“(I said) to my mother” (R334.287)
(176) a1 kuā2 koro4
PROP COLL father
“Father and the others” (R184.032)
(177) ki0 a1 Rātaro4 takoꞌa5
to PROP Lazarus also
“(they wanted to see) Lazarus as well” (John 12:9)
(178) ko0 ꞌAnakena4 mau6 nō7
PROM Anakena really just
“only Anakena (was the place where the people were not ill)” (R231.098)
(179) i0 a1 Ietū4 era8 [o Nātāreta]10

ACC PROP Jesus DIS of Nazareth
“(You are looking for) Jesus from Nazareth” (Mrk. 16:6)
(180) Pē0 [Māria Gonzales]4 mau6 ꞌā9
like Maria Gonzales really IDENT
“(That woman looks) like Maria Gonzales herself” (R416.360)
Most of these elements (except for the kuā, determiners, and genitive phrases), may
occur with pronouns as well. A few examples:
(181) ko ia takoꞌa
PROM 3SG also
“he (knew it) as well” (R620.037)
(182) ko au mau nō
PROM 1SG really just
“really just I” (R404.048)
(183) ko au nei
PROM 1SG PROX
“I here (am Huri a Vai)” (R304.086)
The determiner position plays a marginal role in personal noun phrases. It can only be
filled by possessive pronouns, and only when the head noun is a kinship term; see
(196) on p. 266. The post-nominal elements are uncommon as well.
5.14.2. The proper article a

This section discusses the proper article a.276 In section 5.14.2.1 the contexts are listed
in which this article occurs. In section 5.14.2.2 the question is raised whether a is a
determiner.
According to Clark (1976:58), a occurs in almost all Polynesian languages preceding a
personal noun or pronoun after certain prepositions; in a number of Nuclear
Polynesian languages it is also used in the nominative case. Both are true for Rapa Nui
as well, see below.277 The nominative case marker ꞌa in Tongan reflects the same PPN
particle.278
276
In Polynesian linguistics, a is more commonly called “personal article”; I use “proper article”,
a term suggested by Dixon (2010a:108), as a is exclusively used with the class of proper nouns.
The term “proper” seems more appropriate than “personal”: this class is not defined by
“personal” (i.e. human) reference, but by its “proper”, name-like character.
277
In languages where a is only used after prepositions, it tends to be considered (and written) as
one word together with the preceding i or ki: ia, kia. See e.g. Elbert & Pukui (1979:107) for
Hawaiian, Lazard & Peltzer (2000:186) for Tahitian).
278
Fischer (1994:429) presumes that the Old Rapa Nui form was ꞌa, which was replaced by
Tahitian a in Modern RN. This is based on the fact that the form reconstructed for PPN is *ꞌa; the
5.14.2.1. Contexts in which a is used

The proper article a is not the proper noun equivalent of the common noun article te: it
is not used in the same contexts where a common noun would have the article te. The
use of the proper article is limited to the following contexts:
1. When the noun phrase or pronoun is subject of a verbal or nonverbal clause.

(184) He tutu a nua i te ahi.
NTRset_fire PROP Mum ACC ART fire
“Mum lighted the fire.” (R232.047)
(185) ꞌI te ahiahi
- he oho a au he tatau i te ū.
at ART afternoon NTR go 1SG NTR squeeze ACC ART milk
PROP
“In the late afternoon I go and milk the cows.” (R334.277)
With personal pronouns used as subject, the proper article is sometimes left out. This
happens especially with the plural pronouns and koe, less commonly with au, never
with ia.
(186) Ka eꞌa mai rāua mai te hāpī...
CNTG go_out hither 3PL
from ART learn
“When they came from school...” (R381.012)
(187) ¿He aha koe e taŋi ena?
what 2SG IPFV cry MED
NTR
“Why are you crying?” (R229.185)
Usually, the proper article is omitted before the subject pronoun of an imperative
clause, as in (188).
(188) Ka oho koe.
IMP go 2SG
“Go.” (Notes)
2. When the noun phrase or pronoun is used in isolation, a is used if a context is

implied where it would normally be used. In the following example, the reply a au
implies the clause “I climbed the crater”, in which the pronoun is subject of a verbal
clause, a context in which a would be used.
latter is based on the Tongan nominative marker ꞌa. Notice, however, that the form does not
have a glottal in other languages which normally preserve the PPN glottal (Rennell, East Uvean
and East Futunan). It is thus well possible that a had lost the glottal by PNP. In any case, the
glottal is unstable in particles in Polynesian languages, especially in initial particles, and may
disappear and (re)appear unpredictably (→ 2.2.5; Clark 1976:20). Notice also that in Tahitian a
has a more limited distribution than in Rapa Nui: it is only used after prepositions.
(189) —¿Pē hē koe i iri ai ki te rano? —¿A au? A raro ꞌā, a pie.
like CQ 2SG PFV ascend PVP to ART crater_lake
1SG by below IDENT by foot
PROP
“—How did you climb the crater? —Me? On foot.” (R623.015ff)
In other contexts, isolated proper nouns are marked by the prominence marker ko (→
4.7.11.1).
3. After a number of prepositions ending in i:279 the accusative marker i and the
prepositions ꞌi/i “in, at”, mai “from” and ki “to”. When the preposition is mai, the
preposition i is added between mai and the proper article (→ (277) on p. 205).
(190) I eꞌa era au e kimi ꞌā i a kōrua.
PFV go_out DIS 1SG IPFV search CONT ACC PROP 2PL
“I went out and looked for you all.” (R182.012)
(191) He kī a Kaiŋa ki a Makita ki a Rokeꞌaua...
NTR say PROP Kainga to PROP Makita to PROP Roke’aua
“Kainga said to Makita and Roke’aua...” (R243.063)
The proper article is not used after any other preposition: agentive e, vocative e,
genitive o, the prominence marker ko, and the prepositions mo/mā “for”, a “by”, ꞌo
“because of”, pe “toward”, pē “like”, hai “with”. The proper noun or pronoun follows
immediately after these markers:
(192) Ka oho mai, e (*a) Tiare ē.
IMP go
hither VOC PROP Tiare VOC
“Come, Tiare.” (R152.035)
(193) ko (*a) koe, ko (*a) Alberto, ko (*a) Carlo
PROM PROP 2SG PROM PROP Alberto PROM PROP Carlo
“you, Alberto, and Carlo” (R103.026)
5.14.2.2. Is a a determiner?
In a number of respects, the proper article shows complementary distribution with the
common noun article te:
• It never co-occurs with the article te.
• It occurs mostly with those elements that do not take te: names and personal
pronouns. (Only a few nouns may function both like proper nouns and
common nouns, → 3.3.2.)
279
In almost all Polynesian languages a occurs after i, ki and mai, but not after other prepositions.
Clark (1976:58) suggests this can be explained by a morphophonemic rule which deleted a after
prepositions ending in a non-high vowel. This rule must have been operative at a stage prior to
Proto-Polynesian, as it affected all Polynesian languages. The fact that a in Rapa Nui does not
occur after hai “with” shows that the rule is no longer productive.
• In contexts where the proper article is used, it is obligatory, just like te is

obligatory.
It seems a logical step to analyse a as an article – and indeed, in Polynesian linguistics
a is often labelled as “personal article” (see e.g. Clark 1976:58, Bauer 1993:109,
Cablitz 2006:62). There are, however, important differences in distribution between te
and a in Rapa Nui. For one thing, after the prepositions e, o, ko, a, o and pe, the article
te is obligatory (→ 5.3.3.3), but a is not used.
It is even questionable whether a is a determiner at all. For one thing, the collective
marker kuā precedes the determiner te, but occurs after the proper article:
(194) a kuā Tiare
PROP COLL Tiare
“Tiare and the others” (R315.227)
(195) kuā te kape
COLL ART captain
“the captain and company” (R416.864)
Secondly, while a does not co-occur with the article te, it does co-occur occasionally
with possessive pronouns which are in the determiner position:
(196) He ꞌui iho ia ōꞌoku ki a tōꞌoku koro era...
NTR ask just_then then POSS.1SG.O to PROP POSS.1SG.O Dad DIS
“Then I asked my uncle (lit. father) again...” (R230.121)
These data show that a is not in the determiner position, but in an earlier position in
the noun phrase. It can thus only be called “proper article” in a loose way, without
implying that it occupies the same position as other articles.
a is not a preposition or case marker, either, as it occurs both with subject
nouns/pronouns and after several prepositions, such as the accusative marker i.
5.15. Conclusions
The preceding sections have shown that the structure of the noun phrase in Rapa Nui
is complex, with no less than seventeen different slots. Apart from the head, the only
element which is obligatory in most contexts is the determiner. In the determiner
position, two fundamentally different elements occur: t-demonstratives and the
predicate marker he. The former mark referentiality (not specificity or definiteness; the
latter is indicated by demonstratives), while he marks a noun phrase as nonreferential.
Indefiniteness is sometimes indicated by the numeral e tahi “one”.
In subject position and after most prepositions, the determiner is obligatory. On the
other hand, the determiner cannot co-occur with prenominal numerals and certain
quantifiers; this means that the latter are excluded when a determiner is needed.
Two elements which do not occur in the determiner position are the collective marker
kuā/koā and plural markers. The proper article a, which precedes proper nouns and
pronouns, is not a determiner either: it occurs in a different position in the noun
phrase. Also, it occurs in less contexts than determiners; in many contexts, proper
nouns are not marked with a. This means that a is not the proper noun counterpart of
the article te.
The head noun is usually obligatory. There are a few constructions in which a noun
phrase is headless, but all of these are relatively rare.
The noun may be modified by either a noun, verb or adjective, but these do not have
the same status. Modifying nouns and verbs are incorporated into the head noun,
forming a compound: they are bare words and express a single concept together with
the head noun. Modifying adjectives, on the other hand, express an additional concept
and may form an adjective phrase.
Modifying verbs are superficially similar to bare relative clauses; in both of these, the
verb is not preceded by any aspect or mood marker. However, unlike modifying verbs,
bare relative clauses are full clauses which may contain arguments and modifiers; also,
they do not express a single concept together with the head noun, but express a
specific event.
Finally, the noun may be modified by certain adverbs, the limitative marker nō, the
identity marker ꞌā/ꞌana and the deictic particle ai.
6. Possession
6.1. Introduction
This chapter describes the syntax and semantics of possessive constructions.280

Possessive constructions in Rapa Nui are defined by the use of the possessive
prepositions o and ꞌa. They occur in a wide variety of syntactic environments: as
modifiers in the noun phrase, as predicates of nominal clauses, and in several other
constructions. This range of possessive constructions is discussed in section 6.2.
Section 6.3 deals with the semantics of possessives. Possessives express a wide range of
relationships besides the idea of possession as such; these are described in 6.3.1.
Whether a possessive construction is marked with o or a, depends on the semantic
relationship between possessor and possessee. The distinction between both classes of
possession is discussed in 6.3.2–6.3.4.
The o/a distinction also applies to the benefactive prepositions mo/ma (→ 4.7.7),281
which in turn form the basis for benefactive pronouns (→ 4.2.3). The semantic
relationships discussed in the sections below are also valid for benefactives.
6.2. Possessive constructions
As mentioned above, all possessive constructions contain one of the possessive

prepositions o and ꞌa. In certain constructions, o and ꞌa coalesce with the determiner te
into a marker to or ta. These four forms (o and ꞌa, to and ta) in turn form the basis for
possessive pronouns (→ 4.2.2). The o/a forms are labelled Ø-possessives, the to/ta
forms t-possessives.
In this section, the range of possessive constructions is discussed. Section 6.2.1 deals
with the use of possessives in the noun phrase. A peculiar noun phrase construction is
the partitive; this is discussed in 6.2.2. Other possessive constructions (such as
280
The term “possessive” is used as a technical term here, including not only relationships of
possession, but any relationship expressed by possessive pronouns, possessive prepositions, or
benefactive pronouns or noun phrases (cf. Lichtenberk 1985:94). For relationships within noun
phrases, the term “possessee” is used for the head, “possessor” for the possessive modifier.
281
Possessive constructions marked with prepositions or possessive pronouns are the common
pattern in Polynesian. In this respect, Polynesian is unusual within the wider family of Oceanic
languages: the latter are generally characterised by a distinction between direct and indirect
possession (Lynch 1997; Lichtenberk 1985). Direct possession is marked by suffixes on the noun;
in Polynesian, traces of this system survive in a number of kinship terms ending in –na (Lynch
1997; Marck 1996a); in Rapa Nui: tuakana “older sibling”; taina “sibling”, makupuna
“grandchild”, tupuna “ancestor”; possibly also haꞌana “woman’s sister’s husband (obs.)” (Métraux
1971:99), cf. PPN *saꞌa “family, clan”.
possessive clauses) are listed in 6.2.3; they are discussed in more detail elsewhere in
this grammar. Section 6.2.4 summarises the use of the different possessive forms.
6.2.1. Possessives in the noun phrase

1. Possessive noun phrases (i.e. those involving a common or proper noun) occur at
the end of the noun phrase, after other particles. They are introduced by o or ꞌa: 282
(1) ko te vaka tamaꞌi era o te ꞌariki
PROM ART canoe fight of ART king
DIS
“the battle canoe of the king” (R345.013)
(2) te poki ꞌa Taka
ART child of.A Taka
“Taka’s child” (Mtx-3-03.024)
(3) mai tū ꞌōpata nei ꞌā o te karikari
-
from DEM cliff of ART narrow_part

PROX IDENT
“from this same cliff of the narrow rock” (R112.011)
Possessive noun phrases also appear in headless noun phrases, in which case o/ꞌa
coalesces with the determiner to to/ta (→ 5.7 sub 3).
2. When the possessor is pronominal, i.e. a possessive pronoun, it may occur in three
different positions, as the table in sec. 5.1 shows: in determiner position; before the
noun but not in determiner position; after the noun.
As explained in sec. 4.2.2, Rapa Nui has two sets of possessive pronouns: t-possessives
(tāꞌana, te mātou) and Ø-possessives (ꞌāꞌana, o mātou). Which form is used, depends on
the position of the pronoun in the noun phrase.
2a. When the noun phrase needs a determiner (→ 5.3.3.3), possessive pronouns
usually occur in the determiner position. In this position, t-possessives are used. This
happens for example when the noun phrase is subject, or occurs after a preposition:
(4) ¿He aha tōꞌona rua ꞌīŋoa?
what POSS.3SG.O two name
PRED
“What is his second name?” (R412.079)
282
In other Eastern Polynesian languages, possessive noun phrases may also occur in the
determiner position, introduced by a t-form to or ta. See for example the following example from
Tahitian (pers.obs.):
(i) E mea maitaꞌi [tā terā taꞌata] tipi. (Tahitian)
PRED thing good the-of.A DIS man knife
“That man’s knife is good.”
The head noun tipi is preceded by a genitive noun phrase tā terā taꞌata; the possessive preposition
ta is based on the article te + possessive a. In Rapa Nui this construction occurs only in headless
noun phrases (→ 5.7). Fischer (2000b:336) gives an example of a prenominal noun phrase
possessor (tā te taŋata poki “the man’s children”), but such a construction does not occur
anywhere in my corpus.
Chapter 6: Possession 271
(5) Ko haŋa ꞌana a au mo uꞌi i tāꞌaku viꞌe mo hāipoipo.

-
PRF want CONT PROP 1SG for look ACC POSS.1SG.A woman for marry
“I want to find a wife to marry” (R491.005)
(6) hai matavai ꞌi tōꞌoku mata
INST tear at POSS.1SG.O eye
“with tears in my eyes” (R221.009)
That the possessive pronoun is in determiner position, is also confirmed by the fact
that prenominal quantifiers occur after the possessor, as in (4).
2b. Possessive pronouns may also occur before the noun in noun phrases not
containing a determiner. In that case, Ø-possessives are used.283 This happens
especially when the noun phrase contains a prenominal numeral, but also after the
negator ꞌina. Prenominal numerals preclude the use of all determiners (→ 5.3.3.1),
while ꞌina precludes the use of t-determiners (→ 10.5.1):
(7) He ai e tahi ꞌāꞌana poki ꞌi roto o te viꞌe ko Rurita.
NTR exist NUM one POSS.3SG.A child at inside of ART woman PROM Rurita
“He had one (lit. there was one his) child by the woman Rurita.” (R309.027)
(8) Te nuꞌu nei e ai rō ꞌā e rua rāua ŋā poki
ART people PROX IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM two 3PL PL child
“These people had two children (lit. there were two their children).”
(R481.005)
(9) ꞌIna ꞌāꞌaku nanue para era o nei.

NEG POSS.1SG.A
kind_of_fish DIS of PROX
“My nanue para fish is not here.” (R301.272)
When plural Ø-pronouns occur before the noun, the o is omitted.284 This means that
they have the same form as the corresponding personal pronouns; only their position
identifies them as possessive pronouns.
(10) E ai rō ꞌā e tahi rāua poki tane te ꞌīŋoa ko Iovani.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM one 3PL child male ART name PROM Iovani
“They had one son (lit. there was one their son) named Iovani.” (R238.002)
283
When a t-possessive occurs in this position, the numeral is not part of the noun phrase, but
predicate of a numerical clause (→ 9.5).
284
Wilson (1985:106) gives an example from Rapa Nui in which the genitive preposition is not
omitted (modified spelling & gloss):
(i) E rua o mātou hare.
NUM two of 1PL.EXC house
“We have two houses.”
Unfortunately, no source is given for this example; it may well be erroneous, as no such examples
occur in my corpus.
(11) ꞌIna tātou haŋu mo kai ko kuā nua.

NEG 1PL.INC sustenance for eat PROM COLL Mum
“We don’t have any food left to eat, me and Mum.” (R372.047)
After the noun, these pronouns do have the o, as illustrated in (12) below.
2c. Finally, possessive pronouns may occur at the end of the noun phrase, in the same
position as possessive noun phrases (→ (1)–(3) above). In this position, Ø-possessives
are used:
(12) He hiŋa ꞌi tū kori haŋa rahi era o rāua he haka nininini ꞌi ruŋa
-
NTR fall at DEM play love much DIS of 3PL PRED CAUS spin:RED at above
o te maꞌuŋa.
of ART mountain
“He fell during that much-loved game of theirs, (which was) sliding down the
hill.” (R313.103)
(13) pē tū vārua moe era ꞌā e tū poki taina era ōꞌona
like DEM spirit lie_down DIS CONT AG DEM child sibling DIS POSS.3SG.O
“like that dream dreamt by her sister (lit. that sister of hers)” (R347.131)
These postnominal possessives occur when the determiner slot is occupied by another
element. As these examples show, this especially happens when the noun phrase
contains a demonstrative determiner such as tū. tū fulfills the requirement for the noun
phrase to have a determiner, but it precludes the use of a prenominal possessive, hence
the possessive is placed after the noun.
Sometimes a t-possessive pronoun before the noun occurs together with a Ø-possessive
after the noun. In this double possessive construction, the two pronouns reinforce each
other:
(14) Ka turu era tuꞌu rima ōꞌou ki te kai era mo toꞌo mai.
CNTGgo_down DIS POSS.2SG.O hand POSS.2SG.O to ART food DIS for take hither
“When your hand goes down to take the food...” (R310.088)
(15) Ki taꞌa uꞌi ꞌāꞌau, ¿e hau rā hora ꞌi te rivariva ki te hora nei?
-
to POSS.2SG.A look POSS.2SG.A IPFV exceed DIS time at ART good:RED to ART time PROX
“In your view, was that time better than the present time?” (R380.106)
Possessive doubling only happens in the second person. The t-possessive before the
noun is always one of the shortened forms tuꞌu or taꞌa (→ 4.2.2.1.1).
6.2.2. The partitive construction

Besides the common construction “t-possessive N” discussed above, Rapa Nui has a
construction “t-possessive o te N”. In this construction the possessee has been demoted
from the head noun position to a possessive phrase o te N. The construction has a
partitive sense, indicating someone’s share, portion: tāꞌaku o te vai = “my portion of
the water, the part of the water that is mine”. Some examples:
(16) Mai tāꞌaku o te vai.
hither POSS.1SG.A of ART water
“Give me some water.” (Notes)
(17) Mo ꞌavai atu i tōꞌou o te parehe...
for give away ACC POSS.2SG.O of ART piece
“(I want) to give a piece to you...” (R219.021)
(18) He taꞌo takoꞌa to rāua o te taŋata mo kai.
NTR cook_in_earth_oven also ART:of 3PL
of ART man for eat
“They also cooked people for them(selves) to eat.” (Mtx-3-01.282)
As the examples above show, the sense of “share, portion” often implies that the item
is not yet in the hands of the possessor, but destined for him or her.
This construction may be emphatic: “yours, nobody else’s”:

(19) ...ꞌe a koe ka haꞌamata ka kimi tāꞌau o te repa.
and PROP 2SG CNTG begin search POSS.2SG.A of ART young_man
CNTG
“...and you should start looking for your own boyfriend.” (R315.258)
(20) He haka eke i te poki nei, he eke ko ia i tōꞌona o te hoi.
NTR CAUS go_up ACC ART child PROX NTR go_up PROM 3SG ACC POSS.3SG.O of ART horse
“He lifted the boy on the horse, and he mounted on his own horse.” (R105.028)
As these examples show, in this construction the long second-person pronouns tōꞌou
and tāꞌau are used, even though prenominal possessive pronouns usually have one of
the short forms taꞌa, tuꞌu etc (→ 4.2.2.1.1). There is another difference between
prenominal possessives and partitives. While prenominal possessives can only be
pronouns (→ 6.2.1 above), the possessive in a partitive construction may also be a full
noun phrase. This noun phrase is constructed with a possessive preposition to or ta,
following the o/a distinction (→ 6.3.2). In the following examples, just as in some of
the examples above, the construction expresses something destined for the possessor.
(21) ꞌĪ au he haꞌataꞌa i to Vaha o te kahu.
IMM 1SG NTR separate ACC ART:of Vaha of ART cloth(es)
“I will put apart some clothes for Vaha.” (R229.194)
(22) ꞌĪ au he haꞌataꞌa i ta Māria o te kai.
IMM 1SG NTR separate ACC ART:of.A Maria of ART food
“I will put apart some food for Maria.” (Notes)
A similar but simpler construction – which can be labelled “pseudo-partitive” – is to te

N. In this construction, the noun phrase te N is introduced by to in a
possessive/partitive sense:
(23) Te taŋata e ai rō ꞌā tāꞌana kai, ka vaꞌai to te taŋata

ART man IPFV exist EMPH CONT POSS.3SG.A food IMP give ART:of ART man
ꞌina ꞌāꞌana kai.
NEG POSS.3SG.A food
“The man who has food, should give some to the man who does not have
food.” (Luke 3:11)
(24) Te ŋā kai ꞌāpī raꞌe era... e maꞌu to te hare pure ꞌi raꞌe.
ART PL food new first DIS IPFV carry ART:of ART house prayer at first
“The first food... they first had to take some to the church (lit. carry those of
the church)” (R539-3.150)
This construction reminds syntactically of the headless possessive construction (→

5.7), of which an example is given here:
(25) Ko Koka te ꞌīŋoa o tōꞌona hoi... ko Parasa
PROM Koka ART name of POSS.3SG.O horse PROM Parasa
to te rūꞌau era ꞌāꞌana.
ART:of ART old_woman DIS POSS.3SG.A
“Koka was the name of the horse he went on, Parasa the (name) of his old
wife.” (R539-1.420)
There is an important difference though: while in (25) to te rūꞌau has a straightforward
possessive sense (parallel to the possessive phrase o tōꞌona hoi), in (23)–(24) the
possessive phrase occurs in a context where normally the dative preposition ki would
be used.
Semantically, (23)–(24) are similar the partitive construction discussed above. In both
cases, the noun phrase refers to something which is destined for the person referred to;
moreover, the sense is partitive: “some of the food, some of the clothes”. Also, in both
cases the to-phrase is independent: there is no head noun to which it is attached. The
difference is that in the partitive construction in (16)–(18) above the possessee is
expressed by a genitive phrase o te kahu which is semantically the head of the phrase
(the noun phrase as a whole refers to “clothes”, not to “Vaha”), while in (23)–(24) it is
not expressed at all.
6.2.3. Other possessive constructions

Possessive constructions occur not only as modifiers in the noun phrase, but in a range
of other constructions as well. This section gives a concise listing; all of these
constructions (with the exception of no. 6) are discussed in more detail elsewhere in
this grammar.285
285
Not included here are possessives expressing the subject of a relative clause in the “possessive-
relative construction”; as argued in 11.4.4, these should be considered as normal noun-phrase
possessors which are syntactically separate from the relative clause.
1. o-class Ø-possessives are used:

a. to mark the S/A argument of a clause introduced by preverbal mo “if; in order to”
(→ 11.5.1.2):
(26) Mo kī ōꞌoku he teatea,
- he rere a ruŋa he kī atu he ꞌuriꞌuri.
-
if say POSS.1SG.O PRED white:RED NTR jump by above NTR say away PRED black:RED
“If I say it’s white, he jumps up and says it’s black.” (R480.003)
b. occasionally to mark the S/A argument of a main clause (→ 8.6.4.1):

(27) He uꞌi atu ōꞌoku i tōꞌoku pāpā era...
NTR look away POSS.1SG.O ACC POSS.1SG.O father DIS
“Then I saw my father...” (R101.012)
2. a-class Ø-possessives286 serve to express the Agent in the actor-emphatic

construction (→ 8.6.3):
(28) ¡ꞌĀꞌau rō taꞌa moeŋa nei o māua i toke!
POSS.2SG.A EMPH POSS.2SG.A mat
of 1DU.EXC PFV steal
PROX
“It was you who stole that mat of ours!” (R310.428)
3. Ø-possessives (both a- and o-class) serve as the predicate of proprietary clauses (→

9.4.2).
(29) Ōꞌona hoꞌi te ꞌāua era.
POSS.3SG.O indeed ART field DIS
“That field is his.” (R413.228)
4. In older Rapa Nui, the t-possessives serve as the predicate of possessive clauses (→
9.3.3). In modern Rapa Nui, this construction is no longer in use.287
(30) He poki tāꞌana e tahi, poki tamāroa.
NTR child POSS.3SG.A NUM one child male
“He had a child, a boy.” (Ley-9-57.002)
5. Possessives of the o-class may serve as the predicate of existential-locative clauses

(→ 9.3.2); see 6.3.1 sub 8 below on the locative use of possessives. In modern Rapa
Nui, Ø-possessives are used as in (31); in older Rapa Nui, t-possessives are used as in
(32)–(33).
(31) ¿E ai rō ꞌā te ika o roto?
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART fish of inside
“Are there fish inside (the net)?” (R241.058)
286
a-forms only occur with singular pronouns and with proper nouns (→ 6.3.2); with plural
pronouns and with common nouns, only the default o-forms are available.
287
In modern Rapa Nui, possessive clauses are constructed as verbal or verbless existential clauss;
the possessor is expressed not as predicate, but as a noun phrase modifier (→ 9.3.3):
(32) He taŋata to nei... Ŋata Vake te ꞌīŋoa.

PREDperson ART:of PROX Ngata Vake ART name
“There was a man here, called Ngata Vake.” (Ley-3-02.002)
(33) He taŋata to ruŋa to te motu, ko Motu Tapu te ꞌīŋoa.
PRED man ART:of above ART:of ART islet
Motu Tapu ART name
PROM
“There was a man on the islet which was called Motu Tapu” (Ley-8-52.024)
6. Finally, to (i.e. the t-possessive o-form) + locational is sometimes used as an elliptic

noun phrase. This use is especially found in older Rapa Nui. to + noun refers to a
group of people situated in the location indicated by the locational: “those ones
inside/outside/over there...” (cf. the headless construction 2 above). In the following
example, to haho is a short way to refer to “the people outside”.
(34) He toe e toru te ꞌaŋahuru nō toe, ku oti ꞌā to haho.
NTR remain NUM three ART ten just remain PRF finish CONT ART:of outside
“Only thirty (men) were left, those outside were finished.” (Mtx-3-01.092)
6.2.4. Summary: use of possessive forms

The occurrence of the different possessive forms is summarised in the following table.
Table 41: Possessive constructions

t-possessive Ø-possessive
pronoun noun pronoun noun
o a o a o a o a
tōꞌoku tāꞌaku to NP ta NP ōꞌoku ꞌāꞌaku o NP ꞌa NP
prenominal, determiner 6.2.1 sub 2a x x
position
prenominal, otherwise 6.2.1 sub 2b x x
postnominal 6.2.1 sub 1, x x x x
3
partitive 6.2.2 x x x x
headless noun phrase 5.7 sub 3 x x
S/A of mo-clause 11.5.1.2 x x
S/A of main clause 8.6.4.1 x x
actor-emphatic Agent 8.6.3 x x
proprietary predicate 9.4.2 x x x x
possessive clause 9.3.3 x x x x
predicate (older RN)
negative/numeral 9.3.3 x x x x
possessive clause
existential-locative 9.3.2 x
predicate (old RN)
existential-locative 9.3.2 x
predicate (modern RN)
elliptic noun phrase 6.2.3 sub 6 x
The discussion in the previous sections has shown that various possessive forms are
used, depending on the construction. Three parameters play a role, which are reflected
in the table:
• the choice between t- and Ø-possessives;
• pronominal versus noun phrases possessors. In most constructions both are
possible, but in prenominal positions only pronominal possessors occur;
• o- and a-class. In most constructions both occur, depending on the semantic
relationship between possessor and possessee; in some constructions, only one
class is used. Regardless the construction, a-class forms are only used with
singular pronouns and proper nouns (→ 6.3.2).
Summarizing these data: t-possessives are used in the following environments:

• in the noun phrase, in determiner position (this includes partitive
constructions, headless and elliptic noun phrases);
• in old Rapa Nui as the predicate of possessive clauses and existential-locative
clauses.
Ø-possessives are used:288
• in the noun phrase, in non-determiner positions;
• in actor-emphatic constructions;
• as S/A arguments of mo-clauses and – occasionally – main clauses;
• as the predicate in proprietary and existential-locative clauses;
• in possessive clauses containing a numeral, and negative possessive clauses.
288
The range of use of the Ø-possessives is remarkably similar to the use of n-possessives which
occur in most other EP languages, e.g. Māori nāku “mine”, nōna “his” (cf. Wilson 2012:316). For
example, in Maori and Tahitian n-possessors are used in the actor-emphatic construction and in
proprietary clauses; in Tahitian and Hawaiian, they also occur in the noun phrase (Bauer
1993:208f; Harlow 2000; Lazard & Peltzer 2000:175–176, 189; Cook 2000:349). Maori also has
Ø-possessive pronouns, which occur in the noun phrase and in negated possessive clauses (Bauer
1993:202, 381; Harlow 2000:359). This suggests that the Rapa Nui Ø-possessive pronouns are
cognates of both the n-possessives and Ø-possessives in other EP languages: PEP had a set of Ø-
possessives and a set of n-possessives; in Rapa Nui, the initial n- was lost, so that both sets
coincided; in CE languages, n- was retained.
The reverse scenario, in which PEP only had the Ø forms and n- was added in PCE, is unlikely.
First, it would leave the co-existence of Ø- and n-possessives in Maori unexplained: if PEP only
had Ø-possessives, it would be hard to explain why n- was added in some contexts, while in other
contexts the Ø-forms were retained. Second, there is no ready explanation for the addition of n-
within Central-Eastern Polynesian, while on the other hand the existence of n- in PEP can be
explained either from the past tense marker ne, or – more likely – from the possessive ni which
occurs in various Outliers (see Wilson 1982:50, 1985:101; Clark 2000b:263).
We may conclude that the n-possessives are not a PCE innovation as suggested by Green
(1985:12), but already present in PEP (→ 1.2.2).
6.3. The semantics of possessives
As in many languages, possessive constructions express a wide range of relationships

between two entities. These are listed in 6.3.1.
When the possessor is a singular pronoun or a proper noun, it can be expressed in two
ways, using either o or a. The distinction between o and a is the topic of sections
6.3.2–6.3.4; within that framework, the range of relationships expressed by the
possessive will be discussed and illustrated in more detail.
6.3.1. Relationships expressed by possessives

Possessive constructions serve to express the following relationships between two
entities.
1. ownership:
(35) He haka hopu i tāꞌana paiheŋa.
NTR CAUS bathe ACC POSS.3SG.A dog
“She washed her dog.” (R168.012)
2. whole/part relations:
(36) He puru i te papae o te hare.
NTR close ACC ART doorof ART house
“He closed the door of the house.” (R310.144)
3. interhuman relationships, such as kinship and friendship:

(37) He hokorua a au i tōꞌoku repahoa.
NTR accompany PROP 1SG ACC POSS.1SG.O friend
“I accompany my friend.” (R208.138)
4. attributes:
(38) ¿He aha toꞌu tau tuꞌu rivariva?
-
NTRwhat POSS.2SG.O pretty POSS.2SG.O good:RED

“What (use) is your beauty, your goodness?” (R372.045)
5. specification (epexegetical use), where the possessive has the same referent as the
head noun:
(39) He eke ki ruŋa ki te ꞌana o ꞌAna Havea.
NTR go_up to above to ART cave of Ana Havea
“He climbed above the cave (of) Ana Havea.” (Mtx-7-18.010)
6. actions, feelings and emotions, when these are expressed as nouns or nominalised
verbs:
(40) Meꞌe rahi tōꞌoku māuruuru ki a

- koe, e koro ē.
thing much POSS.1SG.O thank to PROP 2SG VOC Dad VOC
“I am very grateful (lit. much is my gratitude) to you, Dad.” (R363.112)
(41) ...ꞌo tōꞌoku kī nō mo toꞌo mai i a Puakiva mai i a ia.
because_of POSS.1SG.O say just for take hither ACC ART Puakiva from at PROP 3SG
“(Kava is crying) because I said (lit. because of my saying) to take Puakiva
away from her.” (R229.017)
7. any kind of association, for example between a person and a group, or a person and
a location:
(42) He raŋi te ꞌariki ki tōꞌona taŋata...
NTR call ART king to POSS.3SG.O man
“The king called out to his people...” (MsE-055.005)
(43) Ka haka hoki ki tōꞌona henua.
CNTG CAUS return to POSS.3SG.O land
“Let (him) return to his country.” (Ley-9-63.065)
8. The possessor may be a location to which the possessee belongs as in (44), or a

place where the possessee is located at a given time, as in (45)–(46).
(44) Te meꞌe nei he heke, he ꞌanimare e tahi o rote vaikava.
ART thing PROX PRED octopus PRED animal one of inside_the ocean
NUM
“The octopus is an animal of (lit. of inside) the ocean.” (R356.029)
(45) ꞌIna he ika o ꞌApina.
NEG PROM fish of Apina
“There are no fish at Apina.” (R301.292)
(46) Ko Alfredo te meꞌe era o muꞌa i te microfono.
PROM Alfredo ART thing DIS of front at ART microphone
“Alfredo is the one in front of the microphone.” (R415.600)
In (45)–(46), o is close in meaning to the locative ꞌi “in, at”. As these examples show,
the possessive is used especially in negative or interrogative clauses. In those
sentences, ꞌi is considered awkward.
9. When the head noun expresses time, the possessive may express an event with
respect to which this time applies. In (47) the event is punctual, and “three days” is the
time elapsed after the event. In (48) the event is durative, and “eight days” is the time
elapsed since the beginning of this event. (In both cases, ka indicates that a certain
moment in time has been reached, → 4.3.2.2.)
(47) Ka toru mahana o te tanu o Kava, he ꞌui e Puakiva ki a Pipi...
CNTG three day of ART bury of Kava ask AG Puakiva to PROP Pipi
NTR
“Three days after (lit. of) the burial of Kava, Puakivi asked Pipi...” (R229.358)
(48) Ka vaꞌu mahana o te noho o Eugenio o te hāpī ꞌi Vaihū...

CNTG eight day of ART stay
of Eugenio of ART teach at Vaihu
“When he had stayed and taught for eight days in Vaihu...” (R231.203)
The possessive after the time noun may also refer to somebody or something which
was involved in a certain event at the time specified. The event itself is expressed as a
relative clause following this noun. (49) can be translated literally “Three days of the
rain which fell”.
(49) E toru mahana o te ꞌua i hoa ai, ko reherehe atu
- ꞌā te ꞌōꞌone.
NUM three day of ART rain PFV throw PVP PRF soft:RED away CONT ART soil
“When it had been raining for three days, the ground was quite soft.”
(R378.040)
(50) E tahi nō mahana o te pahī holandese nei i noho mai ꞌi nei

NUM one just day of ART ship Dutch PROX PFV stay hither at PROX
ꞌi Rapa Nui.
at Rapa Nui
“The Dutch ship only stayed one day here on Rapa Nui (lit. Just one day of the
Dutch ship that stayed).” (R373.005)
Finally: regardless the semantic relationship, the possessor may express something
which does not yet belong to the possessor, but which the possessor intends to have:289
(51) Ki iri tāua ki te tāua māmari vīvī kimi.
HORT ascend 1DU.INC to ART 1DU.INC egg partridge search
“Let’s go up to look for partridge eggs (lit. to search our partridge eggs).”
(R245.192)
(52) Mo pohe ōꞌoku mo oho mo hī, he oho au ki tāꞌaku ika.

if desire POSS.1SG.O for go for fish.V NTR go 1SG to POSS.1SG.A fish
“If I desire to go fishing, I go fishing (lit. to my fish).” (R647.061)
(53) Ko haŋa ꞌana a au mo uꞌi i tāꞌaku viꞌe mo hāipoipo.
-
PRF want CONT PROP 1SG for look ACC POSS.1SG.A woman for marry
“I want to find a wife for me (lit. my wife) to marry.” (R491.005)
6.3.2. a- and o-possessives

Like most Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui makes a distinction between two types of
possessive marking, which are characterised by the vowels o and a, respectively.290 In
289
Cf. Lichtenberk (2002), who gives examples of “prospective possessive relationships” in
several Oceanic languages.
290
Besides the grammars of individual languages, see Clark (1976:42-44); Capell (1931); Biggs
(2000). On the o/a distinction in Rapa Nui, see especially Mulloy & Rapu (1977).
In Rapa Nui, ꞌa (both as a preposition and at the start of possessive pronouns) is written with a
glottal, while o is not. The main reason is, that ꞌa happens to occur initially more often than o. It
is used, for example, in the active-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3). See sec. 2.2.5 on the
most languages this distinction is pervasive, affecting all possessive noun phrases and
pronouns. In Rapa Nui, the o/a distinction is only made with the following nominal
elements:291
1. singular pronouns:292
(54) tāꞌana poki; tōꞌona matuꞌa; e tahi ꞌāꞌana poki; e tahi ōꞌona matuꞌa
“his/her child; his/her parent; one child of his/hers; one parent of his/hers”
2. names and other proper nouns:

(55) te poki ꞌa Tiare; te matuꞌa o Tiare
“Tiare’s child; Tiare’s parent”
With common nouns and plural pronouns, only o-forms are used:293
(56) te poki o te ꞌariki; te matuꞌa o te ꞌariki
“the chief’s child; the chief’s parent”
(57) tū poki era o rāua
“that child of theirs”
The two types of possessive constructions will be referred to as a-possession and o-

possession. The choice between the two can often be predicted from the head noun
(the possessee): matuꞌa is o-possessed, poki is a-possessed. However, many words can
be possessed with either o or ꞌa; Englert (1978:43) gives the following pair of examples
(for more examples, see 6.3.4.1):
(58) He toꞌo tōꞌona kahu mo tata.
NTR take POSS.3SG.O clothes for wash
“She took her (own) clothes to wash”.
(non-)occurrence of initial glottals in particles. It is not impossible that the glottal-non/glottal

distinction in these particles was inherited from an earlier stage. Clark (2000b:259) points out
that in Tongan, certain a-forms have a glottal, while the corresponding o-forms do not (e.g.
heꞌeku “my.A” vs. hoki “my.O”). See also Wilson (1982:48).
On the other hand, the pervasive presence of the glottal in sg. possessive pronouns (tāꞌaku,
ꞌāꞌaku, mōꞌoku, tōꞌoku etc.) suggests that originally the glottal preceded both a and o (cf. Lynch
1997:232; Wilson 1982:50).
291
Neutralisation of the o/a-distinction is not uncommon in Polynesian languages. In Niue (Seiter
1980:34), the distinction is completely lost. The same is true in a group of Outliers: Nukuria,
Takuu, Nukumanu and Luangiua (Wilson 1982:11; Clark 2000b:267), while in Rennell, the
distinction is lost in third person pronouns (Nico Daams, p.c.).
292
For the forms of possessive pronouns, see sec. 4.2.1.
293
A peculiar exception, in which a common noun phrase is an a-possessor, is the expression ꞌa te
hau “Chilean, from the mainland”, as in vaꞌehau ꞌa te hau “Chilean soldiers” (R539-1.616). te hau
seems to be used as a name here, meaning something like “the State”; proper names in Rapa Nui
may contain the article te.
(59) He toꞌo tāꞌana kahu mo tata.

NTR take POSS.3SG.A clothes for wash
“She took her clothes (the clothes that had been given to her as a laundress)
to wash.”
The choice for ꞌa- or o-possession, then, is not an inherent property of the noun; it is
determined by the relation between the possessor and the possessee, not by the nature
of the possessee as such.294 If many nouns are always a-possessed or always o-
possessed, this is because they always stand in the same relationship to the possessor.
For example, when poki “child” is possessed, i.e. “A is poki of B”, this usually means
that A stands in a child-parent relationship to B, a relationship which is expressed by
a-possession.
The o/a distinction does not only affect possessive pronouns and genitive constituents
in the noun phrase (including partitives, → 6.2.2), but benefactives as well: the latter
are constructed with either mā or mo when followed by a singular pronoun or proper
noun, depending on the nature of the relationship between the two referents involved
(→ 4.7.7).
6.3.3. Possessive relations marked with a and o

In section 6.3.1, a general overview was given of relationships expressed by possessive
constructions. The present section provides a detailed discussion of these relationships,
categorised by a- and o-marking.
Section 6.3.3.1 deals with relationships between people, while 6.3.3.2 and 6.3.3.3
discuss relationships involving non-human possessees. 6.3.3.4 deals with nominalised
verbs and their arguments. 6.3.4 addresses the question whether a general
characterisation of ꞌa- and o-possession is possible.
6.3.3.1. Human possessees

When both possessor and possessee are human, the situation is relatively
straightforward in the case of kinship relations. These will be discussed in 6.3.3.1.1.
Other interhuman relationships are discussd in 6.3.3.1.2.
6.3.3.1.1. Kinship relations

ꞌa-possession is used to express the following kinship relations:
1. children of the possessor, including adoptive children: tāꞌau poki/ꞌatariki/vovo “your
child/firstborn/daughter”.
2. spouses: tāꞌaku viꞌe “my wife”, tāꞌana korohuꞌa “her old man”.
294
See also Chapin (1978:151).
All other kinship relationships are expressed with o-possession:

1. parents, including adoptive parents and godparents: tōꞌoku matuꞌa/māmā/comadre
“my parent/Mum/godmother”.
2. siblings: tōꞌou ŋā taina “your brothers and/or sisters”.295
3. grandparents and grandchildren: tōꞌona makupuna “his grandchild”; tōꞌoku

māmārūꞌau “my grandmother”.
However, grandchildren may also be a-possessed, whereby the grandchild is in fact
treated in the same way as an own child:296
(60) ...e ꞌaꞌamu nō ꞌana e tāꞌana ŋā makupuna era...
IPFV tell just CONT AG POSS.3SG.A PL grandchild DIS
“...her grandchildren told...” (R380.007)
4. further offspring and offspring in general: tōꞌona hinarere “his great-grandchild”;

tōꞌona hakaara “his descendants”.
5. uncles/aunts and nephews/nieces: tōꞌoku pāpātio “my uncle”; tōꞌou sobirino “your
nephew”.
When nephews/nieces are indicated with poki “child”, i.e. placed on a par with one’s
own children, they are a-possessed. The following example is said by an uncle to his
nephew:
(61) ¿He aha tāꞌaku poki ka manaꞌu rō ki te pāpā?
PRED what POSS.1SG.A child CNTG think to ART father
EMPH
“Why does my child think of his father?” (R230.026)
6. all in-law relationships: tōꞌou hunoŋa “your son/daughter-in-law”; tōꞌou huŋavai

“your father/mother-in-law”; tōꞌou taꞌokete “your brother/sister-in-law”.
295
Mulloy & Rapu (1977:22) quote one example where taina is a-possessed:
(i) He tomo Poie ki te motu ananake ko tāꞌana ŋā taina.
NTR go_ashore Poie to ART islet together PROM POSS.3SG.A PL sibling
“Poie landed on the island, together with his brothers.” (Mtx-3-01.311)
According to Mulloy & Rapu, this suggests that in the past younger brothers were a-possessed, a
situation which was changing to o-possession in the 1930s, when this story was recorded.
However, tāꞌana turns out to be a faulty transcription in the printed text: the text in Métraux’
notebook (notebook 4, p. 170) has the regular tōꞌona.
Note, however, that Mtx’s texts do show some other irregularities in the use of ꞌa and o
possession, without a clear reason: te matuꞌa ꞌa Ure “Ure’s father” (Mtx-7-03.108); taꞌu haꞌana
“your brother-in-law” (Mtx-7-30.062); in both cases, a-possession is used where one would
expect o.
296
As with siblings, Mulloy and Rapu (1977:22) suggest that a shift has been taking place in the
possession class of grandchildren; the text corpus gives no evidence of such a shift, however.
7. the family as such:

(62) He haka maꞌu rā moni ki tōꞌona huaꞌai ꞌi Harani.
NTR CAUS carry DIS money to POSS.3SG.O family at France
“He sent that money to his family in France.” (R231.013)
However, in the sense of a nuclear family (people living together in one house), family
may also be a-possessed:
(63) E noho era a Manutara ananake ko tāꞌana huaꞌai.
IPFV stay Manutara together PROM POSS.3SG.A family
DIS PROP
“Manutara lived with his family.” (R309.039)
6.3.3.1.2. Other human relationships

1. Friends, companions and colleagues are o-possessed: tōꞌoku hoa/hokorua “my friend/
companion”.
2. When the possessee is higher in status or authority, or in charge of the possessor, o

is used.
(64) He eꞌa mai he kimi i tōꞌona kape.
NTR go_out hither NTR search ACC POSS.3SG.O boss
“He went out and searched for his boss.” (R237.008)
3. When the possessor is higher in status or authority, or in charge of the possessee

(e.g. as employer or teacher), ꞌa is used.
(65) Te maꞌori aŋa hare ꞌa Hotu Matuꞌa ko Nuku Kehu tōꞌona ꞌīŋoa.
NTR expert make house of.A Hotu Matu’a PROM Nuku Kehu POSS.3SG.O name
“Hotu Matu’a’s house builder (who was in his service) was called Nuku Kehu.”
(Ley-2-12.002)
(66) He uŋa ia e Ietū e rua o tāꞌana nuꞌu hāpī.

NTR send then AG Jesus NUM two of POSS.3SG.A people learn
“Then Jesus sent out two of his disciples.” (Mrk. 14:13)
This also means that ꞌa is used for a group of people over which the possessor is in
charge:
(67) Ko arma ꞌā a au i tāꞌaku ekipo mai i a marzo ꞌā.
NTR assemble CONT PROP 1SG ACC POSS.1SG.A group from at PROP March IDENT
“From March on, I have put together my group.” (R625.082)
On the other hand, for a group of people to which the possessor belongs, o is used.
(68) He aŋa tau kope era i te koro kumi, ananake ko tōꞌona
NTR make DEM person DIS ACC ART feast_house long together PROM POSS.3SG.O
taŋata i aŋa ai.

person PFV make PVP
“That man made a large feast house, together with his people he made it.”
(Mtx-4-03.003)
4. Somewhat unexpectedly, when the possessee is a subordinate, o tends to be used:

tōꞌoku rarovaꞌe/tāvini “my subordinate/servant”.
6.3.3.2. Non-human possessees with ꞌa

With non-human possessees, ꞌa is used in the following situations:
1. The possessee is an instrument handled by the possessor. This includes a wide
variety of objects: tools, bags and other containers, musical instruments, objects used
as parts to make something, et cetera.
(69) He hoa i tāꞌana hau.
NTR throw ACC POSS.3SG.A cord
“He threw out his fishing line.” (R338.024)
(70) ꞌIna e ko hahaꞌo te
- ꞌature ki roto ki tāꞌana kete.
NEG IPFV NEG.IPFV insert
kind_of_fish to inside to POSS.3SG.A basket
ART
“He did not put the ature fish in his basket” (Ley-5-27.011)
This category includes furniture, except furniture supporting the body (see 6c in the
next section).
2. The possessee is something produced or caused by the possessor.

(71) Mai hai tiare mo tui o tāꞌaku karone.
hither INST flower for string of POSS.1SG.A necklace
“Give me some flowers to make my necklace.” (R175.006)
(72) ...i pāpaꞌi ai i tāꞌana puka raꞌe era.
PFV write PVP ACC POSS.3SG.A book first DIS
“(In the year 1948) he wrote his first book.” (R539-1.080)
3. The possessee is a dream by the possessor (“to dream” is moe i te vārua, lit. “lie
down a spirit”).
(73) Ko moe ꞌana au i tāꞌaku vārua.
PRF lie_down CONT 1SG ACC POSS.1SG.A spirit
“I have had a (lit. my) dream.” (R167.045)
However, dreams can be o-possessed as well:297
297
The same variability is seen in Maori, where moemoeā “dream” is o-possessed for some
speakers and a-possessed for others (Harlow 2007a:170).
(74) Ka vānaŋa tahi rō i toꞌu moe vārua.

IMP talk all EMPH ACC POSS.2SG.O
lie spirit
“Tell your dream completely.” (R105.075)
4. The possessee is land worked by the possessor.

(75) E hakaheu ꞌana tū rūꞌau era i tāꞌana kona ꞌoka tiare.
IPFV weed old_woman DIS ACC POSS.3SG.A place plant flower
CONT DEM
“The old woman was weeding her flower garden.” (R301.103)
5. The possessee is food:

5a. food grown, caught or otherwise obtained by the possessor.
(76) He toꞌo i tāꞌana kūmara kerikeri era.
-
NTR take ACC POSS.3SG.A sweet_potato dig:RED DIS

“He took his sweet potato he had dug up.” (Mtx-7-25.022)
(77) ꞌIna kai ravaꞌa rahi tāꞌana ika.
NEG NEG.PFV obtain much POSS.3SG.A fish
“He did not catch much fish (lit. his fish)” (R312.004)
5b. food or drink consumed – or destined to be consumed – by the possessor.

(78) Ko hiko ꞌā tāꞌaku haraoa e Te Manu.
PRF snatch CONT POSS.1SG.A bread AG Te Manu
“Te Manu has snatched away my bread.” (R245.039)
6. The possessee is an animal or plant owned by the possessor.

(79) He hāŋai i tāꞌana oru.
NTR feed ACC POSS.3SG.A pig
“He raised pigs (lit. his pigs).” (R423.019)
(80) He paꞌo mai i tāꞌana mahute i tāꞌana hauhau.
-
NTR chop hither ACC POSS.3SG.A mulberry ACC POSS.3SG.A kind_of_tree

“He chopped down his mulberry and hauhau trees.” (R352.030)
Horses, however, are o-possessed, as they are animals of transport (→ 6c in the next
section).
6.3.3.3. Non-human possessees with o

With non-human possessees, o is used in the following situations:
1. The possessee is something inherently belonging to the possessor: tōꞌoku hakari/
ꞌīŋoa/ora/vārua “my body/name/life/spirit”, tōꞌona matahiti “her years = her age”
2. The possessee is a part of the possessor: tōꞌona raupā “its leaves (of a tree)”; tōꞌona
taha tai “its coast (of the island)”. This includes body parts: tōꞌoku mata/tariŋa/pūꞌoko/
kōkoma “my eye/ear/head/intestine”.
3. The possessee is produced naturally by the possessor. This includes body secretions,
eggs of an animal, breathing and the voice: tōꞌona ꞌāꞌanu “his saliva”, tōꞌoku matavai
-
“my tears”, tōꞌona māmari “its eggs (of a hen)”.

Young of animals, on the other hand, are a-possessed (like human children): tāꞌana
māꞌaŋa “its chicks (of a hen)”.
Fruits and flowers of plants can be included in this category, although these may also
be o-possessed by virtue of being the part of a whole (see 2 above).
(81) ꞌE ꞌi rā kona he tupu te pua, ꞌe he ꞌūaꞌa tōꞌona tiare.
and at DIS place NTR grow ART kind_of_plant and NTR blossom POSS.3SG.O flower
“And in that place the pua grew and its flowers blossomed” (R532-07.081)
4. The possessee is an attribute, quality or status of the possessor: tōꞌona rivariva/pūai/ -
māramarama “his/her goodness/strength/wisdom”; tōꞌona kōrore/ꞌeo/tau “its colour/

-
smell/beauty”.
(82) ꞌAi, hoꞌi, tū pū era ꞌai, tōꞌona raro nui ꞌe tōꞌona ꞌaꞌano.
-
there indeed DEM hole DIS there POSS.3SG.O deep and POSS.3SG.O wide
“That there is the hole, its depth and its width.” (R620.095)
(83) ...ꞌo hakameꞌemeꞌe mai i tōꞌoku veve e Makoꞌi.
lest mock hither ACC POSS.1SG.O poor AG Mako’i
“...so that Mako’i would not mock my poverty.” (R214.050)
This also includes sicknesses: tōꞌona māuiui/renkē/kokoŋo “his sickness/dengue/cold”.

-
5. The possessee is an attitude or feeling of the possessor: tōꞌoku heva/koromaki/mamae

“my mourning/sadness/pain”; tōꞌou haŋa/haka ꞌaroha/māuruuru “your love/ -
compassion/gratitude”.
This includes error and sin: tōꞌoku hape “my fault”, as well as thoughts and opinions:
tuꞌu manaꞌu “your thought/opinion”.
6. The possessee is something containing, covering, supporting, carrying or

transporting the possessor. This includes:
6a. clothing and footwear worn by the possessor: tōꞌoku kahu/kamita/kirivaꞌe/kete “my
clothes/shirt/shoes/pocket”.298
Clothing is a-possessed when it does not refer to clothing to be worn, but functions just
as a possession or an object to be handled:
(84) He tuꞌu a au, he tata i tāꞌaku kahu.
NTR arrive PROP 1SG NTR wash ACC POSS.1SG.A clothes
“I arrived (at the crater lake) and washed my clothes.” (R623.011)
298
kete means “pocket” in modern Rapa Nui. In the past, kete used to mean “basket” and was a-
possessed, like any container.
6b. other things covering or adorning the body, such as jewellery, eyeglasses, tattoos
and body paint: tōꞌona karone/hei/tāpeꞌa/hiꞌo “her necklace/headdress/ring/glasses”.
Watches, however, are a-possessed; presumably, they are not classified with jewellery,
but with tools and instruments (see 1 in the previous section):
(85) ꞌIna ꞌāꞌaku hora.
NEG POSS.1SG.A time
“I don’t have a watch.” (Mulloy & Rapu 1977:17)
6c. objects supporting or containing the body:
(86) He haꞌamata he aŋa i tōꞌona pēꞌue.
NTR begin make ACC POSS.3SG.O mat
NTR
“He began to make his mat.” (R344.030)
(87) te puꞌa e puꞌa era te rua o Eugenio
ART cover IPFV cover DIS ART hole of Eugenio
“the lid that covered Eugenio’s grave” (R231.353)
Other furniture is a-possessed, like tools and instruments (see 1 in the previous
section): tāꞌaku ꞌamuramaꞌa “my table”.
6d. dwelling places: tōꞌona hare/karapā “his house/tent”.
6e. buildings and rooms in general: tōꞌona oficina/piha hāpī/piha moe “her office/
classroom/bedroom”. However, buildings not for sheltering humans are a-possessed:
tāꞌaku hare moa “my chicken house”.
6f. means of transport, including horses: tōꞌou ꞌauto/vaka/hoi “your car/boat/horse”.
Other animals are a-possessed, see 6 in the previous section.
In the following example, a banana trunk is used to slide down a hill, i.e. as a means of
transport; hence it is o-possessed, even though plants are normally a-possessed (6 in
the previous section):
(88) He eke te kope raꞌe ki ruŋa tōꞌona huri.
NTR go_up ART person first to above POSS.3SG.O banana_trunk
“The first person mounted his banana trunk.” (R313.028)
7. The possessee is the country, territory or place to which the possessor belongs.
(89) Kai hoki hokoꞌou ki tōꞌona kāiŋa, ki Maꞌori.
NEG.PFV return againto POSS.3SG.O homeland to Ma’ori
“He did not return to his homeland Ma’ori anymore.” (MsE-005.004)
(90) He oho a ꞌOrohe ki roto i tōꞌona piha hāpī.
NTR go Orohe to inside to POSS.3SG.O room learn
PROP
“Orohe goes into his classroom.” (R334.027)
8. The possessee is property owned by the possessor. This includes:

8a. land, for example, a plantation or garden:
(91) te ŋā ꞌāua ꞌoka tarake era o Te Mōai

ART PL field plant.V corn of Te Moai
DIS
“the corn fields of Te Moai (R539-2.154)
This means that for fields and gardens either ꞌa or o can be used, depending on
whether the focus is on possession (o) or labour (ꞌa); cf. (75) in the previous section.
8b. money: tōꞌoku moni “my money”.
8c. property in general: tōꞌou meꞌe “your belongings (lit. things)”; tōꞌona hauhaꞌa “his
riches, possessions”.
9. The possessee is an event, and the possessor is the person concerning whom, with
respect to whom, this event happens.
(92) He oho te taŋata taꞌatoꞌa ki tōꞌona pure.
NTR go ART man all
to POSS.3SG.O prayer
“All the people went to his (funeral) mass.” (R309.141)
(93) He maꞌu... i te uka ki tōꞌona ŋoŋoro.
NTR carry ACC ART girl to POSS.3SG.O feast
“They carried the bride (lit. girl) ... to her wedding (lit. feast).” (R539-3.033)
This includes stories, songs, pictures and other work of art with the possessor as
theme: tōꞌoku ꞌaꞌamu “the story about me”; te hohoꞌa o Tiare “the picture of Tiare,
showing Tiare”.
10. The possessor is a place where the possessee lives, stays, or originates from:
(94) He eꞌa mai te taŋata o ꞌAna te Ava Nui.
NTR go_out hither ART man of Ana te Ava Nui
“The people of Ana te Ava Nui went out.” (Mtx-3-01.283)
(95) Rano Aroi... koia ko tōꞌona ŋāꞌatu
Rano Aroi COMIT PROM POSS.3SG.O
bulrush
“Rano Aroi with its bulrush” (R112.051)
11. The possessee is a noun referring to time: tōꞌona mahan poreko “his birthday”.
(96) ꞌIna ōꞌoku hora.
NEG POSS.1SG.O time
“I don’t have time.” (Mulloy & Rapu 1977:17)
12. The possessor specifies the reference of the possessee, it is a specific instance of the
possessee (epexegetical use).
(97) ꞌi te ꞌāvaꞌe era o ꞌĀtete
at ART month DIS of August
“in the month of August” (R250.063)
(98) Te pīkano nei ꞌi te kona era o Roiho.

ART eucalyptus PROX at ART place DIS of Roiho
“These eucalyptus trees are in that place (called) Roiho.” (R130.008)
13. o-possessive pronouns are used in what could be called a distributive sense:
(99) ꞌI rā noho iŋa te meꞌe ena he puaꞌa ka ꞌaŋahuru ꞌo ka hānere
at DIS stay NMLZ ART thing MED PRED cow CNTG ten or CNTG hundred
atu i tōꞌona kope ka tahi.
away at POSS.3SG.O person CNTG one
“In that time each person (lit. his person one) had tens or hundreds of cows.”
(R107.035)
(100) E hoꞌe ꞌahuru mā hoꞌe huru kē, huru kē, huru kē

NUM on ten plus one manner different manner different manner different
tōꞌona puka ꞌo tōꞌona ꞌaꞌamu.
POSS.3SG.O book or POSS.3SG.O story
“There are eleven different books and different stories.” (R206.019)
6.3.3.4. Possession with nominalised verbs

The arguments of nominalised verbs are often expressed as a possessor (→ 8.7).
When the possessor is Patient, i.e. undergoes the action, o-possession is used:
(101) He taŋi ꞌo te mate o Huri ꞌa Vai.
NTR cry because_of ART die of Huri a Vai
“He cried because of the death of Huri a Vai.” (R304.104)
(102) E rua matahiti toe mo oti o tōꞌoku hāpī.
NUM two year remain for finish of POSS.1SG.O learn
“There are two years left to finish my schooling.” (R399.070)
(103) ꞌI te mahana era o tōꞌona tanu, he nehenehe nō.
at ART day DIS of POSS.3SG.O bury NTR beautiful just
“On the day of his funeral (“his being buried”), it was beautiful.” (R309.140)
When the possessee is Agent, i.e. performs the action, the situation is more
complicated. Actions as such tend to be o-possessed:299
299
This is different from the situation in other Polynesian languages, where subjects of transitive
verbs (and often intransitive agentive verbs as well) tend to be marked with a, while objects and
non-agentive subjects are marked with o (See e.g. Chung 1973; Clark 1981:69; Lazard & Peltzer
2000:197ff; Cablitz 2006:173f; Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992:540f.; Besnier 2000:503ff; Elbert &
Pukui 1979:140ff). For Hawaiian, Baker (2012) shows that the choice between a and o for
subjects is pragmatically motivated: a-marked subjects are agentive and/or volitional and/or
individuated.
(104) ...ꞌi tōꞌoku hiko mai i te poki mai tuꞌu huaꞌai.

at POSS.1SG.O snatch hither ACC ART child from POSS.2SG.O family
“...because I took (lit. in my taking) the child away from your family.”
(R229.027)
(105) Ko koa ꞌā a au ꞌi te hora nei ꞌo tōꞌona tute mai

PRF happy CONT PROP 1SG at ART time PROX because_of POSS.3SG.O chase hither
i a au.
ACC PROP 1SG
“I am now happy because of his chasing me.” (R214.053)
(106) He ꞌui e tū tahutahu era i
- te tumu o tōꞌona tere.
NTR ask AG DEM witch reason of POSS.3SG.O travel
DIS ACC ART
“The witch asked about the reason for his trip.” (R532-07.043)
When the noun refers to the product or result of an action rather than the action itself,
it is a-possessed:
(107) E hakaroŋo rivariva tāꞌaku- hāpī.
EXH listen good:RED POSS.1SG.A teach
“Listen well to my teaching” (Luke 8:18)
(108) He koa ia te ꞌAtua ꞌi te tutia era ꞌa ꞌAvere
NTR happy then ART God
at ART sacrifice DIS of.A Abel
“God was happy with Abel’s sacrifice” (Gen. 4:4)
The following pair of examples show the contrast between the action as such as in
(109) and the product of an action as in (110):
(109) He riro he taŋata rivariva hai ꞌaiua o Eugenio.
-
NTR become PRED mangood:RED INST help of Eugenio

“He became a good man with Eugenio’s help.” (R231.316)
(110) Tāꞌana ꞌaiua he puaꞌa e tahi.
POSS.3SG.A help PRED cow NUM one
“His help/contribution (for the feast) was a cow.” (Notes)
Verbs expressing verbal utterances (“say”, “tell”, “sing”) show the same distinction
between the product of an action and the action itself. Utterances made by the
possessor – words, stories, songs, et cetera – are a-possessed, as in (111)–(112). On the
other hand, when the act of uttering itself is in focus, the possessor is o-marked, as in
(113)–(114):
(111) I oti era te ꞌaꞌamu ꞌa ꞌOrohe...
PFV finish DIS ART story of.A Orohe
“When Orohe’s story was finished...” (R334.249)
(112) He katikati i
- tāꞌana hīmene a Kava.
NTR sing ACC POSS.3SG.A
song PROP Kava
“Kava sang his song.” (R229.158)
(113) Nōatu tōꞌona ture mai.

no_matter POSS.3SG.O scold hither
“Don’t mind his scolding.” (Egt-02.184)
(114) Ko huru kē ꞌā ꞌo tōꞌoku taꞌe pāhono i te
PRF manner different CONT because_of POSS.1SG.O NEG.CONS answer ACC ART
vānaŋa ꞌui mai.
word ask hither
“He feels strange because I didn’t answer (lit. my not answering) his
question.” (R363.108)
Finally, in the actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.2.1), Agents are a-possessed.
6.3.4. General discussion

6.3.4.1. Summary
The examples in the previous sections show that the choice between ꞌa and o depends
on the semantic relation between the two referents, not on the actual noun used. A
given noun can be a- or o-possessed, depending on the relation to the possessor. A few
examples:
Table 42: Some a- and o-possessed words
use with o use with ꞌa

māmari “egg” egg of a chicken egg as food
kahu “clothes” clothes worn clothes handled
korohuꞌa “old man” old father, father-in-law etc. old husband
ꞌaꞌamu “story” story about story by
karone “necklace” necklace worn necklace made by
The fact that the o/a distinction has a semantic basis, also means that new words
(usually Spanish borrowings) are integrated into the system on the basis of the
semantic relation they bear to their possessors. For example, kōrore “colour”, ꞌauto
“car” and sobirino “nephew” are o-possessed, while koneta “trumpet” and ekipo “group”
are a-possessed.300
In fact, apart from lexical changes, the system shows a remarkable stability over time,
as far as the sources show. None of the semantic categories described in the previous
sections shows shifts in possessive marking between older texts and modern Rapa Nui.
(It is only with younger speakers who master the language imperfectly that the o/a
distinction is starting to break down.)
The findings from section 6.3.3 can be summarised as follows:
300
See Makihara (2001a:203) for more examples.
— o-possession applies to inherent properties, parts, things produced without effort,

qualities, attitudes, actions undergone or (sometimes) done, nominalised actions, body
covering and transport, countries, land owned, money, subjects of discourse or art,
epexegetical constructions, family relations except spouse and children, friendship,
persons of higher status, and servants.
— a-possession applies to the product of actions, utterances, dreams, land that is
worked, instruments, products, food, animals/plants, spouses, children, and persons of
lower status.
The next section deals with the question whether the o/a distinction can be explained
by a general rule.
6.3.4.2. A general rule?

The o/a distinction occurs more or less along the same lines in almost all Polynesian
languages,301 and it has been described in various ways.
In general linguistic literature, the distinction between two classes of possession, one
of which is more permanent and/or closer to the possessor, is usually labelled
alienable/inalienable, and this terminology is followed by DuFeu (1996:102): o-
possession is inalienable, a-possession is alienable. Pukui & Elbert (1957) use the same
terms for Hawaiian. Englert (1978:42) makes a similar distinction when he states that
o is used with objects which, in the idea of the speaker, are closer to the possessor.
Hohepa (1967) characterises the distinction as one between inherited and acquired
possession. According to Capell (1931:145), “o forms indicate a passive relation to the
possessor, the a forms an active relationship”. Biggs (1973:43) extends this further: a is
used “when the possessor is active, dominant or superior to that which is possessed”; o
is used “when the possessor is passive, subordinate or inferior to that which is
possessed”. Finally, Mulloy & Rapu (1977) propose a distinction between dependence
and responsibility.302
What, then, is the most appropriate way to characterise the ꞌa/o distinction in general
terms?
301
There are minor differences between languages. In Tahitian, for example, horses are classified
as domesticated animals (a-possessed) rather than means of transport (o-possessed). Money is a-
possessed, buildings (except dwellings) are a-possessed. Children are a-possessed, but young of
animals are o-possessed (Acad.tah. 1986:86-92). In Maori, grandchildren are a-possessed, and so
are servants. Food is a-possessed, but drinking water is o-possessed (Biggs 1973:44).
302
This explanation is already suggested – though not accepted – for Futunan by Capell
(1931:146): “A native explanation of the use of tiaku with tafine, wife, and tapakasi, pig, is that
they are ‘objects of special care’!”
Other approaches have been suggested. Bennardo (2000a, b) proposes a dichotomy in terms of
opposing directionality: for a-possession the origin is specified, for o-possession the
direction/recipient is specified. Finally, Elbert (1969) refrains from a general characterisation,
suggesting that the labels “o-class” versus “a-class” may be the easiest for students.
First of all, the distinction between alienable and inalienable is not very accurate in
describing which items are o- and a-possessed. Inalienable possession refers to inherent
and/or permanent relationships, such as kinship and part-whole (Dryer 2007c:185).
While it is true that the o-possessive indicates inherent and/or permanent possessions
like body and soul, body parts and land, its use is much broader, including categories
like attitudes and feelings, clothing, jewellery, means of transport and actions
undergone. The alienable/inalienable distinction is therefore inadequate as a general
characterisation. The same is true for the distinction between inherent and acquired
possession.
The distinction between dominant and subordinate makes a number of correct
predictions: some possessors that are dominant with respect to their possessees, are a-
marked, while some possessors that are subordinate with respect to their possessees,
are o-marked. The leader or organiser of a group has a dominant role, while the
subjects of a king have a subordinate role. I am dominant with respect to the tools and
instruments I handle, the products I make, and the animals and plants I possess.
For other categories, however, this distinction does not work very well. Can a person
said to be subordinate with respect to his/her body, voice, feelings and attitudes, or
with respect to his/her house, clothing, and vehicle? The subordinate category is
inaccurate in certain interhuman relationships as well: spouses are mutually ꞌa-marked,
yet not mutually dominant; siblings are mutually o-marked, yet not mutually
subordinate.
Mulloy & Rapu (1977) suggest an alternative: responsibility versus dependence. A
possessor who is responsible towards the possessee is expressed with ꞌa, a possessor
who is dependent versus the possessor is expressed with o. From the perspective of the
possessee, ꞌa is used when it depends on the possessor, o is used when it is responsible
for the possessor.303
This idea enables us, for example, to explain the use of ꞌa and o with respect to
interpersonal relationships. A person is responsible with respect to his or her spouse
and children, hence a-possession. A person depends on his or her parents and extended
family, hence o-possession. A child is dependent on its parents, hence o-possession. A
person is responsible for his/her nuclear family (ꞌa), but depends on the wider family
as a support system (o).
For non-human referents, things which “care for, protect, and shelter the possessor”
(Mulloy & Rapu 1977:23) are o-possessed, as the possessor depends on them. On the
other hand, possessions which the possessor cares for, shelters and protects, are a-
possessed.
However, for other categories the responsibility/dependence dichotomy is less
satisfactory. In a certain sense, a person is dependent on inherent attributes like body
and soul. It is even conceivable that someone is dependent on qualities like size,
beauty and poverty, as these attributes define a person. It is a bit of a stretch, however,
to qualify attitudes like love, compassion, error and sin under the heading of
303
Cf. also Thornton (1998) for an analysis of the o/a distinction in Maori in cultural terms
(“mind set and spirituality”, 381), i.e. in terms of tapu (sacredness) and mana (power).
dependency. The same applies for actions and events undergone, like “problem,
punishment, imprisonment”, and even more so for actions performed by the possessor.
Further, can a person said to be dependent on his saliva or tears, or a chicken on its
eggs? Categories like these are defined by neither dependency nor responsibility.
The dichotomy of active versus passive is more promising as a general explanation. In
many cases when ꞌa is used, the possessor has an active role towards the possessee. A
person is active when performing an act or making an utterance; people are active
with respect to the land they work, the instruments they use, the products they make,
the animals they care for and the food they eat. They are passive with respect to their
spirit, life, age and body parts, with respect to buildings and means of transport
(although here passivity is expressed more appropriately as dependence, see above),
and with respect to feelings, thoughts, and actions they undergo.
In describing interhuman relationships, the terms “active” and “passive” are somewhat
less clear, unless “passive” is explained in terms of dependence or subordinance: a
child is “passive” with respect to its parents insofar as it depends on its parents for its
needs; a worker is “passive” with respect to his boss, insofar as the latter takes the
initiative in telling him what to do. In the same way, “active” in these relationships
can be explained in terms of responsibility, being in charge: a king is “active” with
respect to his subordinates in the sense that he is responsible of caring for them.
However, like the other dichotomies, the active/passive opposition does not explain
why o possession applies to actions performed. Nor does it explain well why so many
interhuman relationships are mutually o-possessed. Biggs’ (2000) conclusion seems
justified, that “efforts to generalise in terms of a binary opposition have not met with
general acceptance. There are always many examples where the opposition doesn’t fit
well, if at all.” In the next section, a different solution will be proposed.
6.3.4.3. o as unmarked possession

Clark (1976:44) suggests that the relationship between a and o in Polynesian is not
symmetrical: “*a (...) indicates a relation of control or authority of the adjunct over the
head. The relation indicated by *o can best be characterised as covering all relations
not included in a.” This idea is presented again in Biggs (2000): a marks an active or
dominant possessor; o is the unmarked form, used in all other cases. Wilson (1982:16)
characterises a-possession as indicating relationships initiated by the possessor, while o
is used for everything else.
There are indeed indications that the relation between a and o in Rapa Nui is not
symmetrical. One such indication is the large number of family relationships which are
mutually o-possessed. Concepts like “dependence” do not explain these well. A child
depends on its parent, a person depends on his family. But does an uncle depend on his
nephew, or a mother-in-law on her daughter-in-law, to warrant the use of o?
Another indication is suggested by those categories of o-possession not explained by
any of the dichotomies discussed above, e.g. o-possessed actions, time words (“your
birthday”), distributive constructions (“his day” = “a certain day”), and epexegetical
constructions (“the town of Hanga Roa”).
A third indication is the asymmetry displayed within some categories: people under a
leader can be either ꞌa or o-possessed, while on the other hand the leader is always o-
possessed.
These facts can be explained by stating that o is the unmarked possessive marker. ꞌa is
used to express that the possessor has an active role, which includes being in charge,
responsible, or dominant with respect to the possessor; in all other cases, o is used.
This rule correctly explains why tools and instruments (things to be used) are a-
possessed, just like animals and plants (things to be cared for), while possessions in
general are o-possessed.
It also explains why certain categories normally a-possessed may in certain cases take
o-possession: o-possession does not imply a passive or dependent possessor, but only
refrains from marking the possessor as active or dominant.
Thirdly, this rule explains why o is used in constructions where the distinction between
active and passive does not play a role, such as distributives, epexegetical possessives
and time words. In all these cases, o is used as the default marker.
Lastly, this rule goes some way towards explaining the use of a and o possession for
actions. A possessor is active with respect the product of his action (e.g. a feast
organised, a saying uttered, a teaching performed); on the other hand, it is less clear
whether a person can be said to be active with respect to the action as such; and
indeed, here Rapa Nui tends to have o-possession.
6.3.4.4. The o/a distinction and the nominal hierarchy

In Rapa Nui there is one more indication that o is the unmarked form: as discussed in
sec. 6.3.2, common noun phrases and plural pronouns are o-possessors in all contexts,
regardless their semantic relationship to the possessee. The marked form ꞌa is used
only with a subset of nominal constituents: singular pronouns and proper nouns.
This subset coincides with a subset of the “nominal hierarchy”. Certain referents are
inherently more likely to function as topics of discourse, or to be agents of a verb, than
others. Pronouns are more likely agents than common nouns, human referents are
more likely agents than inanimates. This has led linguists to propose a nominal
hierarchy – a.k.a. “animacy hierarchy” or “topic-worthiness hierarchy” – along the
following lines (see Payne 1997:150; cf. Foley 2007:413):
(115) 1304 > 2 > 3 > proper names > humans > non-human > inanimates
Another distinction cuts partly across the hierarchy above:
definite > indefinite
Languages may grammaticalise any part of this hierarchy, for example in case
304
The numbers refer to first, second, and third person respectively. The complete hierarchy also
includes 1st, 2nd and 3rd person agreement, a category not relevant for Rapa Nui.
marking.305 Rapa Nui has grammaticalised this hierarchy with respect to possessive
marking: only pronouns and proper names, which are high on the hierarchy, may take
the “active” possessive marking with ꞌa; elements lower on the hierarchy always get
the default marking with o.
This leaves the question why only singular possessive pronouns have the option of
taking active marking. Why do plural pronouns only get default marking, even though
they are higher on the scale than proper names?
This lack of distinction in the plural cannot be explained from the nominal hierarchy
as given above, but may have to do with the behaviour of singular and plural in
general. Dixon (1994) observes that languages sometimes have more distinctions in the
singular than in the plural. Distinctions that exist in the singular, may be neutralised in
the plural.
This fact itself may have something to do with the nominal hierarchy. Just like proper
names are more topic-worthy than common nouns, and definite nouns more topic-
worthy than indefinite nouns, it is conceivable that singular referents are more topic-
worthy than plural referents. In all cases a highly individuated referent is more topic-
worthy than a less individuated one; highly individuated (singular, definite) referents
tend to be topics of discourse.
We may therefore tentatively add another dimension which cuts across the nominal
hierarchy:
(116) singular > plural
Under this hypothesis, Rapa Nui makes the ꞌa/o distinction for a subset of nominal
referents which is high on the nominal hierarchy. Items lower on the hierarchy always
take the default o marking.
6.4. Conclusions
Possessive constructions are widely used. They occur as noun phrase modifiers and as
nominal predicates, but may also be used to mark arguments in a verbal clause; the
latter happens in the actor-emphatic construction, in clauses introduced by mo “in
order to”, and occasionally in main clauses.
Possessives are united by the use of a possessive preposition; they are distinguished
along three parameters:
• the form of this preposition: o versus ꞌa;
• a bare preposition o/ꞌa (Ø-possessives) versus coalescence of the preposition
with the article te to the forms to/ta (t-possessives);
• pronominal versus full noun phrase possessors.
305
In some languages, only constituents high on this hierarchy get accusative case-marking (i.e.
are case-marked when used as Patient), while only elements lower on the hierarchy get ergative
case-marking (i.e. are case-marked when used as Agent). (See Dixon 1994.)
Forms with to and ta are used when the possessor is in determiner position; in older
Rapa Nui, they are also found as possessive clause predicates. In all other contexts, Ø-
forms are used.
Possessive constructions express a wide range of semantic relationships, including
attributes, parts, verb arguments, and various kinds of associations. They may express
prospective possessive relationships, relationships which do not yet hold but are
expected to come into being: “I am looking for my wife to marry”; “let’s search our
eggs in the field”.
As in other Polynesian languages, certain relationships are marked with o, others with
ꞌa. Various proposals havs been made in the past to characterise the o/a distinction,
but the only way to account for the wide range of o-marked relationships is to view o
as default marker; ꞌa is only used when the possessor is dominant and/or active in
relation to the possessee.
The idea that o is the default marker is confirmed by the fact that for plural pronouns
and common nouns, o is the only marker used, while ꞌa is limited to singular pronouns
and proper nouns. This can be explained by an expanded version of the nominal
hierarchy which has been shown to play a role in various grammatical areas cross-
linguistically: only nominal constituents high in this hierarchy exhibit the o/a
distinction.
7. The verb phrase
7.1. Introduction: the structure of the verb phrase
In Rapa Nui, the verb phrase consists of a verb, usually preceded by a preverbal
marker, and often followed by one or more particles which contribute aspectual,
spatial or other nuances.
The structure of the verb phrase is shown in the following charts.306
Table 43: The verb phrase – preverbal elements
1 2 3 4 5
A/ M constit. habitual degree causative
negator
aspect/mood: he, i, e, ka, ku/ko (7.2) taꞌe rava/ ꞌata haka
subordinators/modality: vara ꞌapa
mo, ki, ana, ꞌo, mai (11.5)
clausal negators: kai, (e) ko (10.5)
§: 10.5.6 7.3.1 7.3.2 8.12
Table 44: The verb phrase – postverbal elements
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
nucleus adverb “yet” evaluative directional postverbal final
demonstrative
verb tahi, iho, hia rō mai nei ꞌā/ꞌana
hakaꞌou, nō atu ena ꞌai
takoꞌa, era
mau etc. ai
§: 4.5.1 10.5.8 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.2.5.5;
7.2.3.3
The preverbal constituents 2 – 5 may occur in different orders, depending on their

relative scope. For examples, see (96)–(99) on p. 327.
In this chapter, the various elements occurring in the verb phrase are discussed. The
largest section (7.2) is devoted to the set of five aspect markers. Aspect markers can
largely be described in terms of well-known categories such as perfectivity and
imperfectivity; one marker, however (ka) is more elusive.
306
Adapted and expanded from R. Weber (2003:26).
Another major topic is directional marking (7.5). Two directional markers are used in
various ways to orient events with respect to a deictic centre, pointing either towards
or away from this deictic centre.
Shorter sections deal with preverbal particles (7.3), evaluative markers (7.4) and
postverbal demonstratives (7.6). Finally, 7.7 deals with serial verb constructions, a
construction in which two or more verbs occur in a single verb phrase.
As the table shows, the first slot (labelled A/M, aspect/mood) contains not only aspect
markers but a variety of other particles as well. Two aspect markers also mark
imperative mood; this is discussed in sec. 10.2. The preverbal slot is also home to a
group of subordinating particles; these are discussed in sec. 11.5. Two negators occur
in the same position; these are discussed in sec. 10.5.
Finally, verb phrase adverbs are discussed with other minor parts of speech in 4.5.1.
The particle hia “yet”, which occurs in combination with negators, is discussed in
section 10.5.8.
7.2. Aspect marking
7.2.1. Introduction
As the chart in the previous paragraph shows, the first slot in the verb phrase may be
occupied by particles of various nature: aspect markers, subordinators and negators.
This means that a verb is either marked for aspect, introduced by a subordinator, or
negated by kai or (e) ko. Combinations of these are impossible. This means, for
example, that purpose clauses introduced by mo and clauses negated with kai are not
marked for aspect.307
In this section, the use of the aspectual markers is discussed.308 This discussion will
make clear that all markers have indeed an aspectual value and do not mark tense. In
other words, they do not specify how the event is located in time, whether it happens
before, at, or after the time of utterance. Rather, they are concerned with the internal
temporal structure of the event and how the event is temporally related to other events
in the context. The following aspect markers occur:
Table 45: Overview of aspect markers
he neutral 7.2.3
i perfective 7.2.4
e imperfective 7.2.5
ka contiguity 7.2.6
ku/ko – ꞌā perfect 7.2.7
307
Neither is aspect marked when the verb is nominalised (→ 3.2.3).
308
This section is largely based on the analysis of all clauses in a subcorpus of 29 texts: 15 old
texts, containing 2597 clauses; 14 new texts, containing 5834 clauses.
Chapter 7: The verb phrase 301
Certain aspectual functions are expressed by a combination of an aspectual marker and

one or two postverbal particles; these particle combinations will be discussed as a
whole.
The discussion in this section is largely restricted to main clauses. The use of
aspectuals with subordinate clauses (complement clauses, relative clauses and
adverbial clauses) is discussed in chapter 11. As certain subordinate clause types are
strongly linked to – and highly illustrative of – certain aspectuals, reference will be
made to chapter 11 where appropriate.
7.2.2. The obligatoriness of aspectuals

In most contexts, the use of aspectuals is obligatory. Verbs without aspectuals occur in
the following situations:
• Verbs which are part of a compound noun (→ 5.8.2.3).
• Bare relative clauses (→ 11.4.5); this includes the nominal purpose
construction (→ 11.6.3).
• Bare purpose clauses (→ 11.6.3).
• Occasionally in imperatives (→ 10.2.1).
Otherwise, aspectuals are occasionally omitted clause-initially (and especially
sentence-initially) in an informal style, if the verb is followed by one or more
postverbal particles. As the following examples show, different aspectuals can be
omitted. In (1), the perfect aspect marker ko is implied; the usual perfect aspect
construction is ko – ꞌā (→ 7.2.7). In (2), neutral he is implied: the verb is followed by
rō ꞌai, which points towards the construction he – rō ꞌai (→ 7.2.3.3); the second clause
shows the same construction in full, with aspect marker.
(1) Pae tahi ꞌā te taŋata mo mātaꞌitaꞌi.
-
go_all all person for observe

CONT ART
“All the people went to watch.” (R415.785)
(2) Noho rō ꞌai te tauꞌa, he rakerake rō
- ꞌai ararua ꞌaro.
stay EMPH SUBS ART battle NTR bad:RED EMPH SUBS the_two side
“The battle went on, it got bad on both sides.” (R104.074)
7.2.3. Neutral he
7.2.3.1. Introduction
he is the most common aspect marker. It probably developed from the nominal
predicate marker he (→ 5.4). This development took place only in Rapa Nui – no other
Polynesian language has an aspect marker cognate to he – so we may tentatively
conclude that it took place after the language split off from PEP.309
While it may go too far to consider nominal and verbal he as one particle
synchronically, the two are very similar in function. The nominal predicate marker he
marks noun phrases as predicates, without attributing any aspectual value to them.
309
Interestingly, Cook (1999:57) gives an example of he in Hawaiian preceding a verb.
Aspect concerns the internal temporal structure of an event; as entities (expressed in a

noun phrase) do not have an internal temporal structure, they cannot be marked for
any specific aspect. In the same way, the aspectual he is the least specific of all aspect
markers.310 Englert (1978:64) calls it “the most general, most used and least precise
tense” (my trl.). Chapin (1978:153) labels it as a “neutral marker”, a term I adopt in
this grammar (gloss NTR). The range of use of he will be discussed in the next section;
the examples will make clear that he is used in a wide variety of clauses; these clauses
may be punctual, durative or habitual; they may convey events in a narrative, future
events or instructions. This confirms the idea that he itself expresses none of these
functions, but is a neutral marker. The aspectual value of the clause is not expressed by
he as such, but can be deduced from the nature of the verb and/or the context. In other
words, he is functionally unmarked.311
In many cases, a he-marked clause depends on other clauses in the context for its
aspectual value. In narrative, a perfective clause may set the scene, after which a series
of he-marked clauses follow (see (4) below). Another example: he may mark a series of
instructions, but only when the first of these is explicitly marked as imperative (see (5)
below).
he is rare in subordinate clauses, which may also be due to its neutral character.
Subordinate clauses typically stand in some temporal or aspectual relation to their
main clause, whether simultaneous, overlapping, contiguous, anterior or posterior. he
is not able to supply this temporal link, hence it is not suitable in these contexts.
7.2.3.2. Range of use

As indicated above, he does not express any specific aspect; rather, it depends on the
context for its aspectual value. In this section, this will be illustrated through examples
of different contexts in which he is used.
1. In narrative, he-marked clauses express the theme line of a story. Strings of he-
clauses constitute the “back bone” of a story, describing the sequence of narrative
events.312 The following is a typical example:
310
Another phenomenon linking the predicate marker he and the aspectual he, is that the
negation ꞌina is either followed by he + noun (never by the article te), or by he + verb (never by
a different aspectual). See section 10.5.1.
311
Chapin (1978) suggests a different unified account for nominal and verbal he: the “noun” after
he could be a verb, i.e. in he taŋata koe “you are a man”, taŋata could be analysed as a verb, an
analysis also proposed (though in a more cautious wording) by Finney & Alexander (1998:22).
This analysis is syntactically implausible, however, as he is followed by a true noun phrase. As
the examples in section 5.4 show, the noun following he may be preceded and followed by noun
phrase elements like adjectives and numerals, while verb-phrase particles like rō, atu and ꞌai are
excluded.
312
The following examples are translated more literally than usual in this grammar, to convey
the idea of the concatenation of he-clauses.
(3) He eꞌa mai a nua he haka rivariva he oti

- he eꞌa
NTR go_out hither PROP Mum NTR CAUS good:RED NTR finish NTR go_out
he turu ararua ko Eva he tuꞌu ki Haŋa Piko.
NTR go_down the_two PROM Eva NTR arrive to Hanga Piko
“Mum went out, she made preparations, she finished, she went out, she went
down with Eva, they arrived in Hanga Piko.” (R210.038)
Other aspectuals may interrupt the stream of he-clauses to indicate non-theme line
elements of the narrative; they serve for example to provide background information,
to express events anterior to the theme line, and to mark events which are highlighted
in some way. (See the discussion on perfective i in 7.2.4.2 below.)313
The string of he-clauses providing the theme line of the story is usually preceded by
one or more clauses which establish a time frame in which the events take place. The
following example is the beginning of a story. The story starts with a cohesive clause, a
temporal clause providing a time frame for what follows, marked with perfective i (→
11.6.2.1). After that, the story continues with he-marked clauses.
(4) I poreko era a Puakiva, he māuiui a - Kuha, tōꞌona matuꞌa vahine.
PFV born DIS PROP Puakiva NTR sickKuha POSS.3SG.O parent female
PROP
“When Puakiva was born, his mother Kuha got sick.” (R229.001)
The fact that the time reference is established beforehand, confirms the idea that he is
a neutral aspect marker: he has no temporal or aspectual value of its own, but
continues within a previously established framework.314
In other text types, theme-line clauses are also marked with he. For example, in
procedural texts the theme line consists of a series of steps which are taken to perform
a certain procedure: building a boat, performing a burial, making a traditional cape. In
the following example, the speaker describes how to prepare a certain medicine. The
first step of the procedure is indicated by the imperative e, conveying a general
instruction; this is followed by a series of he-marked verbs.
(5) E haka pihaꞌa i te vai. Ki oti he toꞌo mai he huri
EXH CAUS boil ACC ART water when finish NTR take hither NTR turn
he haka tano te matuꞌa puaꞌa ki roto o te vai pihaꞌa.
NTR CAUS correct ART matuꞌa puaꞌa to inside of ART water
“Boil water. When done, take it and pour the right amount of matuꞌa puaꞌa (a
medicinal plant) into the boiling water.” (R313.160ff)
313
The interplay of he and other aspectuals and their respective functions in narrative have been
analysed by R. Weber (2003).
314
Notice that he itself does not explicitly indicate either that the events happen sequentially;
there is no “and then” sense implied in he as such. This feature is understood in the narrative
context (cf. Hooper 1998:127 on zero-marked narrative events in Tokelauan).
2. he-marked clauses may refer to durative or habitual actions as in (6),315 or general

truths as in (7).
(6) Paurō te mahana he turu au ki te hāpī.
every ART day go_down 1SG to ART learn
NTR
“Every day I go to school.” (R151.059)
(7) He hīmene te pereteꞌi. He kirukiru te
- manu. He ꞌūmō te puaꞌa.
NTR sing ART cricket NTR chirp
bird NTR moo ART cow
ART
“Crickets sing. Birds chirp. Cows bellow.” (Notes)
3. he is used with stative verbs (including adjectives) to express a state of affairs which
holds at the time of reference. This may be the time of speech as in (8), or the time of
the narrative as in (9).
(8) He nene nō taꞌa ika mata, e nua ē.
NTR sweet just POSS.2SG.A fish raw VOC Mum VOC
“Your raw fish is really nice, Mum.” (R535.095)
(9) He topa te poki tamahahine... He hāŋai i a Uho, he nuinui.-
NTR descend ART child female NTR feed

Uho NTR big:RED
ACC PROP
“A girl was born... They raised Uho and she grew up.” (Ley-9-55.026f)
4. he-marked clauses may express events that are about to happen or foreseen in the
(near) future. The time frame is established in the context (“next year” in (10)).
(10) Matahiti ena he hoki a au ki te hāpī.
year return PROP 1SG to ART learn
MED NTR
“Next year I will return to school.” (R210.003)
To express the future character of the action explicitly, e – rō is used (→ 7.2.5.3).

Clauses expressing plans or intentions may also be marked with ka (→ 7.2.6.3).
7.2.3.3. he and postverbal particles

1. Unlike the aspectuals i, e and ka, he is rarely followed by one of the postverbal
demonstratives nei, ena or era (→ 7.6).316 Occasional examples are found:
(11) He moe era koe e Hina ē ꞌi te kata.
NTR lie DIS 2SG VOC Hina VOC at ART laugh
“Hina laughed her head off (lit. you, Hina, lied down laughing).” (R313.025)
2. More common is the construction he – rō ꞌai: a he-marked verb followed by the

asseverative particle rō (→ 7.4.2) and the sequential particle ꞌai. R. Weber (2003:125)
315
To mark durativity or habituality explicitly, e – era or e – ā/ꞌana is used (→ 7.2.5.4).
316
he – era occurs relatively often in the stories recorded by Métraux; however, this probably
represents the much more common construction e – era: Métraux, whose first language was
French, took initial glottals for h and vice versa.
shows that he – rō ꞌai in narrative texts indicates notable, important events on the
theme line: significant developments or culminating points in the story. My analysis of
several narrative texts confirms this. he – rō ꞌai clauses indicate events which are either
climactic in a story, final in a sequence, or both.
In other cases, he – rō ꞌai marks an event which is not only final in a series, but which
constitutes a climax in the story. In the following example, a sequence of events is
concluded with he – rō ꞌai: the woman tries to catch her child, which has turned into a
fish, but in vain: the child disappears. The last event, the climax of the sequence, is
marked with rō ꞌai.
(12) He tute he oho e te viꞌe nei... ꞌe he ŋaro rō atu ꞌai.
NTR chase NTR go woman PROX and NTR disapeaar EMPH away SUBS
AG ART
“The woman chased the fish.... but it disappeared.” (R338.009)
The use of rō in this construction conforms to the general sense of rō, asserting the
reality of the event (→ 7.4.2).
he – rō ꞌai is also used at points of emotional intensity; in the following example (from
the same story as (12)), the mother is grieved because her child has disappeared.
(13) Te matuꞌa vahine o te poki nei he taŋi rō atu ꞌai.
ARTparent female of ART child PROX NTR cry EMPH away SUBS
“The mother of the child cried.” (R338.008)
7.2.3.4. Summary
The discussion above has shown that he does not express one single aspect. It is used in
punctual, durative, habitual and stative clauses; the verb may refer to a timeless truth,
a narrative event or a future event. This wide range indicates that he is a neutral aspect
marker, which in itself does not express any aspect. The aspectual value of the clause is
contributed by the context, for example a time phrase, a temporal clause or a
preceding imperative.
he is especially common in sequences of clauses expressing successive events; this
happens both in narrative and procedural discourse.
7.2.4. Perfective i
i is the perfective marker.317 The perfective aspect presents an event as a single,
unanalysable whole (Comrie 1976:3; Dixon 2012:35), without considering its internal
structure (e.g. its duration). In other words, the perfective regards the event from the
outside, while the imperfective considers its temporal make-up from the inside.
Perfective aspect is naturally correlated with past tense (Comrie 1976:72), and in fact,
i usually marks events in the past. i has been characterised as a past tense marker in
317
Perfective i is common in Eastern Polynesian languages; non-EP languages have na, ne or ni.
Wilson (2012:314) suggests a development PNP *ne > Central Northern Outliers *ni > PEP *i.
several descriptions of Rapa Nui and other Polynesian languages.318 In non-narrative

contexts i is the common aspectual for past events, as the following examples show. As
(17) shows, it may also express general facts about the past.
(14) A au i oho mai nei ki a koe mo noho ōꞌoku ꞌi nei.
PROP 1SG PFV gohither PROX to PROP 2SG for stay POSS.1SG.O at PROX
“I have come to you to live here.” (R245.072)
(15) Ko koe i rē.
PROM 2SG PFV win
“You have won.” (R210.071)
(16) ¡E Nuahine Pīkea ꞌUri ē, ꞌāꞌau rō taꞌa moeŋa nei o māua
VOC Nuahine Pikea Uri VOC POSS.2SG.A EMPH POSS.2SG.A mat PROX of 1DU.EXC
i toke!
PFV steal
“Nuahine Pikea Uri, it was you who stole that mat of ours!” (R310.428)
(17) Te meꞌe o te mātāmuꞌa meꞌe taꞌe vānaŋa, i mou nō.
ART thing of ART past thing NEG.CONS talkquiet just
PFV
“The people of old used not to speak, they kept silent.” (R310.216)
There are cases, however, where i conveys a non-past event. For example, in (18) i is
used with reference to the future:
(18) I oꞌo era koe ki roto i tuꞌu hare era e noho koe.
PFVenter DIS 2SG to inside at POSS.2SG.O house DIS IPFV stay 2SG
“When you have entered into your house, stay there.” (R310.297)
Conversely, other aspectuals are used besides i in clauses referring to past events:
narrative he (→ 7.2.3), and imperfective e – ꞌā (→ 7.2.5.4). This means that i is not a
past tense marker; rather, it expresses that an action is temporally closed. This may in
turn mean that the event is in the past, or anterior to other events, or finished at a
certain point, but neither of these is a necessary condition for the use of i.
Comrie (1976:17f) stresses that perfective is not the same as punctual. This is true in
Rapa Nui as well: while i often marks punctual events, it is equally used to mark events
that have a certain duration. This is clear in examples like the following, where the
perfective is used for events that take place over many years:
(19) A Te Manu i noho ai ꞌi muri i tū māmātia era ōꞌona
PROP Te Manu PFV stay PVP at near at DEM grandmother DIS POSS.3SG.O
ꞌātā ki te nuinui iŋa.
-
until to ART big:RED NMLZ

“Te Manu stayed with his aunt until he had grown up.” (R245.246)
318
See DuFeu (1996:156) for Rapa Nui, Mutu & Teìkitutoua (2002) for Marquesan, Acad.tah.
(1986:172) for Tahitian, Biggs (1973:34) for Maori. Note that Chapin (1978:153) labels Rapa Nui
i as perfective.
7.2.4.2. Neutral he versus perfective i

As discussed in 7.2.3.2 above, he is used to mark the theme line of discourse. This
means that the relation between he and i calls for an explanation. As Timberlake
(2007:293) points out, the perfective is typically the aspect of narrative texts: a
perfective event leads to a new state, which is the input for the next event; a string of
such events constitutes a narrative. In Rapa Nui, however, sequential events in a
narrative are marked with he, not i (→ 7.2.3.2 above).
As shown in this section, i is used when the event is not sequential to the event in the
preceding clause, for example in clauses providing background information. Moreover,
i is used to highlight events, setting them of from the theme line of he-marked clauses.
This means that i is used in narrative discourse to mark clauses not belonging to the
theme line for some reason.
1. i is used when the event is anterior with respect to the theme line of the story (i.e.
where the English equivalent is the pluperfect).
(20) Māuiui nei
- i tuꞌu mai ai ki Rapa Nui o te nuꞌu empereao
sick PROX PFV arrive hither PVP to Rapa Nui of ART people employee
o te Compañía i maꞌu mai.
of ART company PFV carry hither
“This disease had arrived on Rapa Nui, introduced by the employees of the
Company.” (R250.084)
i with anterior events is especially common in cohesive clauses, temporal clauses

preceding a main clause (→ 11.6.2.1).
2. i marks events which the speaker wants to highlight in the stream of he-clauses. In
the following example, Kalia, the protagonist of the story, has been swimming all night
to get to Ao Tea Roa to get help for the people of Kapiti. The moment in which she
finally arrives and is able to warn the people of Ao Tea Roa, is marked with i – ai. As
this example shows, the significance of the event may be underlined by the
asseverative particle rō (→ 7.4.2).
(21) Kai puhi rivariva ia
- te haŋu ꞌi te poto o te aho
NEG.PFV blow good:RED then ART breath at ART short of ART breath
i ohu rō atu ai mo haka ꞌite i tū ꞌati era.
PFVshout EMPH away PVP for CAUS know ACC DEM problem DIS
“Short of breath, she shouted to make the trouble known.” (R347.128)
3. More specifically, i is used when the clause expresses what may be called an
“intervening event”. As Comrie (1976:3) indicates, the perfective sees the action as
an unanalysable whole, without an internal temporal structure. Therefore, the
perfective is used in many languages to express punctual events. In Rapa Nui, the
perfective is often used with punctual events which take place while something else is
happening. The punctual event interrupts another event which has been going on for
some time: it intervenes into an existing situation.
This is common after the imperfective e – nō ꞌā (→ 7.2.5.4):
(22) E noho nō ꞌā a Te Manu i vari atu ai a Nune...
IPFV sit
just CONT PROP Te Manu PFV pass away PVP PROP Nune
“When Te Manu was sitting, Nune came by...” (R245.174)
(23) E iri nō atu ꞌā i takeꞌa rō ai e te viꞌe o tū pāpā era
IPFV ascend just away CONT PFV see EMPH PVP AG ART woman of DEM father DIS
o Te Manu.
of Te Manu
“When he was going up, the wife of Te Manu’s father saw him.” (R245.214)
4. i-marked clauses may express background information. For example, in the

introduction of a story, i-clauses may serve to set the stage by telling what happened
before the beginning of the story, as in (24). i-clauses may also express restatements or
clarifications, as in (25).319
(24) Te ara nei o te nuꞌu nei, i eꞌa ai mai Haŋa Roa o Tai
ART way PROX of ART people PROX PFV go_out PVP from Hanga Roa o Tai
ꞌi ruŋa o te vaka nei.
at above of ART boat PROX
“As to these people’s trip, they had left Hanga Roa o Tai by boat.” (R361.004)
(25) ...he iri he oho ki te kona hare era. I tahuti a Tiare
NTR ascend NTR go to ART place house DIS PFV run PROP Tiare
i iri ai ki te kona hare era.
PFV ascend PVP to ART place house DIS
“...she went up to her home. Running, Tiare went up to her home.” (R151.053)
7.2.4.3. Summary
i is the perfective marker: it marks events which are viewed as a whole, without
internal temporal structure. The event is usually, but not always, in the past.
In narrative, i is used for events which stand out in some way from the thematic
backbone of events marked with he: i marks background events, restatements and
conclusions, flashbacks, but also events which are highlighted.
In main clauses, the i-marked verb is usually followed by a postverbal demonstrative
(PVD). The use of PVD’s after i-marked verbs will be discussed in more detail in 7.6.5.
319
Similarly, i-marked clauses may express background events in subordinate clauses (→
11.6.2.2).
7.2.5. Imperfective e
e is the imperfective marker. It is common throughout Polynesian languages (Pollex
glosses it as “non-past”). According to Comrie (1976:24), the imperfective makes
“explicit reference to the internal temporal structure of a situation, viewing a situation
from within” (see also Dixon 2012:35). Languages may grammaticalise certain
subcategories of the imperfective; Comrie divides the imperfective into two
subcategories: continuous (an event or situation goes on for some time) and habitual
(“a situation which is characteristic of an extended period of time”, 27f). The
continuous can be further divided into progressive and nonprogressive: in various
European languages, stative verbs may be used in the imperfective (with a continuous
interpretation), but not in a progressive form. The progressive is thus a combination
of a continuous meaning and non-stativity (35f).320
As it will turn out, the categories mentioned here are relevant in Rapa Nui as well.
While e as such expresses imperfectivity, finer distinctions are expressed by e in
combination with certain postverbal particles. Thus the aspectual value of the clause is
defined not by e alone, but by a combination of e and postverbal particles. The
following particles contribute to the aspect of the clause: the evaluative markers rō and
nō, the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana,321 and the postverbal demonstratives (PVD’s)
nei/ena/era. With e, these particles show the following cooccurrence restrictions:
e V (adverb) (rō/nō) (mai/atu) (ꞌā/ꞌana)

e V (adverb) (mai/atu) nei/ena/era
In other words, PVD’s after e do not cooccur with either the evaluative markers rō and
nō or the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana,322 but the latter two categories do occur
together.323
In the following sections, different constructions with e will be discussed: bare e (i.e.
without any postverbal particle) is briefly discussed in 7.2.5.2, e – rō in 7.2.5.3. e – era
and e – ꞌā (which largely occur in the same contexts and have similar functions) are
treated together in 7.2.5.4. Finally, in 7.2.5.5, the distinction between e – era and e – ꞌā
is explored.
7.2.5.2. Bare e
Preverbal e without any postverbal particle occurs in two contexts only:
320
Others consider “continuous” and “progressive” as synonymous, see e.g. Dixon (2012:34).
321
There is no difference in function between ꞌā and ꞌana; ꞌā is more common (→ 5.10). In this
section, ꞌā will be used as a shorthand for ꞌā/ꞌana.
322
This restriction is specific to imperfective e; after other aspectuals, postverbal demonstratives
do co-occur with rō, nō and ꞌā/ꞌana.
323
In fact, these two categories co-occur far more often than one would statistically expect: while
e – ꞌā occurs 35 times and e – nō/rō occurs 34 times, e – nō/rō ꞌā occurs no less than 153 times.
1. as an exhortative marker, used for non-immediate commands (→ 10.2.1):

(26) E hāpaꞌo kōrua i a Puakiva.
EXH care_for 2PL ACC PROP Puakiva
“Take care of Puakiva.” (R229.420f)
2. in the imperfective actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3 sub 2):

(27) Māꞌaku ꞌā e eꞌa ki te manu.
BEN.1SG.A IDENT IPFVgo_out to ART bird
“I myself will go up to the birds.” (Egt-01.014)
In all other contexts, the e-marked verb is followed by one or more postverbal
particles.
7.2.5.3. e – rō: future

The combination of imperfective e and the emphatic particle rō expresses future
events. It is used to express intentions or plans:
(28) Ka noho kōrua ko koro, e hoki rō mai mātou ka muraki
IMP stay 2SG PROM Dad IPFV return EMPH hither 1PL.EXC CNTG bury
tāꞌau pāpaku.
POSS.2SG.A corpse
“You and Dad should stay, we will return and bury the body.” (Ley-4-08.017)
(29) E hāpaꞌo rō e au i tāꞌana poki.
IPFVcare_for EMPH AG 1SG ACC POSS.3SG.A child
“I will look after her child.” (R229.081)
7.2.5.4. e with postverbal demonstratives and with ꞌā/ꞌana

As pointed out in 7.2.5.1 above, e is used in combination with both PVD’s and ꞌā.324
With either of these, the clause has either a habitual or a continuous sense, both of
which are subcategories of the imperfective. The question is, whether there is any
difference between e – PVD and e – ꞌā. In this section the use of e with these markers is
discussed. This discussion will show that there is a great deal of overlap between both
constructions, but that there are differences in use as well.
e – PVD and e – ꞌā occurs in main clauses and in temporal subordinate clauses. The
former are discussed here, the latter will be discussed in section 11.6.2.2 sub 2.
In main clauses, e – PVD expresses either a continuous action as in (30)–(31), or a

habitual action as in (32)–(33):
(30) E piko era a Kaiŋa.
IPFVhide DIS PROP Kainga
“Kainga was hiding.” (R304.093)
324
In this section, ꞌā is a shorthand for ꞌā/ꞌana.
(31) Te ꞌori, te hīmene rapa nui te reka e uꞌi era e Eva.

ART dance ART song Rapa Nui ART entertaining IPFV look DIS AG Eva
“Eva looked at the dancing, Rapa Nui singing and the entertainment.”
(R210.133)
(32) Paurō te mahana a Huri ꞌa Vai e iri era mai Haŋa Tuꞌu Hata
every ART day PROP Huri a Vai IPFV ascend DIS from Hanga Tu’u Hata
ki Kauhaŋa o Varu.
to Kauhanga o Varu
“Every day, Huri a Vai went up from Hanga Tu’u Hata to Kauhanga o Varu.”
(R304.001)
(33) Taꞌatoꞌa meꞌe rakerake e - haka aŋa era ki a Puakiva.

all thing bad:RED do
to PROP Puakiva
IPFV CAUS DIS
“He made Puakiva do all bad/dirty jobs.” (R229.397)
e – ꞌā also expresses either continuous actions as in (34)–(35) or habitual actions as in

(36); the latter is not very common, though.
(34) E ꞌoka ꞌana a Tama te Rano Kao i te maika ꞌi raro i te rano.
IPFVplant CONT PROP Tama te Rano Kao ACC ART banana at below at ART crater
“Tama te Rano Kao was planting bananas below in the crater.” (Mtx-3-11.053)
(35) A koro e aŋa ꞌā ꞌi te ꞌuahu.
PROPDad IPFV work CONT at ART wharf
“Dad was working on the wharf.” (R210.041)
(36) Te hiꞌo hoꞌi e aŋa nō ꞌā ꞌi rā hora e te nuꞌu paꞌari era.
ARTglass indeed IPFV make just CONT at DIS time AG ART people adult DIS
“The (diving) glasses were made at that time by the older people.” (R360.027)
e – ꞌā is also used with adjectives, expressing an enduring state:325

(37) E mata nō ꞌana hoꞌi te miro era i hore mai era.
IPFVunripe just CONT indeed ART wood DIS PFV cut hither DIS
“The wood that has been cut is still green.” (R200.063)
(38) E ꞌitiꞌiti
- nō ꞌā a koe.
IPFVsmall:RED just CONT PROP 2SG
“You are still small.” (R210.052)
By contrast, e – PVD is rarely used with statives. It never occurs with adjectives of
dimension, value of colour (the prototypical adjectives, → 3.5.1.3), only with
adjectives from other categories:
325
The most frequent stative use of e – ꞌā is with the existential verb ai: the fossilised expression e
ai rō ꞌā “there is” is a very common existential construction (→ 9.3.1).
(39) ¿He aha e aŋarahi ena mo haka rehu ōꞌoku i a koe?

what IPFV difficult MED for CAUS forgotten POSS.1SG.O ACC PROP 2SG
PRED
“Why is it difficult to forget you?” (R452.025f)
The following table summarizes these findings. Plain x indicates that the category in
question is common; (x) indicates uncommon or restricted occurrence.
Table 46: Functions of e – PVD and e – ꞌā
e – PVD e – ꞌā
continuous event x x
habitual event x (x)
state (x) x
7.2.5.5. Postverbal demonstratives versus ꞌā; the function of ꞌā

As the discussion in sec. 7.2.5.4 shows, there is a great deal of overlap between e – PVD
and e – ꞌā. Both are used in a habitual and a progressive sense; both are found in main
and subordinate clauses. Even so, the two cannot always be used interchangeably. One
difference lies in the possibility to express additional meaning elements: as shown in
sec. 7.2.5.1, PVD’s do not co-occur with the evaluative particles nō or rō (→ 7.4); in
order to use one of these markers in an imperfective clause, ꞌā must be used instead
(see (36)–(38) above).
While ꞌā can be used together with nō and rō, the PVD also has some possibilities of its
own: different PVD’s indicate different degrees of distance. The default – and by far the
most frequent – PVD is era, as in (30)–(33) above; nei can be used to indicate proximity
to the speaker as in (40), ena to indicate proximity to the hearer as in (41).
(40) Pē nei e kī nei e te nuꞌu nei: ko mate ꞌana koe.
like PROX IPFV say PROX AG ART people PROX PRF die CONT 2SG
“This is what these people are saying: you have died.” (R229.316)
(41) ¡ꞌĪ mau ꞌā a au e taŋi atu ena ki a kōrua ko te ŋā poki!
IMM really IDENT PROP 1SG IPFV cry away MED to PROP 2SG PROM ART PL child
“I was just missing you, children!” (R313.097)
Apart from these possibilities to express additional meaning elements, there is a more
general difference between e – era and e – ꞌā. This is suggested by two facts:
1. As discussed above, e – ꞌā can be used with adjectives to indicate a state (see (37)–
(38) above). On the other hand, adjectives rarely enter into the e – PVD construction. A
similar difference can be observed in temporal clauses (discussed in 11.6.2.2): e – ꞌā is
more stative-like, while e – PVD is more dynamic.
2. In main clauses, e – ꞌā constructions only rarely have habitual sense; habituality is
usually expressed by e – PVD. Similarly, in cohesive clauses (→ 11.6.2.1), I have not
found any example of habitual e – ꞌā, while habitual e – PVD is quite common.
This raises the question of the function of the marker ꞌā. According to R. Weber
(2003:52), ꞌā is a progressive marker. This would fit many of its occurrences; however,
it should be noted that progressive events may also be expressed by e – PVD. Moreover,
e – ꞌā can be used with stative verbs, whereas the progressive (in Comrie’s definition,
→ 7.2.5.1 above) is limited to nonstative verbs.
Another fact which should be taken into consideration, is that ꞌā occurs after the
perfect marker ko/ku as well; in fact, after the perfect marker ꞌā is obligatory. Now
perfect aspect is incompatible with the progressive; rather, it indicates the continuing
relevance of a situation which has come about in the past. As will be discussed in
7.2.7.1 and 7.2.7.4 below, ko – ꞌā expresses a state of affairs resulting from an earlier
event, rather than the event itself. We may conclude that ꞌā marks continuity or
stability over time: e – ꞌā expresses that an event or a state continues; ko – ꞌā indicates
the continuing relevance of a state which has started in the past.326 Hence the gloss
CONT(inuity).327
Notice that this does not mean that ꞌā as such is a marker of continuous aspect.
Continuous aspect (expressing events which continue for some time, whether stative or
nonstative) is a subcategory of the imperfective, which is expressed by either e – PVD or
e – ꞌā. ꞌā itself simply emphasizes the continuity or stability of a situation, whether in
combination with imperfective e or perfect ko.
This is confirmed by the occasional use of ꞌā after the preverbal marker mai (→
11.5.5): mai as such indicates a temporal boundary (“before, until”); in combination
with ꞌana it expresses the continuation of a state up to a certain point: “while, as long
as”.
The meaning of postverbal ꞌā is clearly related to the meaning of postnominal ꞌā (→

5.10); while postverbal ꞌā indicates stability of an event over time, postnominal ꞌā
underlines the identity of a referent, i.e. stability in reference: “the same, himself”.
7.2.5.6. Summary
e is the imperfective marker. Its temporal/aspectual value is further defined by certain
postverbal particles, as indicated in the following table.
326
ana occurs in other Eastern Polynesian languages (which have not retained the Proto-
Polynesian glottal plosive) as a post-verbal particle marking a continuing action or state, usually
after imperfective e, e.g. Hawaiian (Elbert & Pukui 1979:57ff), Marquesan (Mutu & Teìkitutoua
2002:67), Mangarevan (Janeau 1908:32), Maori (Bauer 1993:416ff). Interestingly, in Marquesan
the variant aa is used as well; given the fact that other languages only have the longer form, it is
not unlikely that Rapa Nui ꞌā and Marquesan aa are independent developments. In Hawaiian, ana
alternates with postverbal demonstratives as in Rapa Nui.
The use of ꞌana/ꞌā in the noun phrase (→ 5.10) is unique to Rapa Nui.
327
In addition, ꞌā is used in negated perfect aspect clauses, marked with preverbal kai (→ (123)–
(124) on p. 482).
Table 47: Functions of imperfective e
e– • imperative;
• imperfective actor-emphatic
e – rō • future
(emphatic marker)
e – nei/ena/era • continuous;
(postverbal demonstratives) • habitual;
• (stative – rarely)
e – ꞌā/ꞌana • continuous;
(continuity marker) • stative;
• (habitual – rarely);
In clauses where the verb is non-initial, e tends to be used whenever the clause has
nonpast reference; this will be briefly discussed in 7.2.8 below.
7.2.6. The contiguity marker ka

7.2.6.1. Introduction: ka in Polynesian and in Rapa Nui
ka occurs in most Polynesian languages. It tends to be a somewhat elusive marker.
Pawley (1970:347f) glosses PPN/PNP *kaa as “anticipatory, future” and PCE *kaa as
“inceptive”; Pollex has PPN *ka as an inceptive marker. In most grammars of
Polynesian languages, it is explained as inceptive and/or future and/or imperative; the
latter function occurs only in EP languages.328
For Rapa Nui, the existing grammars offer little analysis on ka. Englert (1978:63, 72)
does not list or discuss ka among the “tenses”, but only gives examples of its use in the
imperative. According to Du Feu (1996:37) ka and ki are momentary particles
indicating temporal relationships between actions; she gives examples of the use of ka
in the imperative (37), ka – rō in the sense “until” (51) and ka in temporal clauses
referring to the future. Chapin (1978:154) indicates that there are various other uses of
ka besides the imperative, but that on the basis of his data, it is not possible to reach
any satisfactory generalisation regarding these uses.
R. Weber (2003:33), on the contrary, offers a thorough analysis of ka. On the basis of a
number of newer narrative texts he concludes that ka does not give information about
the aspectual value of the verb itself, but about its temporal relation to a following or
preceding proposition. He postulates that ka indicates temporal contiguity between
two events, in that the two events are temporally adjacent or overlapping.
My analysis, as outlined below, largely confirms and refines Weber’s findings. In many
of its uses, ka represents a boundary, setting off one event from another; this happens
328
PPN *ka reflects a Proto-Oceanic coordinating conjunction *ka “and then” (Lynch, Ross and
Crowley 2002:85; Lichtenberk 2014), which developed into a marker of sequentiality, future
tense, irrealis, imperative and/or inceptive in various (groups of) languages. Evidently, the use of
*ka is not narrowed down to a single function in Polynesian.
for example when one event represents a temporal limit for another, ongoing event. In
other cases ka indicates simultaneity with respect to the event expressed in a
preceding or following clause. This simultaneity can be either total or partial (i.e.
overlapping). Both situations can be subsumed under the label “contiguity” (CNTG),
proposed by R. Weber (2003).
This section discusses the contiguity marker ka; the use of ka as imperative marker
(which occurs more frequently in discourse) is discussed in section 10.2.1. R. Weber
(2003) treats the contiguity marker and the imperative marker as different particles; in
section 10.2.1 I will argue that the two are best considered as a single particle.
Another use of ka not discussed in the present section, is ka preceding numerals (→
4.3.2.2). The discussion and examples there show, that ka indicates a quantity which
has been reached, a use which corresponds neatly to ka as a boundary marker.
In the following subsections, different contexts in which ka occurs, are discussed in

turn. First a number of uses in subordinate clauses are briefly listed (7.2.6.2), then its
use in main clauses is discussed (7.2.6.3). In 7.2.6.4, some minor uses of ka are listed.
7.2.6.2. ka in subordinate clauses

ka is used in a wide range of subordinate clauses. In this section, these constructions
are listed with a single example; they are discussed in more detail in chapter 11.
— ka occurs in complements of perception verbs (→ 11.3.1.1):
(42) He uꞌi atu, ka pū te manu taiko.
NTR look away CNTG approach ART bird taiko
“She saw a taiko bird come by.” (Ley-9-55.078)
— In relative clauses (→ 11.4.3), ka indicates events posterior to the time of reference:

(43) Te ꞌīŋoa o te kai era [ka maꞌu mai era ki a koe] he ioioraŋi.
-
ARTname of ART food DIS CNTG carry hither DIS to PROP 2SG PRED ioioraŋi
“The name of the food they will bring you is ioioraŋi.” (R310.060)
-
— In temporal clauses (→ 11.6.2.1, 11.6.2.2), ka indicates temporal contiguity with

the event in the main clause:
(44) Ka hakameꞌemeꞌe era he riri a Taparahi.
CNTG mock DIS NTR angry PROP Taparahi
“When they mocked, Taparahi would get angry.” (R250.151)
— ka marks conditional clauses (→ 11.6.6):

(45) Ka hāŋai atu ena ki a koe, he mate koe.
CNTG feed away MED to PROP 2SG NTR die 2SG
“If (the two spirits) feed you, you will die.” (R310.061)
— ka occurs after certain temporal conjunctions: ꞌō ira “before” (→ 11.6.2.4); ꞌātā/ꞌā
“until”, ꞌahara “until” (→ 11.6.2.5):
(46) Mai ki hāpaꞌo nō tātou i a ia ꞌātā ka nuinui rō.

-
hither HORT care_for just 1PL.INC ACC PROP 3SG until CNTG big:RED EMPH
“Let us take care of him until he is big.” (R211.063)
— Without a conjunction, ka – rō marks a temporal boundary, “until” (→ 11.6.2.5):

(47) He kai a Te Manu ka mākona rō.
NTR eat PROP Te Manu CNTG satiated EMPH
“Te Manu ate until he was satiated.” (R245.067)
— ka – atu marks a concessive clause (→ 11.6.7):

(48) Ka rahi atu tāꞌaku poki, e hāpaꞌo nō e au ꞌā.
CNTG many away POSS.1SG.A child IPFV care_for just AG 1SG IDENT
“Even if I have many children, I will care for them myself.” (R229.023)
In most of these examples, ka expresses temporal contiguity. The event in the ka-
clause is temporally contiguous to the event in the main clause; often it indicates a
boundary to the event in the main clause as in (44), (46) and (47); sometimes the
event overlaps with or is simultaneous to the main clause event as in (42).
7.2.6.3. ka in main clauses

When ka occurs in main clauses, the clause often refers to an event posterior to the
time of reference, something which happens later than other events in the context. As
in subordinate clauses, the verb is often followed by a postverbal demonstrative.
In direct speech, the time of reference is the moment of speech; the ka-clause refers to
the future, but always the immediate or very near future:
(49) ꞌI ꞌOhovehi mātou ka noho nei ꞌātā ki te ŋaro haŋa o te pahī.
at Ohovehi 1PL.EXC CNTG stay PROX until to ART disappear NMLZ of ART ship
“We will stay in Ohovehi until the ship disappears (behind the horizon).”
(R210.083)
(50) ¿ꞌI hē tāua ka kimi nei i te tāua māmari?

at CQ 1DU.INC CNTG search PROX ACC ART 1DU.INC egg
“Where will we search for eggs?” (R245.199)
In these cases – different from the subordinate clauses in the previous section – the
temporal/aspectual reference of the clause is not determined by its relation to
surrounding clauses, but independently anchored in the non-linguistic context. For
example, (50) forms a complete speech, so the sentence has no direct linguistic
context. The contiguity marker indicates that the event is contiguous to the time of
reference, in this case, the moment of speech.
Posterior ka-clauses also occur in narrative contexts. These clauses describe events
which happen later than the main line of events. As in the examples above, the ka-
event is posterior to the time of reference (in this case, the main line of the story). An
example:
(51) ...he oho ararua ki Santiago ki te hare era o Maꞌatea. ꞌI ira hoꞌi
NTR go the_two to Santiago to ART house DIS of Ma’atea at PRO indeed
ka noho era.
CNTG stay DIS
“The two went to Santiago to the house of Ma’atea. There she would stay.”
(R210.221)
Sometimes two successive clauses are both marked with ka, indicating temporal
contiguity between the two events: one event marks the boundary of the other. In this
construction, the first clause is a temporal clause providing a time frame for the
second. The second clause is the main clause, but this can only be concluded on
semantic grounds; the clauses do not differ syntactically, except in their respective
order.
(52) Ka haka mao tū vānaŋa era a Moe, ka taŋi mai te oe
CNTG CAUS finish DEM speak DIS PROP Moe CNTG cry hither ART bell
mo oꞌo ananake ki te rāua hāpī.
for enter together to ART 3PL learn
“When Moe had finished speaking, the bell sounded for all to enter their
class.” (R315.075)
(53) Ka tuꞌu mai nei, e rāua mau ꞌana ka ꞌaꞌamu nei
CNTG arrive hither PROX AG 3PL really IDENT CNTG tell PROX
i te rāua ꞌati.
ACC ART 3PL problem
“When they arrived, they themselves told about their trouble.” (R361.035)
Finally, ka in main clauses is common after certain clause-initial particles, especially

deictic particles: ꞌī “here; right now”; ꞌai “there (→ 4.5.4.1); then”.
7.2.6.4. Other uses of ka

1. ka is used in an exclamative construction preceding adjectives (→ 10.4.1).
2. As discussed in the previous sections, ka is commonly used to indicate temporally
contiguous events. A natural derivative from this is its use to indicate alternatives.
When there are two alternative events or states, either of which can be true, they can
be expressed by two ka-clauses. An appropriate translation is “whether... or”.
(54) Ka ꞌuriꞌuri
- ka teatea
- te huruhuru, ko
- tū māhatu ꞌā.
CNTG black:RED CNTG white:RED ART hair heart IDENT PROM DEM
“Whether your hair is black or white, it’s the same heart.” (R211.078)
(55) O te taꞌatoꞌa mahana te aŋa nei e aŋa era ka rohirohi,
-
of ART all day ART work PROX IPFV do DIS CNTG tired:RED
ka taꞌe rohirohi.
-
CNTG NEG.CONS tired:RED

“The work was done every day, whether (you were) tired or not.” (R539-2.026)
7.2.6.5. Summary
ka can best be characterised as a contiguity marker: it marks events which are
temporally contiguous to events in a neighbouring clause. This means that the
temporal value of a ka-marked clause often depends on a preceding or following
clause; not surprising, ka often occurs in a subordinating clause, relating it temporally
to the main clause.
The ka-clause may also be related to an (implied) time of reference; it is usually
posterior to this reference time.
7.2.7. Perfect aspect ko – ꞌā

Perfect aspect is marked by the aspect marker ku/ko, in combination with the
continuous marker ꞌana or ꞌā (→ 7.2.5.5).
First an etymological note. The aspectual particle ko/ku reflects PPN *kua, which
serves as a perfect aspect marker in almost every Polynesian language (Clark
1976:30).329 It has the form kua in most languages; apart from Rapa Nui, only a few
other languages have dropped the final –a.330
In Rapa Nui both ku and ko are used as perfect aspect marker. On etymological
grounds, ku must be the original form, and indeed, in older texts only ku is found.
Today ko is prevalent, while the use of ku is limited to certain speakers.
ꞌā is a reduced form of ꞌana; the choice between both variants is free (→ 5.10). A verb
marked with ku/ko is always followed by ꞌana/ꞌā.
According to Comrie (1976), the perfect aspect relates a state to a preceding situation:
the perfect signals that a situation in the past has a continuing relevance in the
present.
In Rapa Nui, the perfect ko – ꞌā331 emphasizes a current state of affairs. With active
verbs, it refers to an event anterior to the time of reference, which has resulted in a
current situation. With stative verbs, it refers to the state of affairs itself, which has
started at some moment in the past. (In fact, with some verbs it is questionable
whether ko – ꞌā refers to the anterior event or to a resulting state, an ambiguity which
is inherent in the character of the perfect.) The time of reference may be in the
present, in the past, or in the future; in other words, ko – ꞌā has no temporal value.
In the following sections, different uses of the perfect aspect will be discussed.
329
Massam et al (2006:15) mistakenly assume that preverbal ko in Rapa Nui is the same particle
as the prominence marker ko. The historical data show that this cannot be the case.
330
All of the latter are outliers (e.g. Takuu, Kapingamarangi), except Marquesan (Zewen
1987:34) and Mangarevan (Janeau 1908:61), in which the –a is dropped before verbs having
more than two syllables.
331
Henceforth, ko – ꞌā is used as a shorthand for ko/ku – ꞌana/ꞌā.
7.2.7.1. Anterior events leading to a present situation

With active verbs, ko – ꞌā indicates that the action has taken place and has led to a
certain state of affairs which still holds at the time of reference. The time of reference
may be the present, in which case the action took place in the past. A few examples:
“My bread has been snatched by Te Manu.” (R245.039)
(57) ¿Ko kai ꞌā koe?
PRF eat CONT 2SG
“Have you eaten?” (R245.058)
(58) Ko haka moe ꞌana ꞌi rote ꞌōpītara.
PRF CAUS lie at inside_ART hospital
CONT
“They have put him into hospital.” (R210.122)
The time of reference may also be in the past. This happens especially in narrative,
where ko – ꞌā clauses relate events which have taken place anterior to theme line
events. The English equivalent is the pluperfect. The following example shows the
alternation between theme-line events (he) and anterior events (ko – ꞌā).
(59) He eꞌa tau poki era, he ꞌaꞌaru mai. Ku eꞌa
- ꞌā Kaiŋa,
NTR go_out DEM child DIS NTR grab hither PRF go_out CONT Kainga
ku kā ꞌā i te ꞌumu, he unu i tau moa era...
PRF kindle CONT ACC ART earth_oven NTR pluck ACC DEM chicken DIS
“The child went out and grabbed (the chickens). Kainga had already gone out
and lighted the fire for the earth oven; he plucked those chickens...” (Ley-8-
53.004)
The time of reference may be in the future: at a certain point in time something will
have happened.
(60) Ko eꞌa ꞌā te ŋā vārua era ana tuꞌu kōrua.
PRFgo_out CONT ART PL spirit DIS IRR arrive 2PL
“The spirits will have left when you arrive.” (R310.273)
Sometimes ko – ꞌā is used with action verbs without an anterior sense. The event takes
place not before, but at the time of reference; for example, it takes place at the same
time as events in the immediate context which are marked with he. In these cases ko –
ꞌā emphasizes the completed character of the event: the event is done as soon as it is
started. An example is the following.
(61) Hora hitu ko oꞌo ꞌā ki rote hare pure ki te pure.
hour seven PRF enter CONT at inside_ART house pray to ART prayer
“Seven o’clock they entered into the chapel for prayer.” (R210.140)
The perfect emphasizes that at seven o’clock the action of entering was over and done
with; in other words, it took place at exactly seven o’clock.
7.2.7.2. Present states

With stative verbs, ko – ꞌā is frequently used to indicate that a state of affairs has been
reached. Use of the perfect aspect suggests that some change has taken place, leading
to the situation at the time of reference; in other words, the situation has not always
been there, but is the result of some unspecified prior process.332
Here are a number of examples of ko – ꞌā with stative verbs.
(62) Ko veꞌaveꞌa ꞌā
- ꞌi te rahi o te māuiui.
-
PRF hot:RED CONT at ART much of ART sick

“She was hot because of her grave illness.” (R229.229)
(63) Ku pakapaka ꞌā- te henua. Ku oŋe ꞌā tātou.
PRF dry:RED CONT ART land
shortage CONT 1PL.INC
PRF
“The land is dry. We are in need.” (R352.116)
(64) Hora nei paꞌi ko veve ꞌā te taŋata.
time PROX in_fact PRF poor CONT ART person
“Now the people are poor.” (R250.128)
In all these cases ko – ꞌā retains its character as a perfect aspect marker: the present
situation is one which has not always existed, but which has come about at some
point, often quite recently.
The range of verbs which commonly take ko – ꞌā is wide. Roughly speaking, three
categories can be distinguished:
— Physical and mental states, including for example pain, sickness, anger, happiness.
Also included in this category are haꞌuru “to sleep”, ora “to live” (PRF “to recover”),
and mate “to die” (PRF “to be dead”), as well as verbs with a more active sense like kata
“to laugh”, taŋi “to cry”, ꞌekiꞌeki “to sob”.
-
(65) Ko mamae ꞌā tōꞌoku niho.

PRF pain CONT POSS.1SG.O
tooth
“My tooth hurts.” (R208.275)
(66) Kai eꞌa tū nuꞌu era ki haho; ko tataŋi ꞌana.
-
NEG.PFVgo_out DEM people DIS to outside PRF PL:cry CONT

“Those people did not go outside; they cried.” (R229.329)
(67) He manaꞌu e Puakiva ko haꞌuru ꞌana.
NTR think AG Puakiva PRF sleep CONT
“Puakiva thought that (Kava) was asleep.” (R229.292)
332
Cf. Comrie (1976:57): in many languages, present states are expressed using the perfect,
whereas in English, the present is used in such cases: Greek tethnēkenai, English “be dead”.
— Verbs of volition:
(68) A au ko pohe rivariva ꞌana mo haꞌuru.
-
PROP 1SG PRF desire good:RED CONT for sleep

“I really want to sleep.” (R229.246)
(69) Ko haŋa ꞌā a ia mo oho mo hāpī.
PRFwant CONT PROP 3SG for go for learn
“She wants to go to study.” (R210.066)
— Verbs of perception (esp. ŋaroꞌa “to hear/perceive”) and cognition:

(70) Ko ŋaroꞌa mai ꞌana ꞌō e au te hauꞌa huru kē
PRF perceive hither CONT really AG 1SG ART smell manner different
o te kai nei.
of ART food PROX
“I smell a strange smell of this food.” (R236.026)
(71) E nua, ꞌi te hora nei ko ꞌite ꞌana a au i te parautiꞌa.
VOCMum at ART time PROX PRF know CONT PROP 1SG ACC ART truth
“Mum, now I know the truth.” (R229.495)
Examples (69)–(71) show, that the use of the perfect aspect with a present sense is not
limited to prototypical stative verbs. Verbs like ꞌite, ŋaroꞌa and haŋa are clearly active:
they are transitive verbs, the subject of which can be marked with the agent marker e
(→ 8.3.1.2), yet they tend to have the perfect aspect marker.
7.2.7.3. ko – era ꞌā: “well and truly finished”

The verb phrase marked by ko – ꞌā may contain the demonstrative particle era. As
discussed in section 7.6.4, this particle indicates spatial or temporal distance. When
used in a perfect aspect clause, era underlines the temporal and conceptual distance
between the time of reference and the time at which the event took place: the action is
well and truly finished, possibly a considerably time ago.333 Often “already” is an
appropriate translation.
(72) ...he haro mai te kahi, he eꞌa ki ruŋa, ku mate era ꞌā.
NTR pull hither ART tuna NTR go_out to above PRF die DIS CONT
“...he pulled up the tuna, it came up, it had already died.” (Ley-6-44.041)
(73) ꞌI Colombia e ai rō ꞌana e tahi motu ko eꞌa era ꞌā
at Colombia IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM one island PRF go_out DIS CONT
333
This does not mean that ko – era ꞌā indicates a pluperfect, though it can be used in pluperfect
sense (7.2.7.1 above gives examples where ko – ꞌā marks pluperfect events).
ꞌi te matahiti 1991 te rāua rei o ruŋa i te inmigración.

at ART year 1991 ART 3PL law of above at ART immigration
“In Colombia there is an island where a law on immigration came out in 1991
already.” (R649.231)
7.2.7.4. Perfect ko – ꞌā versus perfective i

As discussed in 7.2.7.1above, ko – ꞌā marks anterior events leading to a present state.
Now it is worthwile to compare the use of perfect ko – ꞌā and perfective i. Both are
used to mark events in the (recent) past; to repeat two examples with i from 7.2.4.1:
(14) A au i oho mai nei ki a koe mo noho ōꞌoku ꞌi nei.
PROP 1SG PFV go
hither PROX to PROP 2SG for stay POSS.1SG.O at PROX
(15) Ko koe i rē.
PROM 2SG PFV win
“You have won.” (R210.071)
These examples illustrate a typical use of i: in many cases, i-marked clauses express not
just a past event, but an event which has a bearing on the present: the event has led to
a state which is relevant right now. For example, in (14), the subject has just arrived,
leading to a situation in the present; “I came” results in “I am here now”. And in (15),
“you won” means as much as “OK, I give in, you win”, i.e. it describes a current
situation, not just something which happened in the past. In other words, i is used in
situations which seem to be similar to (56)–(58) in the previous section, where perfect
aspect ko – ꞌā is used.
Now there is considerable variation between languages in the extent to which the
perfect is used (Comrie 1976:52ff). Examples such as the ones above suggest that in
Rapa Nui the perfect aspect is not used in all cases where a past event has resulted in a
current state of affairs. A tentative explanation is, that ko – ꞌā is used when the
emphasis is on the current state resulting from the event, while i is used whenever the
emphasis is on the event itself.
In this respect it is telling that the i-marked verb is often preceded by a subject (as in
(14)–(15)), while ko – ꞌā with event/action verbs334 either has a subject after the verb
or no subject at all; only very rarely is ko – ꞌā preceded by a subject. As the default
constituent order in Rapa Nui is verb—subject, initial subjects are more prominent
than subjects following the verb. If ko – ꞌā is more state-oriented while i is more event-
oriented, it is not unexpected that the agent of an i-marked verb tends to be more
prominent than the agent of a ko – ꞌā marked verb.
334
With stative verbs, ko – ꞌā does occur with preposed subjects. Using i with these verbs would
rule out a stative interpretation. ko – ꞌā also occurs with preverbal subjects after the deictic
particle ꞌī (→ 4.5.4.1.1).
7.2.7.5. Summary
ko (var. ku) is always accompanied by postverbal ꞌā (var. ꞌana). ko – ꞌā marks perfect
aspect: it indicates a situation holding at the time of reference, which has come about
in some way. A comparison with i-marked verbs shows, that ko – ꞌā is state-oriented,
while i is event-oriented.
This is confirmed by the fact that ko – ꞌā is used with a wide range of verbs which can
be characterised as stative.
7.2.8. Aspectuals and constituent order

There is a correlation between the use of aspectuals and constituent order. As a general
rule, when the clause contains a preverbal constituent, the range of aspectuals tends to
be limited to perfective i and imperfective e: i is used with past reference; e (followed
by a postverbal demonstrative (PVD) after the verb) is used when the reference is non-
past. The other aspectuals (he, ka and ko – ꞌā) are uncommon.
This tendency is very strong with preverbal non-subjects (1–5 below); in some
constructions (such as content questions and the actor-emphatic) it is even an absolute
rule. It is less strong with preverbal subjects (6 below).
1. Initial locative phrases; even when the clause expresses an event which is part of the
main story line, i is used rather than he.335
(74) [Mai Haŋa Roa] i iri ai ki ꞌŌroŋo.
from Hanga Roa PFV ascend PFV to Orongo
“From Hanga Roa he went up to Orongo.” (Ley-2-02.054)
2. Noun phrases containing a numeral have a strong tendency to be sentence-initial,

regardless their semantic relation to the verb; for example, they may be subject as in
(75), or adjunct as in (76). After such a preverbal constituent the verb tends to be
marked with i or e.
(75) [E rua nō hānau ꞌeꞌepe taŋata] i rere mai.
NUM two just race corpulent man PFV fly hither
“Only two men from the ‘corpulent race’ jumped.” (Mtx-3-02.038)
(76) [E tahi mahana taꞌatoꞌa] i aŋa ai mo ꞌauhau o tū ūtuꞌa
NUM one day all PFV work PVP for pay of DEM punishment
era ōꞌona.
DIS POSS.3SG.O
“One whole day he worked to pay his punishment.” (R250.026)
335
Temporal phrases, on the other hand, are commonly followed by he:
(i) ꞌI te rua raꞌā he uꞌi atu te hānau mo-moko...
at ART two day NTR look away ART race slender
“The next day, the ‘slender race’ saw...” (Ley-3-06.028)
3. After adverbial clause connectors like ꞌo ira “therefore”,336 pē nei “like this” and pē
ira “like that”:
(77) [ꞌO ira] i kī ai ko Ŋā Ihu More ꞌa Pua Katike.
because_of PRO PFV say PVP PROM Ŋā Ihu More ꞌa Pua Katike
“Therefore they were called Ŋā Ihu More ꞌa Pua Katike” (R310.253)
4. After question words like ꞌa ꞌai “who” and he aha “what, why”:
(78) ¿[ꞌA ꞌai] rā ia i uꞌi hakaꞌou rō atu?
of.A who INTENS then PFV look again away EMPH
“Who would have seen them again?” (R361.019)
(79) ¿[He aha] koe e taŋi ena?
PREDwhat 2SG IPFV cry MED
“Why are you crying?” (Mtx-7-12.024)
5. In the actor-emphatic construction, in which the verb is preceded by a possessive

expressing the Agent (→ 8.6.3):
(80) [O tōꞌona matuꞌa] i aŋa i te hare nei mo Puakiva.
of POSS.3SG.O parent make ACC ART house PROX for Puakiva
PFV
“It was her father who made this house for Puakiva.” (R229.269)
(81) [Māꞌau] e māuruuru ki a Pea hai ꞌīŋoa ōꞌoku.
BEN.1SG.A IPFV thank
to PROP Pea with name POSS.1SG.O
“You will thank Pea in my name.” (R229.086)
6. Preverbal subjects show a certain tendency to be followed by i or e:

(82) [A au] i oho mai nei ki a koe mo noho ōꞌoku ꞌi nei.
PROP 1SG PFV gohither PROX to PROP 2SG for stay POSS.1SG.O at PROX
However, preverbal subjects followed by he are by no means uncommon. For

examples, see (69) and (71) on p. 387f.
The only preverbal constituent which does not show a correlation with i and e, is the
negator ꞌina; as shown in 10.5.1, the verb in a clause negated with ꞌina is usually
marked with the neutral aspectual he.
336
ꞌo ira is sometimes followed by he, but other clause connectors are not.
7.3. Preverbal particles
7.3.1. rava “given to”

rava337 always precedes the verb. It indicates either that the action is performed on a
regular basis, or that the subject is inclined to perform the action. rava has a variant
vara; there is little – if any – difference between the two.
rava may occur in a verb phrase which serves as clause predicate:
(83) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō te hoko toru era e rava eꞌa era ananake?
NEG really ART NUM.PERS three DIS IPFV given_to go_out DIS together
“Don’t those three always go out together?” (R366.044)
However, this is not very common: usually rava + verb occurs after a noun, in a bare
relative clause. In these constructions, rava + V indicates an action which is not
performed at a certain point in time, but which characterizes the preceding noun. The
expression has therefore a relatively time-stable character. A few examples:338
(84) He tuꞌu mai te pahī rava maꞌu mai i te meꞌe mo roto
NTR arrive hither ART ship given_to carry hither ACC ART thing for inside
i te hare toa.
at ART hourse store
“The ship arrived which used to bring things for the store.” (R250.094)
(85) Te meꞌe rava aŋa o tātou ꞌi rā mahana he porotē.
ART thing given_to do of 1PL.INC at DIS day PRED parade
“What we always do on that day (=18 September, the national holiday) is
parading.” (R334.309)
(86) ¡Ka ꞌara, rava haꞌuru kē, kōrua!
IMP wake_up given_to sleep
different 2PL
“Wake up, you sleepyheads!” (Ley-4-05.008)
7.3.2. Degree modifiers

ꞌapa and ꞌata are degree modifiers, which precede the verb root.
ꞌapa (which is also a noun meaning “part, portion, piece”) indicates a moderate
degree: “somewhat, kind of”.339 It is often used with stative predicates, but found with
actions as well.
337
< PPN *lawa “sufficient, abundant, completed”; cognates in other languages are used as
predicate, not as premodifier. Some languages have a postmodifier < PNP *lawa, which has an
intensifying sense “very, completely”.
338
In (86), the noun is implied: “(the ones) given to sleeping”.
339
ꞌapa may be borrowed from Tahitian ꞌapa “half of a fish or animal, cut lengthwise” (Pa’umotu
kapa). Fischer (2001a:315) suggests it was borrowed from Tahitian ꞌafa “half” (which was itself
borrowed from English).
(87) Ko ꞌapa ora ꞌiti ꞌā a au.

PRF part live little CONT PROP 1SG
“I am somewhat recovered.” (R231.325)
(88) Te tiꞌaraꞌa nei he ‘r’ e ꞌapa huru kē rō ꞌā te kī iŋa
ART letter PROX PRED r IPFV part manner different EMPH CONT ART say NMLZ
ꞌi te ŋā ꞌarero nei ararua.
at ART PL tongue PROX the_two
“This letter ‘r’, its pronunciation is a little different in these two languages.”
(R616.145)
In (89), ꞌapa semantically quantifies the object: “we somewhat obtained X” = “we
obtained a few X” (cf. (93)–(94) for a similar use of ꞌata).
(89) Ko ꞌapa rovaꞌa mai ꞌā te meꞌe pāreherehe matā.
-
PRFpart obtain hither CONT ART thing piece:RED obsidian

“We obtained a few pieces of obsidian.” (R629.030)
ꞌata indicates a high degree, either comparative (“more”), superlative (“most”) or

absolute (“very; thoroughly”).340 It is used in comparative constructions with adjectives
(→ 3.5.1.1); with event verbs it is also used in a comparative sense, comparing the
intensity of the event to a previous situation: “more than before”.
(90) He ꞌata taŋi a Puakiva.
NTR more cry PROP Puakiva
“Puakiva cried even more (than before).” (R229.183)
(91) Ka ꞌata hāpī, ꞌina ko hakarē.
IMP more learn NEG NEG.IPFV leave
“Learn more, don’t neglect it.” (R242.093)
The comparison may also be with respect to a standard of comparison, though this
rarely happens. Below is an example; as with adjectives, the standard of comparison is
expressed with ki:
(92) ¡E Māria, ꞌata haꞌamaitai koe e te ꞌAtua ki te taꞌatoꞌa ŋā viꞌe.
VOC Mary more bless 2SG AG ART God
to ART all PL woman
“Mary, you are more blessed by God than all women.” (Luke 1:42)
One could wonder if the verb has been adjectivised here; notice however that the
Agent phrase e te ꞌAtua is introduced by e, which suggests that haꞌamaitai retains its
status of an agentive verb.
340
Cognates occur in several EP languages. These are preverbal as in Rapa Nui, but only have an
absolute sense: “carefully, slowly” (Pollex; Elbert & Pukui 1979:74 for Hawaiian aka, Bauer
1993:92 for Maori aata). Possibly it occurs in SO languages as well: Besnier (2000:188) mentions
a preverbal particle ata “properly, in moderation” in Tuvaluan, though only one example is
provided, where it is part of an idiom.
With transitive verbs, ꞌata may indicate a multiplication of the object. For example, in
(93) ꞌata semantically modifies tāropa: “more baskets”.341
(93) E ꞌata maꞌu te tāropa ana oho koe.
EXH more carry ART basket IRR go 2SG
“Take more baskets when you go.” (MsE-064.013)
(94) ¡ꞌĒē, ka ꞌata ao mai ki a au!
yes more serve_food hither to PROP 1SG
IMP
“Yes please, serve me some more.” (R535.098)
ꞌata may also be used in a superlative sense:

(95) Te artículo ꞌata pāpaꞌi o tātou he ‘he’ ꞌe he ‘te’.
ART article more write of 1PL.INC PRED he
and PRED te
“The articles we write most, are he and te.” (R616.719)
The exact position of ꞌata and ꞌapa in relation to other preverbal elements varies,
depending on their respective scope.
1. With causative verbs, the degree modifier usually occurs before the causative prefix
haka, as in (96): “more [cause to be strong]”. However, it may also occur after haka, in
which case haka has scope over the degree modifier. This is illustrated in (97): “cause
to be [more intelligent]”.
(96) Ko ꞌata haka pūai ꞌana te reꞌo o Roŋotakahiu e pātaꞌutaꞌu era.
-
PRF more CAUS strong CONT ART voice of Rongotakahiu IPFV recite DIS
“Rongotakahiu sang louder (lit. strengthened his voice more when singing).”
(R476.014)
(97) ...te tire e haŋa rō ꞌā mo haka ꞌata māramarama i - a rāua.

ART Chilean IPFV want EMPH CONT for CAUS more intelligent ACC PROP 3PL
“...Chileans who want to pass themself off as smarter (lit. to cause them to be
smarter).” (R428.006)
2. With the constituent negator taꞌe, either the negator or the degree particle may
come first. In (98) the negator comes first and has scope over ꞌata: “not [more high]”.
In (99), ꞌapa has scope over the negation: “somewhat [not listening]”.
(98) Te tāvini taꞌe ꞌata hau ki te taŋata haka aŋa i a ia.
ART servant NEG.CONS more exceed to ART man CAUS work ACC PROP 3SG
“A servant is not higher than his master (lit. the man who makes him work).”
(Mat. 10:24)
(99) Te māmoe nei māmoe vara kori ꞌe ꞌapa taꞌe hakaroŋo.

ART sheep PROX sheep
usually play and part NEG.CONS listen
“This lamb used to play and was somewhat disobedient.” (R536.009)
341
Cf. the use of tahi and rahi in the verb phrase, sec. 4.4.9 and 4.4.7.2.
7.4. Evaluative markers
The evaluative markers nō and rō occur in the same position in the verb phrase; they
are mutually exclusive.
7.4.1. The limitative marker nō

nō originates in PPN *noa, which occurs as a postverbal marker in a number of
languages throughout Polynesia. Rapa Nui is the only language in which the vowel
sequence oa assimilated to ō, apart from Hawaiian (Elbert & Pukui 1979:100).
nō is a limitative marker; its basic sense is “nothing else”.342 The particle has several
uses, which can all be related to this basic sense: “simply, just” (nothing more), “still”
(a lack of change), “even so, yet” (something happens, despite expectations to the
contrary).
In this section, the use of nō in the verb phrase is discussed. nō also occurs after other
parts of speech, which are discussed elsewhere: nouns (→ 5.9.2), numerals (→ 4.3.2.4)
and quantifiers (→ 4.4.10).
nō may indicate that something just happens, without anything more. The implication
is that something else or something more could happen, but does not actually happen.
The context tells what this “something else” would be:
(100) ꞌIna a Tiare kai mate; ko rerehu nō ꞌā.
-
NEG PROP Tiare NEG.PFV die PRF faint just CONT

“Tiare was not dead; she had just fainted.” (R481.086)
(101) Māꞌaku ꞌā e aŋa tahi; ka oho nō kōrua.
BEN.1SG.A IDENT IPFV do all IMP go just 2PL
“I myself will do everything; you guys just go.” (R236.010)
nō in this sense “just” may have the connotation “without further ado, without
thinking, without taking other considerations into account”.
(102) ¿Kai haꞌamā koe i toꞌo nō koe i te mauku mo taꞌo
NEG.PFV ashamed 2SG PFV take just 2SG ACC ART grass for cook
i taꞌa ꞌumu?
ACC POSS.2SG.A earth_oven
“Weren’t you ashamed, that you just took the grass to (as fuel) to cook your
earth oven (without asking, even though the grass was mine)?” (R231.186)
342
Cf. Lazard & Peltzer (2000:146) on Tahitian noa: their basic gloss is “ne faire que”, from
which they derive the different uses of noa, which largely parallel those of Rapa Nui nō.
(103) Te meꞌe nō, ku oho nō ꞌā ki tai hī.

ART thing just PRF go just CONT to sea fish.V
“(Nowadays people don’t consider the moon and the wind.) On the contrary,
they just go out to sea to fish.” (R354.026)
In the previous examples, a contrast is implied between what happens and what could
have happened. Sometimes this sense of contrast is more prominent; the clause has a
connotation of counterexpectation: “even so, no matter, still”.343
(104) ...e māuiui nō ꞌana te ŋā poki.
IPFV sick just CONT ART PL child
“(Nowadays there are all kinds of things to take care of children,) but even so,
children get sick.” (R380.138)
“Even if I have many children, I will still take care of them myself.” (R229.023)
nō may be used in a continuous clause, emphasizing that the action is still going on. In
this sense, it is often used with the imperfective e.
(106) He uꞌi i a Vaha, e oho nō mai era, e ꞌamo nō mai era
NTR look ACC PROP Vaha IPFV go just hither DIS IPFV carry just hither DIS
i te poki tiŋaꞌi era.
ACC ART child kill DIS
“He saw Vaha, who was still going and carrying the killed child.” (Mtx-3-
01.144)
(107) ꞌI te pōꞌā e oho era ki tāꞌana aŋa e haꞌuru nō ꞌā a Eva.

at ART morning IPFV go DIS to POSS.3SG.A work IPFV sleep
just CONT PROP Eva
“In the morning he went to his work, when Eva was still sleeping.” (R210.025)
An action marked with nō is often unremarkable, routine, expected: something is

simply going on, nothing significant has happened (yet). Often, the verb phrase
expresses a lack of change with respect to a previous situation: the same thing
described earlier is still going on. In this sense, nō is common in progressive cohesive
clauses (→ (213) on p. 536):
(108) E iri nō ꞌā he takeꞌa e Te Manu e tahi hōŋaꞌa māmari.
IPFV ascend just CONT NTR see AG Te Manu NUM one nest eggs
“(The two went up and looked for eggs...) While they were still going up,
Manu saw a nest with eggs.” (R245.202f)
As discussed in section 5.9.2, nō in the noun phrase often serves to limit the reference
of a noun phrase. Occasionally, nō in the verb phrase has the same effect.344 In (109),
343
A contrastive sense of nō is also found in expressions like Te meꞌe nō “however” (→ (150) on
p. 255) and in the conjunction nōatu (→ 11.6.7).
nō occurs after the (nominalised) verb kai, signalling that the object noun phrase has
limited reference.
(109) Ko haꞌumani ꞌana ꞌi te kai iŋa nō i te moa.
PRF bored at ART eat NMLZ just ACC ART chicken
CONT
“I’m tired of eating only chicken.” (R229.123)
After certain adjectival predicates, nō signals that the object described has only the
property in question, implicitly excluding other properties: “just, altogether”. So while
being fundamentally limitative in nature, nō in these cases underlines and emphasizes
the property expressed by the adjective: the object is entirely characterised by this
property, to the exclusion of anything else. This use is only found with adjectives
expressing a positive evaluation, like rivariva “good”, nene “sweet, delicious”, tau
-
“pretty”. The adjective is preceded by the aspectual he.

(110) ꞌIna he maŋeo, he nene nō.
NEG NTR sour NTR sweet just
“(The orange) was not sour, just sweet.” (Egt-02.135)
(111) Te pahī nei, he nehenehe nō.-
ART ship PROX NTR beautiful just

“This ship was just beautiful.” (R239.022)
Notice that English “just” can be used in the same way, as the translation of (111)
shows.
7.4.2. The asseverative marker rō

rō is an asseverative particle. It serves to underline the reality of the event and/or its
significance in the course of events. (See also R. Weber 2003:41.) While nō underlines
the expected, routine nature of the event (for example, because the situation has not
changed), rō underlines its significance, newsworthiness. In pragmatic terms: while nō
indicates a low information load, rō indicates a high information load. In view of the
diversity of its uses, rō is glossed EMPH(atic).345
Like nō, rō is the result of vowel assimilation: it is derived from PNP *loa. Unlike nō, rō
is not used in the noun phrase, but it does occur occasionally in numeral phrases (→
(28) on p. 145).
344
Cf. the use of tahi “all”, which occurs in the verb phrase but determines the reference of a
noun phrase in the clause (→ 4.4.9).
345
Du Feu (1996:37) characterises rō as a realis particle, glossed as [+REA]; contrasted with rā
[-REA]. She points out that rā is for example used in imperatives, when the speaker has no
control over the outcome; rō, on the other hand, is for example used in 1st person imperatives (=
hortatives) where speaker has greater control over the realisation of the event. While this is only
part of the picture, and while rō is actually not in a paradigmatic relation with the intensifier rā
(→ 4.5.4.4), this correctly underlines the asseverative character of rō.
In the verb phrase, rō is used in certain well-defined contexts, which are discussed
elsewhere in this grammar:
— he – rō ꞌai (→ 7.2.3.3), a construction which marks pivotal or climactic events in a
narrative and events with a certain emotional intensity.
— e – rō, which marks future events (→ 7.2.5.3). One could say that by using e – rō,
the speaker stresses the real, non-hypothetical character of the future event.
— ka – rō (→ 11.6.2.5), a construction indicating the upper limit of an event (“until”).
— the existential e ai rō ꞌā (→ 9.3.1), which states the existence of a person of object
which is new in the discourse, and therefore carries a high information load.
— after ꞌo “lest” (→ 11.5.4).
But rō is not limited to these constructions. Generally speaking, rō marks events which
are significant in discourse, for example because they are the culmination of a series of
events, or because they change the course of events. This happens in the he – rō ꞌai
construction mentioned above; it is also found with i – ai (→ 7.6.5). In the following
example, Kainga produces a spear point which will play an important role in the
events to follow.
(112) ꞌI rā pō ꞌā a Kaiŋa... i aŋa rō ai e tahi matā rivariva.
-
at DIS night IDENT PROP Kainga make EMPH PVP NUM one obsidian good:RED
PFV
“In that night Kainga made a good obsidian spearpoint.” (R304.015)
Events may also be significant by way of contrast:

(113) A Pea e ko rivariva mo hāpaꞌo i
- a Puakiva;
PROP Pea IPFV NEG.IPFV good:RED for care_for ACC PROP Puakiva
e oho rō ꞌā ki te aŋa.
IPFV go EMPH CONT to ART work
“Pea was not able to take care of Puakiva; (rather,) he used to go to work.”
(R229.005)
rō may emphasize the reality of a situation: “really”.346

(114) Te parautiꞌa, e haŋa rō ꞌā a au ki a kōrua ko koro.
ART truth love EMPH CONT PROP 1SG to PROP 2PL
IPFV PROM Dad
“The truth is, I do love you and Dad.” (R229.498)
(115) A nua e koa rō ꞌā ꞌi tū poki era ꞌāꞌana.
Mum IPFV happy EMPH CONT at DEM child DIS POSS.3SG.A
PROP
“Mum was really happy with her child.” (R250.055)
When rō emphasizes the reality of the clause, there may be a connotation of

counterexpectation. In (116) this happens in a question, in (117) as reply to a
question.
346
Examples such as (114) might suggest that rō means “very”. However, rō (unlike Tahitian roa)
is not a common way to express a high degree; rather, this is expressed using hopeꞌa “last” or
riꞌariꞌa “terribly”.
-
(116) ¿E haŋa rō koe mo oho ki hiva mo hāpī?

IPFV want EMPH 2SG for go to continent for learn
“Do you (really) want to go to the continent to study?” (R210.010)
(117) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō pēaha kai ŋaroꞌa e te nuꞌu hūrio i te roŋo
NEG really perhaps NEG.PFV perceive AG ART people Jew ACC ART message
rivariva o te
- ꞌAtua? I ŋaroꞌa rō.
good:RED of ART God PFV perceive EMPH
“Have the Jews perhaps not heard the good news about God? They have heard
it.” (Rom. 10:18)
In several of the examples above, rō occurs in the common construction e – rō ꞌā,

which expresses an ongoing event or situation (→ 7.2.5.4). In this construction the
asseverative sense of rō is not always clear. Sometimes the clause does convey new,
unexpected or even surprising information, as in the following example, where the
subject does a somewhat unexpected discovery:
(118) I ꞌara mai ai, ꞌi rote piha e tahi e moe rō ꞌā...
PFVwake_up hither PVP at inside_ART room NUM one IPFV lie EMPH CONT
“When she woke up, she was lying in a room...” (R210.090)
But in other cases the information load of the e – rō ꞌā clause does not seem to be
particularly high:
(119) Mo uꞌi atu o te ŋā poki ki a Taparahi e haꞌere rō ꞌā
if look away of ART PL child to PROP Taparahi IPFV walk EMPH CONT
a te ara he riꞌariꞌa. -
by ART road NTR afraid

“When the children saw Taparahi walking by the road, they were afraid.”
(R250.190)
Possibly, the sense of rō in this construction is weakened, and e – rō ꞌā has been

developing into a fossilised construction expressing the ongoing duration of a
situation.
7.4.3. Conclusion
To give a general characterisation of rō and nō, one could say that they indicate the
cognitive status of the information given in the clause: nō indicates that the clause
expresses something unchanged, which is often expected or even routine; rō indicates
that the clause expresses something new and unexpected, which may even be
surprising. rō is reminiscent of a “mirative” marker (Payne 1977:255), though it may
not be as strong as elements that have been identified as miratives in other languages.
Even though rō and nō are in a way opposites, both may involve counterexpectation.
That rō would express counterexpectation is no surprise, but nō may involve a hint of
counterexpectation as well: a situation continues to be true or an expected event still
happens, despite factors to the contrary.
7.5. Directionals
The directionals mai and atu indicate direction with respect to a certain deictic centre
or locus:
• mai indicates movement towards the deictic centre, hence the gloss “hither”;
• atu indicates movement away from the deictic centre, hence the gloss “away”.
mai and atu are the only reflexes in Rapa Nui of a somewhat larger system of
directionals in Proto-Polynesian.347
The movement indicated by directionals may be of different kinds. Three common
types are:
• movement of the Agent, with motion verbs like oho “go”;
• movement of the Patient or another participant, with transfer verbs like vaꞌai
“give”, toꞌo “take”, or verbs of carrying like maꞌu “carry”.
• flow of information from one participant to another, with speech verbs like kī
“say”.
The last type of movement is a metaphorical extension of the idea of movement. Other
metaphorical extensions are possible, as will be shown below.
In 7.5.1, the main uses of directionals are discussed, mainly based on three narrative
texts (all of which include a considerable amount of direct speech). In 7.5.2, statistics
are presented for the use of directionals with certain categories of verbs in the text
corpus as a whole. Finally, 7.5.3 raises the question which factors prompt the use of a
directional.
7.5.1. Use of directionals

7.5.1.1. In direct speech
As indicated in the previous section, directionals signal movement with respect to a
deictic centre. In direct speech, the deictic centre is usually the speaker. This means
that in a conversation, mai usually indicates a movement towards the speaker as in
(120) below, while atu indicates a movement away from the speaker. The latter
movement may be towards the addressee as in (121), or away from the speaker in
another direction as in (122).
(120) ¿Ko ai koe e eke mai ena?
PROM who 2SG IPFV go_up hither MED
“Who are you (who are) coming up?” (R304.084)
347
Clark (1976:34) identifies five directionals in PPN: *mai “toward speaker”, *atu “away from
speaker”, *hake “upward”, *hifo “downward”, *ange “along, obliquely”. Most languages
preserved at least three of these, Rapa Nui only two. *hifo was retained as iho; however, this
developed into an adverb meaning “just then” (→ 4.5.3.1).
Ultimately, mai and atu stem from a set of directional verbs in POc, which were used as the final
verb in a serial verb construction (Ross 2004:194).
(121) ꞌĪ au he oho atu.

IMM 1SG NTR go away
“I am coming (towards you) right now.” (R152.010)
(122) He eꞌa atu a au ꞌi te hora nei.
NTR go_out away PROP 1SG at ART time now
“I am going away now.” (R245.017)
In the next examples, it is the direct object which moves: towards the speaker in (123),
away from the speaker towards the addressee in (124).
(123) ¡Ka hoa mai a nei!
IMP throw hither by PROX
“Throw (the body) here!” (R304.060)
(124) ¡Ka haro atu!
IMP pull away
“Pull (the net, from here) towards you!” (R304.135)
In the following examples, there is no physical movement of a participant or object,
but a flow of information from the speaker to the addressee. In (125) the speaker is the
subject, so the information moves away from the speaker; hence the use of atu. In
(126) the speaker is addressed by the subject of the clause, so the flow of information
is directed towards the speaker; hence the use of mai.
(125) ꞌO ira e haka ꞌite atu ena i te roŋo rivariva nei.
-
because_of PRO IPFV CAUS know away MED ACC ART message good:RED PROX
“Therefore (I) make this good news known (to you).” (Acts 13:32)
(126) ¿He aha rā nei o te meꞌe nei a koro ka kī mai nei?
PREDwhat INTENS PROX of ART thing PROX PROP Dad CNTG say hither PROX
“What is this thing that Dad is saying (to us)?” (R313.007)
The movement may also be more implicit. The following example is spoken by
fishermen, who tell what often happens to them: a tuna will come up towards them
(i.e. towards the speaker, mai), but then it will cut the line. The last verb “to cut” is not
a motion verb, yet the verb is followed by atu: the action implies that the tuna swims
away from the fishermen, i.e. away from the deictic centre.
(127) ...te kahi era ꞌi raro ꞌā, e iri mai era,
ART tuna DIS at below IDENT IPFV ascend hither DIS
he motu rō atu ꞌai te kahi.
NTR cut EMPH away SUBS ART tuna
“...the tuna deep below, which when it comes up, the tuna cuts (the line).”
(R368.024)
As directionals indicate the direction of movement of a participant, object, or

information, a directional may be sufficient to indicate the recipient, addressee or goal
of an event: kī mai “say toward” indicates that something was said to me (or us).
Therefore, the recipient, addressee or goal does not need to be stated separately.348
This is the case in (126) above and in (128) below:
(128) —¡A Te Manu hoꞌi i kī mai mo turu o māua!
PROP Te Manu indeed PFV say hither for go_down of 1DU.EXC
—¡ꞌĒē, a Te Manu hoꞌi i kī atu!
yes PROP Te Manu indeed PFV say away
“—Te Manu said (to me) that we (=he and I) should go down! —OK, so Te
Manu told (you)!” (R245.221)
When the subject is also left implicit, the directional mai or atu may be the only clue
for participant reference. In (129), the subject is not expressed. atu indicates that the
request was directed from the speaker (“we”) to Meherio, while the help requested
went from Meherio to the speaker.349
(129) ꞌĀmui i a Meherio e kī atu era... mo hāꞌūꞌū mai,
moreover at PROP Meherio IPFV say away DIS for help hither
ꞌina he hāꞌūꞌū rō mai.
NEG NTR help EMPH hither
“Moreover, when (we) told Meherio to help (us), (she) didn’t help (us).”
(R315.031)
In the examples so far, atu indicates either a movement from speaker to addressee, or a
movement away from speaker and hearer in an unspecified direction as in (122).350
However, atu does not always imply a movement away from the speaker: it may
indicate a movement from another place or participant towards the addressee. The
following examples illustrate this.
(130) Mo haŋa ōꞌou mo haŋa atu o tētahi manu era, e haŋa raꞌe e koe.
if want POSS.2SG.O for love away of other bird DIS EXH love first AG 2SG
“If you want other birds to love you, you should love (them) first.” (R213.050)
(131) E tuꞌu hakaꞌou atu ꞌā a Hoto Vari,
IPFV arrive again away CONT PROP Hoto Vari
e haka poreko hakaꞌou atu ꞌā hai ꞌarero...
IPFV stick_out again away CONT INST tongue
“When Hoto Vari comes again (to you), and sticks out his tongue (to you)...”
(R304.020)
348
For this reason, Wittenstein (1978:4) calls mai and atu in Rapa Nui “directional pronouns”.
349
The start of the sentence is syntactically unusual. The syntax of ꞌāmui (a borrowing from
Tahitian, where it is a verb “to get together, be united”) is very flexible in Rapa Nui. In this case
a Tahitian construction seems to be used, in which i N VP (“to/at me said”) may function as a
temporal clause (“when I said”); this construction is not attested otherwise in Rapa Nui.
350
As mentioned above, according to Clark (1976:34), *atu in PPN means “away from the
speaker”.
An example like (131) is striking, because it is not at all clear how the location of
origin can be considered the deictic centre: the place where Hoto Vari comes from, is
not relevant at all in the story; it is not even mentioned. In other words, the use of atu
seems to be motivated entirely by its destination (the second person), not by a deictic
centre. This may thus be an exception to the rule (formulated e.g. by Hooper
(2002:285) for Tokelauan) that the use of directionals always implies the existence of a
deictic centre.
These example also show that the sense of atu cannot be captured in a single
definition: atu does not always express movement away from the speaker (see (130)–
(131)), but neither does it always express movement towards the addressee (see
(122)). Either one is a sufficient criterion for using atu; neither is a necessary criterion.
7.5.1.2. In third-person contexts

The previous section discussed contexts where a speaker and/or addressee is involved
and where movement takes place with respect to the speaker or addressee. As we saw,
in these cases mai indicates movement towards the speaker, while atu indicates
movement away from the speaker and/or towards the addressee.
Directionals are also used in third-person contexts, where no speaker or addressee is
involved. In such cases, movement does not take place from the perspective of the
speaker; rather, the deictic centre is a participant or location in the text. The speaker
positions himself (and the hearers) at a certain location or near a certain participant,
and events are regarded from the point of view of that location or participant.
There are no fixed rules for determining the deictic centre: it is to a certain extent up
to the narrator to choose the perspective from which the text world is regarded.351 The
deictic centre may be fairly constant throughout the story, or it may shift with each
scene or even from sentence to sentence. Speakers may have a preference to identify
the deictic centre with one central participant, or to vary the point of view. Speakers
may also show a preference for mai or atu with certain verbs or classes of verbs,
regardless the context and the subject of the verb.
In other words, there are no hard and fast rules for the use of directionals. However,
certain clear tendencies can be observed. In this section some of these tendencies are
discussed from individual stories, while section 7.5.2 gives statistical data from the
whole text corpus. These statistics reveal a number of general tendencies and also
show a number of diachronic shifts in the use of directionals.
7.5.1.2.1. Example 1: a stable deictic centre

Nuahine Rima Roa, “The old lady with the long arms” (R368), is a story about an old
woman with enormous arms, who terrorises the village by stealing food, but who is
eventually tricked into defeat by a group of fishermen. In this story, there is one
central participant, the old lady; the other participants are hardly mentioned as
351
Tchekhoff (1990:105) likewise stresses optionality and subjectivity for the use of directional
particles in Tongan.
individuals (they mostly act as a group), let alone mentioned by name. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the deictic centre in most of the story is the old lady. Events
are regarded from the perspective of wherever the old lady is. Numerous examples
could be given, such as the following:
(132) He raꞌe maꞌu mai era i te kai...
PREDfirst carry hither DIS ACC ART food
“They first brought food (to her)...” (R368.006)
(133) ꞌI te ꞌao era ꞌā o tū raꞌā era, he oho mai he tuꞌu mai
at ART dawn DIS IDENT of DEM day DIS NTR go hither NTR arrive hither
ki tū rūꞌau era.
to DEM old_woman DIS
“In the morning of that day, they came and arrived at that old lady.”
(R368.063)
In direct speeches in the story the situation is different: here the deictic centre is the
speaker, whether this is the old lady or another participant. But even outside direct
speech, not all directionals in this story presuppose the old lady as deictic centre. In
the following example, the men come out of the house of the old lady, i.e. they move
away from her; yet mai is used:
(134) I eꞌa hakaꞌou mai era tū ŋāŋata era mai te hare era
PFV go_out again hither DIS DEM men DIS from ART house DIS
o tū rūꞌau era...
of DEM old_woman DIS
“When those men came out again of the house of that old woman...”
(R368.056)
This apparent exception to the rule may have to do with a general tendency of the
verb eꞌa “go out” to be followed by mai rather than atu. As discussed in 7.5.2 below,
eꞌa commonly takes mai while it rarely takes atu; a similar tendency is discernible for
other motion verbs. This means that the directional after eꞌa tends to point to the
destination, the place where the subject is going to, as the centre of attention. In this
way it provides the reader/hearer with a subtle signal that this location is significant
as the location where the next events are going to happen. Notice that in (134) above,
eꞌa mai occurs in a cohesive clause, which provides a bridge between the previous
scene (in the house) and the next one (in the village). mai contributes to paving the
way for the change of location and the next scene.
Such examples show that even in a narrative with one protagonist around whom the
action revolves, the narrator may use directionals as a device to focus the hearer’s
attention on locations relevant in the development of the story.
7.5.1.2.2. Example 2: a shifting deictic centre

The story He via o te Tūpāhotu “The life of the Tupahotu” (R304) tells about wars
between two major tribes on the island, the Miru and the Tupahotu. There are various
protagonists: Huri a Vai and his father Kainga of the Miru tribe, Hoto Vari and his
father Poio of the Tupahotu tribe. These protagonists, as well as a few other characters,
alternate in prominence in different parts of the story, and the deictic centre shifts
accordingly.
In the first part of the story, the focus is on Huri a Vai. Not only is he mentioned more
than other characters, the directionals point towards him as the deictic centre:
NTR see ACC PROP Hoto Vari CNTG approach hither
“(Huri a Vai) saw Hoto Vari coming towards him.” (R304.004)
Now what if the movement concerns the protagonist himself, i.e. when Huri a Vai
himself moves to a different location? Levinsohn (2007:142–143) points out that in
such cases, languages tend to use one of two strategies: the deictic centre is either a
fixed geographical location or it is the next location, i.e. the destination of the
movement. As it turns out, in Rapa Nui narrative the second strategy is predominant:
when the protagonist moves, mai is used to point to the location where the next events
are going to happen.352 The following example illustrates this:
(136) I ahiahi
- era he hoki mai a Huri ꞌa Vai ki te kona hare era.
PFV afternoon DIS NTR return hither PROP Huri a Vai to ART place house DIS
“In the afternoon, Huri a Vai returned home.” (R304.009)
This corresponds to a general tendency in Rapa Nui: motion verbs are much more
commonly followed by mai than by atu, as shown in section 7.5.2 below.
In the remainder of the story, the deictic centre shifts between various participants and
locations. Sometimes one of the major participants is the deictic centre for a while; in
the following example, four consecutive verbs are all followed by a directional
pointing towards Kainga, one of the protagonists, as deictic centre:
(137) ꞌĪ ka uꞌi atu ena ko te ꞌata o te taŋata ka kohu mai
IMM CNTG look away MED PROM ART shadow of ART man CNTG shade hither
ꞌi muꞌa i a ia. I hāhine mai era ki muri i a ia,
at front at PROP 3SG PFV near hither DIS to near at PROP 3SG
he ꞌui atu...
NTR ask away
“Then (Kainga) saw the shadow of a man falling in front of him. When (that
man) was close to him, (Kainga) asked...” (R304.095f)
The deictic centre may also be a minor participant, provided this participant is
significant in the scene in question. See (138) in the next section for an example.
7.5.1.3. Directionals with speech verbs

Directionals in Rapa Nui are commonly used in clauses introducing direct speech (“he
said: ...”). In such clauses, various strategies are possible:
352
In the preceding section, the same tendency was observed in the story Nuahine Rima Roa; see
example (134) and discussion.
1. do not use a directional;

2. use mai, designating the addressee as deictic centre;
3. use atu, designating the speaker as deictic centre;
4. in a dialogue, use mai with one speaker and atu with the other, i.e. one
speaker is the deictic centre throughout.
All these strategies are used to various degrees in Rapa Nui discourse. Strategy 1 is
dominant overall: as the statistics in the next section will show, about 70% of all
speech verbs in the corpus do not have a directional. In this section, the other
strategies are illustrated from a couple of texts.
In the story He via (R304), discussed in the previous section, a mix of strategies is used.
In the following short conversation, the directionals all point towards Oho Takatore as
deictic centre (strategy 4). Oho Takatore is not a central participant in the story as a
whole, but his presence is crucial at this point.
(138) He raŋi atu ia e ꞌOho Takatore... Terā ia ka pāhono mai
NTR call away then AG Oho Takatore then then CNTG answer hither
e Poio... I raŋi mai era e Poio pē ira...
AG Poio PFV call hither DIS AG Poio like PRO
“Oho Takatore shouted... Then Poio answered... When Poio had called out like
that...” (R304.058-063)
In the following conversation, the deictic centre shifts halfway: in the first two clauses,
Kainga is the deictic centre, but then it shifts to Vaha (strategies 2+4).
(139) He ꞌui atu... Terā, ka pāhono mai e Vaha... He pāhono mai ia
NTR ask away then CNTG answer hither AG Vaha NTR answer hither then
e Kāiŋa...
AG Kainga
“(Kainga) asked... Vaha replied... Kainga then replied...” (R304.096)
These examples show that the speaker has the choice from a variety of strategies.
In another story, Rāꞌau o te rūꞌau ko Mitimiti “Medicine of the old woman Mitimiti”
-
(R313), the narrator has a general preference for atu, both with speech verbs and other
verbs (though not without exceptions). The general pattern in this story is for the first
turn in a conversation to be unmarked or marked with mai, whereas the following
turns are marked with atu (strategy 3).
(140) He kī o koro... ꞌE he kī takoꞌa atu te reꞌo o nua... He pāhono
NTR say of Dad and NTR say also away ART voice of Mum NTR answer
atu ia te reꞌo o tū ŋā repa era... He kī hakaꞌou atu ia
away then ART voice of DEM PL young_man DIS NTR say again away then
te reꞌo o koro...
ART voice of Dad
“Dad said... And Mum’s voice also said... The voice of those youngsters
replied... Dad’s voice said again...” (R313.009ff)
In this text, then, atu functions as a sort of continuance marker, marking the next step
in a series of speech turns.353
7.5.1.4. Lack of movement: more metaphorical uses

So far, various uses of directionals have been discussed in which some kind of physical
or metaphorical movement takes place: movement of a participant or object, or a flow
of speech. This section deals with the use of directionals in cases where no movement
seems to be involved. In these cases the use of directionals is extended even further
than the metaphorical senses discussed so far. Various metaphorical extensions are
possible, depending on the verb involved and subject to speaker preference. The
examples discussed here do not cover all possibilities, but serve to illustrate the wide
range of metaphorical uses of directionals.
Directionals may occur with verbs that do not indicate any movement, nor a transitive
action, but rather the absence of movement. In He via (R304), a directional is used
twice with the verb piko “to hide (intr.)”, once mai and once atu:
(141) ...tū pū era o Huri ꞌa Vai e piko mai era ꞌi roto.
DEM hole DIS of Huri a Vai IPFV hide hither DIS at inside
“...the hole where Huri a Vai was hiding.” (R304.044)
(142) He eꞌa he oho mai a tū ara era ꞌi ira a Kāiŋa e piko atu era.
NTR go_out NTR go hither by DEM way DIS at PRO PROP Kainga IPFV hide away DIS
“(Vaha) came out by that road where Kainga was hiding.” (R304.094)
There is a clear difference between these two examples: in (141), Huri a Vai is hiding
from his enemies, he is lying low to avoid being detected. In (142), Kainga is not just
hiding away; he is lying in ambush, waiting for Vaha to come by. In other words, the
hiding in (141) is self-directed, oriented inwards, while the hiding in (142) is outward-
looking, with the attention away from the person hiding. It is no coincidence that in
the first case mai is used, indicating orientation towards the subject as deictic centre,
while in the second case atu is used, pointing away from the subject. In other texts as
well, piko mai is commonly used when people hide from others, while piko atu is used
of people lying in ambush, spying on someone else (cf. Fuller 1980:12). While there is
no movement involved, the directionals indicate orientation with respect to the
deictic centre.354
353
This use may be influenced by Tahitian, where atu ra and mai ra are extremely common to
mark the next event in a narrative (see e.g. Lazard & Peltzer 2000:134).
354
Hooper (2004:1751) discusses a similar function of directionals in Tokelauan. She points out
(with reference to Jackendoff 1983) that a path (i.e. a directional movement) may play various
roles: an object may traverse a path, but it may also be oriented along a path, facing an entity (in
this case, the deictic centre).
Directionals are also found with the verb noho “to sit, stay”, a verb which would seem
to epitomize lack of movement. At least some of these occurrences can be explained as
indicating orientation: with mai the participant faces inward, is self-oriented; with atu
the focus is outward. The following two examples illustrate the difference:
(143) E noho nō mai ꞌā tū taŋata era, ꞌī ka hakaroŋo atu ena....
IPFV stay just hither CONT DEM man DIS IMM CNTG listen away MED
“When that man was just staying (inside), suddenly he heard (a noise)...”
(R372.103)
(144) Te vārua mo noho atu ōꞌou mo uꞌi a ruŋa i a rāua...

ART spirit if sit away POSS.2SG.O if look by above at PROP 3PL
he uꞌi kē.
NTR look different
“The spirits, when you sit down and look at them, will look away.” (R310.082)
Orientation may also have to do with physical distance from the deictic centre, so that
mai is similar to “here” and atu is similar to “away”:
(145) E māmārūꞌau, ka noho mai koe.
VOC grandmother IMP stay
hither 2SG
“Grandmother, stay here.” (R313.177)
(146) He oho atu he piri ki tētahi ŋā poki, he noho atu ananake.
NTR go away NTR join to other PL child NTR stay away together
“He went off (instead of going to school) and met other boys, and they stayed
(away) together.” (R250.034)
7.5.1.5. atu indicating extent

Another metaphorical use concerns only atu. With stative verbs, atu may indicate the
extent of a state or characteristic:
(147) Meꞌe pararaha atu te oru era.
thing fat away ART pig DIS
“That pig is very fat.” (Notes)
(148) E huri rō ꞌā te ꞌāriŋa o Heru a ruŋa ꞌe ko tetea- atu ꞌā
IPFV turn EMPH CONT ART face of Heru by above and PRF PL:white away CONT
te mata.
ART eye
“Heru’s face was turned upwards and his eyes were very white.” (R313.043)
These examples suggest that in some cases atu indicates a (light) degree of emphasis. It
is not difficult to see how this use could arise: the basic meaning “away from a deictic
centre” may naturally develop into “away from a point of reference, beyond what is
common or expected”.355
The sense of an extent is also seen when atu is used after the quantifiers tētahi
“some/others”, meꞌe rahi “many” and rauhuru “diverse”; in these cases, atu emphasizes
the extent of a quantity (see discussion and examples in 4.4.10.)
Finally, the sense of extent may also explain why atu is common – at least for some
speakers – in the construction he – rō ꞌai, which indicates final or climactic events (→
7.2.3.3).356 atu simply makes the construction a little heavier, thereby adding to its
prominence.
(149) He mate rō atu ꞌai tū rūꞌau era ꞌi te taŋi.
NTR die EMPH away SUBS DEM old_woman DIS at ART cry
“The old lady burst out in tears (lit. died with crying).” (R313.104)
7.5.2. Directionals with motion, speech, and perception verbs

In the previous sections, the use of directionals was analysed by looking at individual
occurrences. One conclusion that could be drawn is that, while the basic meaning of
the directionals is clear, the speaker has a certain freedom, both in choosing the deictic
centre and in applying directionals in extended uses.
Another method to analyse the use of directionals, is to count the overall use of
directionals with different (classes of) verbs in the text corpus. As it turns out,
statistical data shed additional light on the use of directionals, revealing a number of
general tendencies. These tendencies cannot be discovered by analysing individual
texts, but only come to the surface when large numbers of occurrences (and non-
occurrences) are taken into account.
This section discusses the use of directionals with three classes of verbs that commonly
take directionals: motion verbs, speech verbs and perception verbs. Data are based on
the whole corpus of old and new texts.
1. One class of verbs which often takes a directional, is the class of motion verbs.
Below are statistics for the use and non-use of directionals with a number of common
motion verbs.357 Separate figures are given for old texts and newer texts. The most
common directional in each corpus is in bold.
355
Hooper (2002:291) signals a somewhat similar extension of the meaning of atu in Tokelauan,
where it may signal a point in time beyond the time of reference (e.g. ananafi “yesterday”,
ananafi atu “the day before yesterday” – the same expression is found in Tahitian).
356
In the corpus as a whole, rō atu ꞌai occurs 186 times, rō mai ꞌai only 60 times. Note that
directionals are by no means obligatory in this construction: rō ꞌai without directional occurs 321
times.
357
This table includes counts for oho “go”, tuꞌu “arrive”, eꞌa “go out”, turu “go down”, iri “go up”,
uru “go in”, tomo “go ashore”.
Table 48: Directionals with motion verbs
old new
mai 24.3% (863) 26.8% (2001)
atu 4.1% (145) 4.6% (340)
no directional 71.6% (2546) 68.7% (5131)
total (3554) (7472)
As these figures show, mai is much more common than atu with these verbs. In other
words, when the direction of movement is indicated, in most cases the subject moves
towards the deictic centre. Put differently, directionals after motion verbs tend to point
toward the location where the subject is heading as the deictic centre, subtly signalling
that this new location is – or becomes – significant to the action.
This tendency is strong in both older and newer texts. It is strongest for eꞌa “go out”,
which is followed by mai in a total of 415 cases and by atu in only 32 cases. One could
wonder if eꞌa mai is to a degree lexicalised, though we have to keep in mind that in
two thirds of all occurrences, eꞌa does not have a directional at all.
2. As indicated in the previous section, directionals are also commonly used with
verbs of speaking. These verbs imply a flow of speech/information from the
speaker358 to the addressee. The use of directionals with speech verbs points to one of
the participants as the deictic centre of the speech act: mai indicates a movement
towards the addressee as deictic centre, atu indicates a movement away from the
speaker as the deictic centre.
Total occurrences for a number of common speech verbs359 are as follows:
Table 49: Directionals with speech verbs
old new
mai 23.5% (397) 12.6% (468)
atu 4.1% (70) 17.7% (656)
no directional 72.4% (1224) 69.7% (2582)
total (1691) (3706)
This table shows a clear shift over time in the use of directionals. Whereas in old texts
mai is by far the most common directional and atu is rare, in new texts atu has become
more frequent (though mai is by no means uncommon). In other words, in older stories
the speaking act is usually considered from the perspective of the addressee, whereas
in newer stories it is more commonly seen from the perspective of the speaker.
358
“speaker” is here taken in the sense of “the person uttering the speech referred to by the
speech verb”, not the speaker/narrator of the text as a whole.
359
kī “say”, raŋi “call”, pāhono “answer” (only in modern Rapa Nui), ꞌui “ask”.
While the relative proportion of mai and atu has changed, the table also shows that the
total use of directionals has not changed much: in both corpora, roughly 30% of the
speech verbs under consideration are accompanied by a directional.
3. A third category concerns verbs of perception. The most common verbs of

perception in Rapa Nui are the following: for visual perception, takeꞌa or tikeꞌa360 “to
see” and uꞌi “to look, to watch”; for aural perception ŋaroꞌa “to hear, to perceive” and
hakaroŋo “to listen”. All these verbs have two arguments: an experiencer (the
perceiving entity) and a stimulus (the perceived entity). The experiencer is expressed
as subject, the stimulus as direct object or as an oblique marked with ki.
The first verb of each pair (takeꞌa “see” and ŋaroꞌa “hear”) indicates uncontrolled
perception, i.e. the registration of a perceptual stimulus by one of the senses. The other
two verbs (uꞌi “look” and hakaroŋo “listen”) express controlled perception, i.e. focused
attention on the part of the subject (cf. Dixon 2010b:144). In other words, whereas the
subject of takeꞌa and ŋaroꞌa is merely registrating a visual stimulus, the subject of uꞌi
and hakaroŋo is actively involved in the act of perception.361
This difference can be correlated to the direction of movement involved in the act of
perception. Concentrating first on visual verbs: takeꞌa “see” indicates that a signal,
originating from the stimulus, is perceived by the experiencer: there is a movement
from the stimulus (the perceived object) to the experiencer (the subject). uꞌi “look”, on
the other hand, indicates that the experiencer directs his/her attention towards the
stimulus: there is a movement from the subject to the object.362
This has consequences for the use of directionals with these verbs. When a directional
is used with uꞌi, this directional tends to indicate a movement from the subject (the
experiencer) to the object (the stimulus), whereas with takeꞌa the directional tends to
indicate a movement from the object towards the subject.
Now it is safe to assume that there is a tendency for the subject of the clause to act as
the deictic centre, at least in first-person and third-person contexts: as discussed above,
the deictic centre is usually either the speaker or a central participant in the discourse,
both of which tend to be the subject of the clause. This leads us to expect that the
controlled perception verb uꞌi “look” will predominantly take the directional atu: when
the subject is the deictic centre, there is an outgoing movement from the
subject/experiencer towards the object/stimulus. On the other hand, the uncontrolled
perception verb takeꞌa “see” will predominantly take the directional mai: when the
subject is the deictic centre, there is a movement from the stimulus towards the
subject/experiencer.
360
Besides takeꞌa and tikeꞌa, there are also the less common variants tikera and takera. All four are
synonymous.
361
Osmond & Pawley (2009) use the terms “sensing” and “attending”, respectively. In Rapa Nui,
the two pairs of verb also show differences in subject marking (→ 8.3.1.2).
362
See Hooper (2004:1745) for a similar description of the two possible trajectories.
This expectation is borne out in newer texts, as the table below shows: uꞌi is followed
by atu in 339 cases and by mai in only 118 cases; by contrast, takeꞌa is followed by mai
in 91 cases and by atu in just 4 cases.
In older texts, the difference is not as clear: with takeꞌa, only mai is used (though only
in 18 cases), but with uꞌi, both directionals are used with similar frequency. This
corresponds to the phenomenon observed above with speech verbs: in older texts there
is a general preference for mai, while in newer texts atu is more common.363
Table 50: Directionals with verbs of seeing
uꞌi “look, watch” takeꞌa, tikeꞌa “see”

old new old new
mai 17.6% (88) 9.2% (118) 9.7% (18) 13.9% (91)
atu 14.8% (74) 26.3% (339) 0.0% (0) 0.6% (4)
no directional 67.7% (339) 64.5% (830) 90.3% (168) 85.5% (561)
total (501) (1287) (186) (656)
Verbs of hearing show the same distinction in newer texts: the controlled hakaroŋo “to
listen” tends to take atu, indicating outgoing attention from the subject as deictic
centre, while the uncontrolled ŋaroꞌa “perceive” usually takes mai, indicating incoming
perception towards the subject as deictic centre. Again, in older texts this tendency
does not show up, though in the case of ŋaroꞌa data are scarce overall.
Table 51: Directionals with verbs of hearing
hakaroŋo “listen” ŋaroꞌa “hear, perceive”364

old new old new
mai 28.7% (25) 18.0% (52) 7.4% (2) 10.8% (27)
atu 16.1% (14) 29.4% (85) 0.0% (0) 2.0% (5)
no directional 55.2% (48) 52.6% (152) 92.6% (25) 87.2% (218)
total (87) (289) (27) (250)
The tables above also show that directionals as such are more common with the
controlled perception verbs uꞌi and hakaroŋo than with takeꞌa and ŋaroꞌa: uꞌi takes a
directional in about 35% of all occurrences, hakaroŋo even over 45%; on the other
hand, takeꞌa and ŋaroꞌa are followed by a directional in less than 15% of all
occurrences. This is true in both older and newer texts.
363
Notice, however, that for motion verbs there is no such shift: mai is predominant both in older
and newer material.
364
Both hakaroŋo and ŋaroꞌa are predominantly used for aural perception, though ŋaroꞌa (and
occasionally hakaroŋo) may be used for perception in general (“to feel, perceive”) as well.
In individual instances, the choice for mai or atu may be governed by other
considerations: with any perception verb, the speaker may choose either the
Experiencer or the Stimulus as deictic centre, depending on the dynamics of the
discourse. But over the whole of the corpus, there is a clear correlation between verb
type (controlled or uncontrolled perception) and the choice of directional.
7.5.3. To use or not to use a directional

In section 7.5.1 and subsections, the use of directionals has been discussed as a binary
choice: a speaker may use either mai or atu. However, the statistics in section 7.5.2
show that verbs which take directionals only do so in a minority of all cases. For
example, only about 30% of all motion verbs in the corpus are followed by a
directional. The speaker is thus faced with a ternary choice: mai, atu, or no directional
at all. One more question must therefore be addressed: which factors influence the
choice between using a directional and using no directional at all?
Some of the factors which may play a role are the following:
1. Directionals are used when a movement (physical or metaphorical) is clearly
directional and when the speaker wishes to state so. In the following example, Eva
first looks into a general direction; then she looks to a more precise location. Only the
second verb is followed by a directional.
(150) He uꞌi a ruŋa i te henua... E uꞌi mai era a tū kona kī era
NTR look by above at ART land IPFV look hither DIS by DEM place say DIS
e nua pē nei ē: ‘ꞌI ꞌOhovehi mātou ka noho nei’.
AG Mum like PROX thus at Ohovehi 1PL.EXC CNTG stay PROX
“She looked towards the land... She kept looking towards the place about
which Mum had said: ‘We will stay in Ohovehi’.” (R210.082f)
2. Directionals subtly highlight the deictic centre of the text. The speaker may
therefore choose to use directionals to point to the deictic centre, whether this is
constant or shifting. For example, the story Nuahine rima roa (→ 7.5.1.2.1) contains
numerous occurrences of mai which point to the central participant, the old lady.365
3. As discussed in section 7.5.1.1, ex. (128)–(129), directionals may play a role in
participant reference: directionals indicate whether a participant is at the origin or
the goal of the movement, so they may be used instead of an overt subject or object.
This accounts for many occurrences of directionals, for example with speech verbs in
direct discourse, as in (128).
4. Possibly, directionals tend to be used when there is a significant distance between
the origin and the goal of movement, e.g. between the speaker and the addressee. I
have not found many instances where this is is the only factor involved, but there are
365
This may explain why mai is more frequent overall than atu, see the statistics in the previous
sections. Hooper (2004:1742) mentions a 60/40 proportion for mai and atu in Tokelauan
discourse.
examples which can plausibly be explained this way. In (151), eꞌa “go out (of the
house)” is not marked by a directional, while oho “go” is; the latter involves movement
over a considerable distance, while the former does not.
(151) Ka eꞌa koe ka haka rivariva i
- te poki, ka oho atu kōrua ki Haŋa Piko.
IMPgo_out 2SG IMP CAUS good:RED ACC ART child IMP go away 2PL to Hanga Piko
“Go outside and prepare the child, and go to Hanga Piko.” (R210.036)
This list is not exhaustive, if only because it does not explain all occurrences of mai
and atu. Moreover, many instances can be explained in more than one way. These
factors are no more than possible considerations which may play a role; they influence
rather than determine the choice for a directional.
7.6. Postverbal demonstratives
7.6.1. Introduction
The postverbal demonstratives (PVD’s) nei, ena and era indicate spatial or temporal
distance of the event with respect to a place and/or time of reference. The same forms
also occur in the noun phrase (→ 4.6.3). Both in the noun phrase and in the verb
phrase they have the following sense:
nei proximity, close to the speaker

ena medial distance, close to the hearer
era default PVD; farther distance, removed from both speaker and hearer
PVD’s cannot be added to just any verb phrase: as the discussion of aspectuals in
section 7.2 shows, PVD’s occur in certain syntactic contexts and convey certain
syntactic nuances.
• PVD’s are common after imperfective e to express a progressive or habitual
action (→ 7.2.5.4).
• The contiguous marker ka is often followed by a PVD, both in main and
subordinate clauses (→ 7.2.6.2–7.2.6.3).
• With the perfect ko – ꞌā, era is occasionally used to express an action which is
well and truly finished (→ 7.2.7.3).
In addition, PVD’s are used in bare relative clauses (→ 11.4.5; see also (159) below).
The neutral aspectual he is rarely followed by a PVD. After modal markers like the
imperative ka, PVD’s are not used.
The use of PVD’s after perfective i warrants separate treatment. After i, the verb is often
followed by a PVD; the list of PVD’s after i also includes a fourth PVD: ai, which is not
used after other aspectuals. In fact, ai is the default PVD after i, except in cohesive
clauses. This will be discussed in 7.6.5.
In the following subsections, the four PVD’s will be discussed in turn. First a statistical
note. The following table shows frequencies for the era, ena and nei in all verb phrases
in the text corpus.
Table 52: Frequencies of postverbal demonstratives
old texts new texts total

era 69% (455) 72% (3,728) 72% (4,183)
ena 10% (67) 17% (874) 16% (941)
nei 21% (142) 11% (568) 12% (710)
As the table shows, era is far more frequent than ena and nei: 72% of all PVD’s in the
text corpus are era. This suggests that era is the default PVD; it is used whenever a PVD
is called for and there is no reason to use nei or ena. For this reason, the use of era will
only be discussed as it relates to nei and ena.
7.6.2. Proximal nei

nei marks actions which are either performed by the speaker, take place close to the
speaker, or happen at a time close to the time of speech. Any of these is sufficient to
warrant the use of nei; neither is a necessary condition.
nei often marks an action performed by the speaker, i.e. in the first person, as in (152).
(152) ꞌO ira a au i iri mai nei ki a koe.
because_of PRO PROP 1SG PFV ascend hither PROX to PROP 2SG
“Therefore I have come up to you.” (R229.208)
Alternatively, the event may take place near the speaker as in (153), or is directed
towards the location of the speaker as in (154):
(153) Pē nei e kī nei e te nuꞌu nei: ko mate ꞌana koe.
like PROX IPFV say PROX AG ART people PROX PRF die CONT 2SG
“This is what these people say: you have died.” (R229.316)
(154) ¿ꞌI hē rā a Vaha e taꞌe tuꞌu mai nei?
at CQ INTENS PROP Vaha IPFV NEG.CONS arrive hither PROX
“Where is Vaha, that he doesn’t arrive?” (R229.131)
Occasionally nei has a temporal rather than a spatial function. In (155), the speaker
talks about something habitually taking place in the present.
(155) Te vaka o te hora nei, e hahaꞌo nei
- te aroaro ꞌi ruŋa
-
ART boat of ART time PROX IPFV insert PROX ART lining at above
o te kavakava mau ꞌana.
-
of ART rib really IDENT

“The boats of nowadays, they put the lining on top of the ribs.” (R200.068)
In narrative contexts, events usually do not take place close to the speaker, nor in the
present. Even so, nei occurs in narrative as well. By using nei, the speaker indicates
that the action is spatially close to the locus of discourse, or takes place near the time
of reference:
(156) Mahana nei i iri nei ki te māmoe mo toke he maꞌurima

day PROX PFV ascend PFV to ART sheep for steal NTR catch
o tōꞌona pāpātio.
of POSS.3SG.O uncle
“This day when he went to the sheep to steal, his uncle caught him.”
(R250.222)
(157) I eꞌa nei te taŋata nei ꞌi tū raꞌā era he oho mai ē...
PFV go_out PROX ART man PROX at DEM day DIS NTR go
hither on_and_on
“When this man had gone out that day, he kept going...” (R310.136)
As these examples show, nei in the verb phrase may co-occur with nei in the subject or
another noun phrase in the clause (cf. also (153) above).
7.6.3. Medial ena

ena usually indicates an action performed by the addressee, an event taking place close
to the addressee, or an event at a medial distance (i.e. not near the speaker, but not
very far either). Either of these factors may trigger the use of ena.
Often ena marks an action performed by the addressee:
PREDwhat 2SG IPFV cry MED
“Why are you crying?” (R229.185)
Sometimes the action takes place near the addressee, as in (159), or at a little distance
from both speaker and addressee, as in (160).
(159) tāꞌana vānaŋa kī atu ena ki a koe
POSS.3SG.A word
say away MED to PROP 2SG
“the words he spoke to you” (R229.079)
(160) Mo kōrua hoꞌi e uꞌi, ana tuꞌu mai a Hare mai tōꞌona
for 2PL indeed IPFV look IRR arrive hither PROP Hare from POSS.3SG.O
kona ena e ŋaro mai ena.
place MED IPFV disappear hither MED
“You will see whether Hare comes from the place where he has disappeared.”
(R229.276)
Notice that in (160), postverbal ena is paralleled by ena in the preceding noun phrase.
ena may also have a temporal function: it refers to a moment somewhat removed from
the present. This may be the near past as in (161), or the near future as in (162):
(161) te ŋā meꞌe nei au i tataku i oho atu ena
ART PL thing PROX 1SG PFV tell PFV go away MED
“the things I have (just) been telling about” (R360.037)
(162) He manaꞌu nō te meꞌe nei ōꞌoku ka kī atu ena.

PREDthought just ART thing PROX POSS.1SG.O CNTG say away MED
“What I am about to say, is just a thought.” (R361.015)
In narrative, ena is especially used after the deictic particle ꞌī (→ 4.5.4.1.1), which
signals a shift to the point of view of a participant in the story (often with a verb of
perception). The use of ena in this construction may be metaphorical, indicating that
the reader is conceptually closer to the events in the story than usual, looking as it
were through the eyes of the participant.
(163) ꞌĪ ka uꞌi atu ena ko te ꞌata o te taŋata...
IMM CNTG look away MED PROM ART shadow of ART man
“Then he saw the shadow of a man...” (R304.095)
7.6.4. Neutral/distal era

era is the default PVD. It is especially common in narrative contexts, where proximity to
speaker and hearer does not play a role. era occurs in numerous examples in the
discussion of aspectuals in section 7.2.
Other PVD’s are only used when there is a specific reason to do so. As discussed above,
nei is used when the action is performed by the speaker, takes place close to the
speaker, takes place in the present, or is metaphorically proximate in discourse.
Likewise, ena can be used when the action is performed by or near to the hearer, takes
place at a moderate distance, or at a time somewhat close to the present. This does not
mean that nei or ena is always used whenever one of these conditions is fulfilled. era,
being the default PVD, can be used for an action performed by the speaker as in (164)–
(165), or an action performed by the hearer as in (166)–(167). In all these cases,
however, distance is involved: in (165)–(167) the event takes place in the past; in
(164) the event is hypothetical, and therefore also removed from the here and now.
(164) ...ꞌai au e uꞌi mai era mai ruŋa ki a koe.
there 1SG IPFV look hither DIS from above to PROP 2SG
“(If I were that bird,) I would look at you from above.” (R245.155)
(165) A au hoꞌi i raŋi atu era ki a koe...
PROP 1SG indeed PFV call away DIS to PROP 2SG
“Indeed, I called out to you...” (R229.499)
(166) Pē nei koe i kī mai era ki a au: he tuꞌu mai a Vaha ꞌarīnā.
like PROX 2SG PFV say hither DIS to PROP 1SG NTR arrive hither PROP Vaha later_today
“You said to me that Vaha would arrive today.” (R229.147)
(167) ¿Pē hē kōrua e vānaŋa era?
like CQ 2PL IPFV talk DIS
“What were you(pl) talking about?” (Ley-2-02.062)
Summarizing: PVD’s are used in combination with aspectuals to convey certain

aspectual nuances. The default PVD is era (except in certain contexts with the perfective
marker i, where ai is more common → 7.6.5). nei and ena may be used to convey
proximity and medial distance respectively; distance is usually defined in spatial terms
with respect to a participant or locus of discourse, but may also have a temporal sense.
7.6.5. PVD’s with perfective i

The perfective marker i was discussed in 7.2.4. The examples in that section show, that
an i-marked verb is usually followed by a postverbal demonstrative (PVD). Besides era,
nei and ena, i (unlike other aspectuals) allows a fourth pvd, ai. In fact, ai is by far the
most common pvd after i. Only in cohesive clauses (→ 11.6.2.1) is the verb usually
followed by era, while ai is rare.
This raises the question what the function of ai could be. Now the particle ai is
common in Polynesian languages. Rapa Nui is different from other languages in that ai
is not used after all aspectuals; apart from perfective i, it is only found after the
purpose marker ki (→ 11.5.3). There is also a functional difference. Chapin (1974)
shows that in all languages except Rapa Nui, ai is anaphoric: it occurs when the verb is
preceded by any constituent other than a nominative subject; it serves as a substitute
for the preposed constituent. This does not hold in Rapa Nui: in many cases ai occurs
in verb-initial clauses, or in clauses where the verb is preceded by a subject. Even so,
there is a correlation between the occurrence of preverbal constituents and the use of
ai. The following table shows the occurrence of ai and other PVD’s in i-marked clauses
(cohesive clauses excepted), differentiated for preverbal constituents: either a core
argument (subject or direct object), an oblique constituent (locative or temporal
phrase, connective adverb, or question word), or none at all (verb-initial clauses):
Table 53: Postverbal demonstratives with i-marked verbs
preverbal constituent ai other PVD no PVD

core argument(s) 21% (11) 19% (10) 60% (31)
oblique constituent 80% (73) 18% (16) 2% (2)
Ø (verb-initial) 72% (55) 7% (5) 21% (16)
total (139) (31) (49)
As this table shows, when the verb is preceded by an oblique constituent, it is followed
by ai in 80% of the cases. By contrast, when the verb is preceded by a core argument,
ai is relatively rare (21%), while 60% of the cases have no PVD at all. These statistics
show a similarity in the use of ai between Rapa Nui and other Polynesian languages: ai
tends to be used after oblique constituents, but not after NP arguments.366 Still, the
366
Notice that, different from what Chapin (1974) found in other languages, in Rapa Nui any NP
argument, whether subject or object, disfavours the use of ai.
In fact, Chapin (1974:299) found a similar correlation: counting occurrences of era and ai in
Englert’s stories (Egt), concludes: “of the 26 cases discovered of verbs in i tense with no PVD, all
but three or possibly four contain patterns which would lead one on comparative grounds not to
situation is much fuzzier than in other languages: ai does occur after NP arguments,
while after oblique constituents other PVD’s occur as well as ai.
In verb-initial clauses, ai is almost as common as with oblique preverbal constituents
(72%), a situation not found in other languages. Possibly the use of ai in these clauses
can be explained to some extent in terms of inter-clausal (rather than intra-clausal)
anaphora. For example, in (168) ai could be explained as providing an anaphoric link
with the preceding clause.
(168) ¿I mamae rō koe i hiŋa ai?
PFV pain EMPH 2SG PFV fall PVP
“Did you get hurt when you fell down?” (R481.131)
On the other hand, many examples of ai cannot be explained in this way.
Turning now to the other PVD’s nei, ena and era, these are relatively rare with i-marked
verbs (except in cohesive clauses, → 11.6.2.1). As the table above shows, out of 219
verbs, only 31 (14%) are followed by one of these. Of these 31 cases, 13 have nei, 10
have ena, 8 have era. These proportions are remarkable, as era is much more frequent
in general than nei and ena: as the statistics in sec. 7.6.1 show, era accounts for 72% of
all occurrences of these three PVD’s overall, but in the constructions considered here,
era represents only 26% of all three PVD’s. Even though the sample is small and
therefore liable to skewing by a few aberrant examples, the difference is significant.
In other contexts, era is the default PVD; nei and ena are only used when there is a
specific reason to use them, to indicate close distance (nei) or medial distance (ena) (→
7.6). By contrast, with i-marked verbs, ai is the default PVD. nei and ena may be used to
indicate close and medial distance; era may either be a free (but relatively rare)
alternative to ai, or used only when the speaker wishes to emphasize distance.
7.7. Serial verb constructions
7.7.1. Introduction
Serial verb constructions (SVC’s) are constructions in which two or more verbs occur in
a single clause, without being so closely linked that they form a verbal compound.367
Verbs within an SVC have the same specification for tense/aspect/mood and they
expect ai. Of the nearly 100 cases of post-verbal ai, all but about a dozen appear according to
comparative expectations.”
367
On SVC’s in general see Durie (1988, 1997); Aikhenvald & Dixon (2006); Sebba (1987). On
SVC’s in Oceanic languages, see Crowley (2002) (+ reviews by Owens (2002) and Bradshaw
(2004)); Senft (2008). These studies do not agree on a precise definition of SVC’s (it is even
uncertain if such a definition is possible, given the crosslinguistic variation in syntax and
semantics of SVC’s (Crowley 2002:19)). They differ for example on the question whether SVC’s
necessarily constitute a single predicate. However, they do agree on the characteristics
mentioned here.
usually share one or more arguments. They are not separated by a conjunction or by
anything marking a clause boundary. The events expressed within an SVC are closely
linked: SVC’s tend to express a single event, or a set of events considered to be part of a
single “macro-event”.368 Certain verb combinations may be lexicalised in a language,
but SVC’s tend to be productive.
Serialisation is common in Austronesian languages, including Oceanic languages
(Crowley 2002; Senft 2008, Durie 1988), but rare in Polynesian.369
7.7.2. The syntax of SVC’s in Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui is unusual among Polynesian languages in that SVC’s are fairly common.370
Moreover, it is – to my knowledge – the only Polynesian language in which all verbs in
an SVC have an aspect/mood (A/M) marker; the A/M markers within an SVC are always
identical.371
Apart from the A/M marker, nothing can occur between the verbs in an SVC. Postverbal
particles – including obligatory particles – only occur after the last verb. Arguments of
both verbs are placed after the last verb; preposed arguments occur before the first
verb. The structure of a clause with serialisation is thus as follows:
(argument/adjunct) [A/Mi V1 A/Mi V2 (particles) ]VP (arguments/adjuncts)
Most SVC’s have two verbs, but longer series occur. The verbs in an SVC usually share
their S/A argument. In fact, the SVC as a whole has a single argument structure, which
is determined by the verb with the highest valency: if both verbs are intransitive, the
SVC as a whole is intransitive; if one verb is transitive, the SVC is transitive.
Below are a number of examples which illustrate the characteristics of SVC’s.
(169) ꞌĒē, ko maꞌu ko hoki ꞌā ki tōꞌona kona.
yes PRF carry PRF return CONT to POSS.3SG.O place
“Yes, they carried it back to its place.” (R413.844)
368
The term “macro-event” is discussed by Aikhenvald (2006).
369
Both in Maori (Harlow 2007a:150) and Tahitian (Acad.tah. 1986:203), the only traces of SVC’s
are motion verbs such as haere “go” modifying another verb: Maori i tangi haere “went weeping”.
In Marquesan, this modifying construction also occurs (Cablitz 2006:205f). Cablitz also mentions
bare complement clauses and clause chaining as examples of serialisation; however, clause
chaining constructions are not monoclausal, hence they do not qualify as an SVC as defined
above. The only reason to classify clause chaining constructions as SVC’s is the absence of an A/M
marker on the second verb. Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992:397), using the same criterion, identify
the same three constructions as SVC’s in Samoan. Finally, in Tuvaluan (Besnier 2000:538) SVC’s
occur on a limited scale; again, the second verb is not A/M-marked.
370
SVC’s in Rapa Nui are discussed in R. Weber (2003:67-75); Weber uses the term “verb nesting”
(anidación de verbos) and especially discusses criteria to distinguish SVC’s from clause
conjunction.
371
While bare verbs can modify nouns (→ 5.8.1), they never modify other verbs without a
preceding A/M marker. Some Polynesian languages have a V + V construction (→ fn. 369
above), but this does not occur in Rapa Nui.
(170) I hoki i turu mai era ararua a rā ꞌā...

PFV return PFV go_down hither DIS the_two by DIS IDENT
“When they returned together (with downwards movement) by that place...”
(R245.210)
(171) He maꞌu he iri he oho i tū manu era ki te hare pure.

NTR carry NTR ascend NTR go animal DIS to ART house pray
ACC DEM
“They carried the animal up to the church.” (R178.053)
(172) ...ꞌo peꞌe ꞌo oho te māuiui ki tētahi nuꞌu
- sano ena e noho mai ena.
lest infect lest go ART sick to other people healthy MED IPFV stay hither MED
“...lest the disease keeps infecting other people who are still healthy.”
(R398.017)
Aspectuals – ko in (169), i in (170), he in (171) – are repeated before each verb.

Postverbal ꞌā (169) and era (170) occur only after the second verb.372 In (171) – a
tripartite SVC – i tū manu era is the direct object of the first verb maꞌu, yet it occurs
after the SVC construction as a whole. (172) shows that subordinators like ꞌo are
repeated in the same way as aspectuals.
These examples also show how SVC’s can be distinguished from coordinated clauses. As
verb arguments are often omitted in discourse, a string of verbal clauses may consist of
just A/M V A/M V... (see e.g. (3) on p. 303); such a string may at first sight be
indistinguishable from an SVC. Diagnostics for SVC’s are: the omission of postverbal
particles after the first verb, and the placement of the direct object of a verb after the
next verb (even when the latter is intransitive). SVC’s can also be recognized by
semantic criteria, as they often express a single event; this will be discussed in the next
section.
In nominalised SVC’s, the determiner is repeated. Any preposition preceding the

nominalised verb is repeated as well, e.g. pe in (174):373
(173) O te naonao toretore te
- - haka peꞌe te oho te māuiui he
- renke.
of ART mosquito stripe ART CAUS infect CAUS go dengue
ART sick PRED
“It is the striped mosquito which keeps spreading dengue disease.” (R535.051)
(174) Te pūai, paꞌi, o rāua pe te ŋaro pe te oho nō.
ART strong in_fact of 3PL
toward ART disappear toward ART go just
“Their power will gradually disappear.” (1 Cor. 2:6)
There is only one situation in which V2 is unmarked: when the SVC functions as a bare
relative clause (→ 11.4.5), in which case neither verb in the SVC has an A/M marker.
372
Both are obligatory, given the construction: perfect ko is always accompanied by ꞌā (→ 7.2.7),
while i – era in (170) marks a cohesive clause (→ 11.6.2.1).
373
(173) is an habitual actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.2.1).
(175) ꞌI te hora turu oho nei ōꞌoku ki Haŋa Roa o Tai...

at ART time go_down go PROX POSS.1SG.O
to Hanga Roa o Tai
“When I went down to Hanga Roa o Tai...” (R230.059)
7.7.3. Semantics of SVC’s

Most SVC’s refer to a single event, which is expressed by one verb (usually the first in
the series) and modified in some way by the other verb(s) (categories 1–3 below).374
Other SVC’s express a series of closely connected events which are conceived as one
macro-event (category 4).
1. V2 may express an aspectual specification of the event. Only two verbs are used in
this way.
— oho “go” is by far the most common V2 in SVC’s. It often expresses extended
duration, indicating that the action expressed by V1 goes on for a while. As (178)
shows, when V1 is an adjective, the SVC expresses an ongoing process.
(176) Pē rā nō e kai e oho era.
like DIS just IPFV eat IPFV go DIS
“In that way he kept eating.” (R310.225)
(177) I taꞌo i oho nō i taꞌo i oho nō.
PFV cook PFV gojust PFV cook PFV go just
“He just kept cooking and cooking.” (R352.077)
(178) He rahi te taꞌu ꞌe he nuinui he oho tū
- manu era.
NTR many ART year and NTR big:RED NTR go DEM bird DIS
“Many years passed and the bird grew up (got bigger and bigger).” (R447.012)
— oti “finish” is usually constructed with a complement clause (→ 11.3.2.2), but it

may also function as V2 of an SVC, indicating that an action or process is completely
carried out:
(179) I tuhaꞌa i oti era e Kaiŋa i tū kai era...
PRF distribute PFV finish DIS AG Kainga ACC DEM food DIS
“When Kainga had finished distributing (=completely distributed) the food...”
(R304.116)
(180) ꞌI te toru mahana ko para ko oti ꞌana.

at ART three day PRF ripe PRF finish CONT
“On the third day (the bananas) are completely ripe.” (R539-2.071)
2. V2 may be a motion verb specifying the direction in which the action expressed by
V1 takes place. The motion verb may be iri “go up”, turu “go down” or hoki “go back,
374
The same is true crosslinguistically: directional and aspectual SVC’s are very common
(Aikhenvald 2006, who also mentions all the other categories found in Rapa Nui: manner,
synonymy, sequential events)
return”. The idea of movement itself may be expressed by V1 (e.g. haro in (181)), but
in other cases such as (182), V1 by itself does not express movement.
(181) I haro i iri era he tuꞌu ki ruŋa.
PFV pull PFV ascend DIS NTR arrive to above
“When they had pulled (the net) up, it arrived on top.” (R304.136)
(182) He kai he turu i tāꞌana tūava.
NTR eat NTR go_down ACC POSS.3SG.A goyava
“He went down, eating his goyavas.” (R245.024)
(183) Mo haŋa o kōrua, he maꞌu he hoki kōrua e au ki Tahiti.
if want of 2PL NTR carry NTR return 2PL AG 1SG to Tahiti
“If you (pl) want, I’ll take you back to Tahiti.” (R231.102)
oho “go” is mostly used in SVC’s to express duration (see 1 above); however, it may also
express motion in a certain direction, without specifying the direction itself.375 In these
cases, no extensive duration is implied.
(184) Hora nei hoꞌi ku kau ku oho mai ꞌana ananake ki ꞌuta.
time PROX indeed PRF swim PRF go hither CONT together to inland
“Now they had swum to the shore together.” (R361.032)
(185) I nekeneke i
- oho mai era a tuꞌa, he tito e tū ꞌuha era.
PFV crawl:RED PFV go
hither DIS by back NTR peck AG DEM chicken DIS
“When he crawled backwards, the chicken pecked him.” (R250.160)
3. One verb in the SVC may be a stative verb indicating the manner in which the
action expressed by the other verb is carried out. Usually the stative verb comes first,
while the event itself is expressed by V2.
(186) ...i keꞌokeꞌo i- topa mai ai mai ruŋa i tū tumu era.
hurry:RED PFV descend hither PVP from above at DEM tree
PFV DIS
“...she hurried down from the tree.” (R496.045)
(187) E hekaheka e- eke e oho nō ꞌana te ika i haka hōriŋa rō ai.
IPFV soft:RED IPFV ascend IPFV go
just CONT ART fish PFV CAUS weary EMPH PVP
“The fish kept coming up easily, until it got tired of it.” (R361.053)
4. In other cases, both verbs describe an event. The verbs may be closely related or
near-synonyms as in (188), both expressing the same event under different angles; they
may also describe different aspects of the same event as in (189) (“ask in writing” or
“write to ask”). Alternatively, they express sequential events considered to be part of
the same macro-event, as in (190).
375
These examples are somewhat similar to category 3, in which the V1 specifies the manner in
which V2 is performed. The difference is, that kau and nekeneke are themselves motion verbs,
-
while the modifying verbs in category 3 are statives.

(188) Ko veveri ko ꞌara ꞌana a au ꞌi te kona nei ꞌana.

PRF startled PRF wake_up CONT PROP 1SG at ART place PROX IDENT
“I woke up with a start in this same place.” (R539-1.764)
(189) Hora nei he pāhono atu au i te meꞌe pāpaꞌi ꞌui mai era e kōrua.
time PROX NTR answer away 1SG ACC ART thing write ask hither DIS AG 2PL
“Now I will answer the things you wrote (and) asked me.” (1 Cor. 7:1)
“Mum searched (the child), shouting.” (R236.082)
7.8. Conclusions
Verbs are preceded and followed by a range of particles which specify the event for
aspect, mood, distance and direction.
Aspect is primarily indicated by a set of five preverbal markers; the use of these
markers is obligatory, unless the verb is preceded by a different marker (such as mood
and negation) occurring in the same position. The aspectual markers are as follows:
neutral he, perfective i, imperfective e, contiguity ka and perfect ko – ꞌā. The neutral
marker he is by far the most common one; it marks events which receive their
aspectual value from the context in some way; in the absence of other contextual clues,
a string of he-clauses expresses sequential events in discourse.
The relationship between perfective i and perfect ko – ꞌā calls for an explanation.
Comparison of both markers in similar contexts suggest that ko – ꞌā is state-oriented,
while i is event-oriented. The state-oriented character of ko – ꞌā also shows up in its
widespread use to mark a state which pertains at a time of reference (usually the
present). This happens with typically stative verbs such as “be hot, big, poor, mad...”,
but also with verbs of volition and cognition.
Finer aspectual distinctions are indicated by postverbal particles; different classes of
particles play a role with different aspectuals:
• the evaluative marker rō: e – rō marks future, ka – rō marks a temporal
boundary “until”, etc.
• postverbal demonstratives: i – era marks perfective temporal clauses; e – era
marks habitual or continuous clauses;
• the continuity marker ꞌā: e – ꞌā marks continuous or stative clauses.
One pair of postverbal particles operates entirely independently from aspect marking:
the directional markers mai and atu. In direct speech, mai indicates movement towards
the speaker, while the use of atu is varied: movement from the speaker towards the
hearer, away from speaker and hearer, or from an unspecified source towards the
hearer.
In third-person discourse, the use of mai and atu marks a deictic centre. The speaker
has a high degree of freedom in defining the deictic centre: it may be relatively fixed
(often depending on the location of one or more protagonists in the story) or shift
rapidly between different locations. Statistics show some general trends, though: with
motion verbs, directionals tend to point to the destination of movement as the deictic
centre. With perception verbs, there is a difference between controlled perception (“to
look, listen”) and uncontrolled perception (“to sea, hear”): with the former,
directionals indicate a movement from the experiencer to the stimulus, i.e. directed
attention; with the latter the direction is reversed, i.e. directionals signal the
movement from the stimulus towards the experiencer.
Finally, Rapa Nui is the only Polynesian language having a serial verb construction in
which the preverbal marker is repeated. Apart from the preverbal marker, nothing may
occur between the verbs in this construction. Serial verb constructions form a single
predicate with a single argument structure; they often express a single event.
8. The verbal clause
A verbal clause consists of a verb phrase and optional nominal arguments and
adjuncts. The number of arguments depends on the verb; different classes of verbs are
discussed in section 3.4.1.
The verb phrase has been discussed in chapter 7; the present chapter focuses on the
other core constituents of verbal clauses: the arguments of the verb. The chapter is
dominated by two main topics: constituent order and argument marking. These two
are inextricably linked – the way arguments are marked, depends on their position in
the clause – so they will be discussed together; the discussion will focus on the factors
determining the marking of subject and object.
Constituent order and argument marking are discussed in sections 8.1–8.7. Section 8.1
provides a brief introduction and discusses basic and marked constituent orders. 8.2
introduces the topic of case-marking, comparing the situation in Rapa Nui with other
Polynesian languages. The next sections deal with S/A marking (8.3) and O marking
(8.4), respectively. Section 8.5 discusses passivisation and passive-like constructions.
Section 8.6 discusses a variety of constructions involving non-standard constituent
orders and/or non-canonical marking of arguments, e.g. topicalisation and
instrumental marking. Section 8.7 deals with case marking in nominalised clauses.
The last sections deal with miscellaneous constituents, some of which are not restricted
to verbal clauses, but which are nevertheless included in this chapter: oblique
arguments (8.8), reflexives and reciprocals (8.9), comitative constructions (8.10) and
vocatives (8.11).
Finally, 8.12 discusses causativisation, a process which affects the argument structure
of the verb and the expression of arguments.
8.1. Introduction; constituent order
As pointed out above, most of this chapter will be concerned with the order of
constituents and the marking of S, A and O arguments.376 A preliminary question
concerns the expression of these arguments as such. The verb phrase is the only
obligatory element in the verbal clause: any argument can be omitted if its identity is
understood from the context. In discourse, both S/A and O are usually left implicit
376
See fn. 105 on p. 86 on the terms S, A and O. In this grammar, any clause in which an O
argument is either expressed or implied, is counted as transitive (regardless other arguments); a
clause without an expressed or implied O is considered intransitive (cf. (85)–(87) on p. 100).
Verbs with a nominalised verb as complement are counted as transitive; verbs with a subordinate
clause as complement are counted as intransitive.
when they are identical to a constituent in the previous clause. An example in which
both A and O are implied, is the following:
(1) He moko ki muri i tū viꞌe era ko Māhina he haꞌi.
NTR rush to near at DEM woman DIS PROM Mahina NTR embrace
“He rushed toward that woman Mahina and (he) embraced (her).” (R399.191)
Analysis of a corpus of selected texts yields the following statistics:377
Table 54: Expression and non-expression of arguments

intransitive (1468) (3411) (4879)
no S 52.1% (765) 52.2% (1780) 52.2% (2545)
S 47.9% (703) 47.8% (1631) 47.8% (2345)
transitive (852) (1834) (2686)
no A, no O 31.8% (271) 28.9% (530) 29.8% (801)
A only 4.6% (39) 9.1% (167) 7.7% (206)
O only 51.6% (440) 45.0% (826) 47.1% (1266)
A+O 12.0% (102) 17.0% (311) 15.4% (413)
This table shows that S is expressed in 47.8% of all intransitive clauses. Of the
transitive clauses, only 7.7+15.4=23.1% have an overt A, while 47.1+15.4=62.5%
have an overt O. In only 15.4% of all clauses are both arguments expressed, while in
29.8% of the clauses neither argument is expressed.
The default constituent order is VS/VAO. This order is by far the most common one
and pragmatically unmarked. Other orders are not uncommon, though. The following
table gives frequencies for all possible constituent orders. Section 1 represents clauses
only containing an S/A argument; section 2 represents transitive clauses only
containing an O argument; section 3 represents transitive clauses with two overt
arguments.
377
For the analysis of clause structure and case marking, I used a subcorpus of 15 older texts
(pre-1940) and 14 newer texts (post-1970). This corpus contains 7807 verbal clauses (2373 in
old texts, 5434 in new texts): 2686 transitive (including three-argument verbs), 4879 intransitive
and 242 with zero valency.
Chapter 8: The verbal clause 361
Table 55: Frequencies of constituent orders

1 V S/A 93.4% (693) 82.9% (1491) 86.0% (2184)
S/A V 6.6% (49) 17.1% (307) 14.0% (356)
2 VO 98.2% (432) 95.8% (791) 96.6% (1221)
OV 1.8% (8) 4.2% (35) 3.4% (43)
3 VAO 69.6% (71) 65.3% (203) 66.3% (274)
AVO 16.7% (17) 21.9% (68) 20.6% (85)
VOA 10.8% (11) 4.8% (15) 6.3% (26)
OVA 2.9% (3) 4.8% (15) 4.4% (18)
AOV 0.0% (0) 1.9% (6) 1.5% (6)
OAV 0.0% (0) 1.3% (4) 1.0% (4)
As this table shows, there is a strong preference for verb-initial clauses,378 but it is not
uncommon for S/A to precede the verb (S/AV, AVO, AOV, OAV). It is less common for
the object to precede the subject (VOA, OVA, OAV), while clauses in which the object
precedes the verb (OV, OVA, AOV, OAV) are rare.379
Constituent order can be formulated as a set of three constraints:
1. V—S/A: the verb precedes the subject;
2. A—O: the subject precedes the object;
3. V—O: the verb precedes the object.
Constituent orders which violate only one constraint (like AVO) are more common
than orders violating two or three constraints (like OAV). The statistics above also
show that constraint 3 is strongest, while 1 is weakest: in clauses with both arguments
expressed (413 total), constraint 1 is violated 95x, constraint 2 is violated 48x,
constraint 3 is violated 28x.
There are various motivations for non-VAO constituent orders. S/A and O may be
preposed as clause topic or because they are thematic (→ 8.6.1–8.6.2); S/A may be
378
These data do not confirm Fischer’s suggestion (2001a:323) that SVO is becoming the new
unmarked word order (under influence of Spanish). It is true that new texts show a higher
proportion of SV(O) clauses than old texts; however, it is also true that OV has become more
common in new texts. The former may be under Spanish influence, but these shifts also suggest a
move towards a more flexible syntax, in which a greater variety of constructions becomes
common.
379
The following example, an actor-emphatic construction with preposed object, is an example of
OSV order (other orders will be exemplified in detail in the following sections):
(i) ¿Mo aha [te ꞌuha]O [ꞌāꞌau]A i tiaŋi ai?
for what ART chicken POSS.2SG.A PFV kill PVP
“Why did you kill the chicken?” (R250.164)
preposed in focus in the actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3). Preverbal S/A also

occurs after various clause-initial elements (→ 8.6.1.1).
Motivations for the reversal of A and O (i.e. VOA) are also diverse. Some VOA clauses
are cases of passivisation (→ 8.5.1), in other cases the reasons for the marked order
are less clear.
8.2. Case marking: introduction
8.2.1. Case in Polynesian

In Polynesian languages, nouns are not inflected for case. As far as case is marked, it is
marked by prepositions. The subject of an intransitive clause is usually unmarked, i.e.
not preceded by a case-marking preposition. For transitive verbs, three patterns are
commonly distinguished (see e.g. Clark 1976:67):380
I. V A i/ki O
II. V-Cia eA O
III. V eA O
Certain languages (among which all the Central-Eastern Polynesian languages381)

exhibit accusative syntax:382 the default pattern for all transitive verbs is I, in which A
is unmarked like S, while O has an accusative marker. The choice of accusative marker
depends on the semantics of the verb: for canonical transitive verbs, it is i; for “middle
verbs” (→ 8.6.4.2), either i or ki is used. Pattern II is derived by passivisation: the
Patient becomes the unmarked case (i.e. the syntactic subject); the Agent becomes an
oblique and is marked by agentive e; the verb is followed by the passive suffix –Cia
(where C is a consonant, the identity of which is lexically determined).
Most Tongic and Samoic-Outlier languages exhibit ergative syntax, at least for
canonical transitive verbs: the unmarked pattern for these verbs is III, in which O is
unmarked (like S) and A is marked with ergative e. The suffix –Cia may be added,
resulting in pattern II; the difference in meaning between II and III is hard to pin down
(Clark 1976:71). Middle verbs in these languages occur in constructions I and II, just as
in accusative languages.383
380
A and O are defined semantically here: A is the Agent, O the Patient of the verb. These
formulas do not claim that certain constituents are syntactically subject, object or oblique.
381
Some linguists have argued that Maori, an EP language, is ergative (see Harlow 2007a:25,
Pucilowski 2006:26ff and refs. there); in this analysis, construction II (which is more common in
Maori discourse than I) is considered the normal transitive construction, while the “active”
construction I is an antipassive.
382
On accusative and ergative languages, see e.g. Comrie 1978, Dixon 1994.
383
Whether Proto-Polynesian was an ergative or an accusative language has been debated for
decades. Clark (1976) argued that PPN was ergative, a position defended more recently by
Kikusawa (2002, 2003) and Otsuka (2011). Hohepa (1969a), Chung (1978) and Ball (2007)
argue that PPN was accusative.
8.2.2. Case in Rapa Nui

In a number of respects, Rapa Nui is like other Polynesian languages:
1. A is either unmarked or preceded by e. The following two clauses both occur in the
same text:
(2) He hakaroŋo mai tū taŋata era i tū vehi era.
NTR listen hither DEM man DIS ACC DEM song DIS
“The man listened to that song.” (R310.189)
(3) He hakaroŋo atu e tū taŋata era i tū vehi era.
NTR listen away AG DEM man DIS ACC DEM song DIS
“The man listened to that song.” (R310.196)
2. O either has the accusative marker i or is unmarked.

(4) He maꞌoa i te ꞌumu.
NTR open_earth_oven ACC ART earth_oven
“They opened the earth oven.” (Mtx-3-01.168)
(5) He maꞌoa Ø tau ꞌumu era.
NTR open_earth_oven earth_oven DIS
DEM
“They opened the/that earth oven.” (Mtx-3-11.062)
3. The object of middle verbs is marked with either i or ki (→ 8.6.4.2).
Despite these similarities, Rapa Nui seems not to fit either the accusative or the
ergative group of languages, as it exhibits a number of differences with respect to both
groups:
4. There is no suffix –Cia, i.e. pattern II does not occur.
5. Transitive verbs – both canonical and middle verbs – occur both in pattern I as in
(2) above, and in pattern III as in (6) below (in this example, the order is V O eA).
(6) He mātaki mai Ø te ivi o Ure o Hei e te taŋata.
NTR open hither bone of Ure o Hei AG ART man
ART
“The man unpacked the bones of Ure o Hei.” (Blx-2-01.028)
In other languages, a given verb occurs either in patterns I and II, or in patterns II and
III.
6. Besides patterns I and III, transitive verbs also occur in yet another pattern, in
which both A and O are case-marked:
IV. V eA iO
As most non-EP languages are ergative and all EP languages apart from Rapa Nui are accusative,
an interesting question is whether PEP was ergative or accusative. As Rapa Nui is clearly
accusative (see N. Weber 2003:85, as well as the discussion in the following sections), the most
natural account is that PEP was accusative as well.
This pattern is illustrated in (3) above.

7. The agentive marker e occurs in intransitive as well as transitive clauses, i.e. S may
be e-marked:
(7) ꞌI te pō e iri era e te Miru.
at ART night IPFV ascend DIS AG ART Miru
“During the night, the Miru (tribe) went up.” (R304.050)
The occurrence of pattern III may give the impression that Rapa Nui is to some degree
an ergative language.384 However, 5, 6 and 7 show that e is different from an ergative
marker: it occurs with both canonical and middle verbs, it co-occurs with an accusative
marker (pattern IV), and it occurs in intransitive clauses. Moreover, as will be shown
below, pattern IV is far more common in Rapa Nui discourse than pattern III.385
These observations suggest that, rather than looking for “accusative” or “ergative”
patterns, it is more promising to consider case marking of subjects and objects
separately:
— Under what conditions is S/A marked or not marked by the agentive marker e?
— Under what conditions is O marked or not marked by the accusative marker i?
Sections 8.3 and 8.4.1 will deal with these questions, respectively.
8.2.3. Preliminaries to the analysis of case marking

In order to trace patterns of case marking, I analysed and tabulated the occurrence,
order and marking of core arguments in the corpus mentioned in sec. 8.1 (fn. 377).
Now it is pointed out in sec. 5.3.3.3 that most prepositions – including agentive e and
the accusative marker i – are obligatorily followed by a determiner. However,
prenominal numerals and certain quantifiers preclude the use of determiners; as a
consequence, noun phrases starting with one of these elements cannot be marked by
either e or i. Ignoring this syntactic constraint would skew the statistics, leading to a
high proportion of unmarked subjects and objects.386
384
For example, Otsuka (2011:296) considers Rapa Nui a transitional language (between the two
types), as it exhibits both V S iO and V eS O. See also Mosel (1997:182).
385
It is no surprise that the Rapa Nui case system may seem baffling. According to Clark
(1973:575), it is unclear under which conditions case markers in Rapa Nui can be omitted, while
Chapin (1978:168) admits not having found any regularity in the Rapa Nui case system.
Alexander (1981a, b) formulates rules for the occurrence of case markers, an approach which
yields valuable insights, though it is based on limited (and occasionally erroneous) data. N.
Weber (1988=2003) researches the issue on the basis of more extensive data; her approach,
which is informed by discourse analysis, explains many of the patterns found in modern Rapa
Nui texts.
386
This point is also raised by N. Weber (2003:43), who also points out that the ACC marker is
impossible before complement clauses. As my analysis only considers NP objects, complement
clauses are a priori disregarded.
Therefore, whenever frequencies of ØSA and eSA or frequencies of ØO and iO are

compared,387 noun phrases constructions containing a prenominal numeral or
quantifier are disregarded. Also disregarded are other constructions where case
marking prepositions are excluded:
• arguments with possessive marking (e.g. in nominalised phrases);
• S/A marked with the benefactive mo-/ma-, in the imperfective actor-emphatic
construction (→ 8.6.2.1);
• O marked with instrumental hai (→ 8.6.4.3);
• O marked with the prominence marker ko (→ 8.6.4.5);
• incorporated O (→ 8.6.4.5).
All of these are included in the total number of arguments, but disregarded as far as
case marking is concerned.
8.3. Marking of S/A
8.3.1. The agentive marker e

The default S/A marker is Ø: the S/A argument is unmarked, unless there is a reason
for using e. The use of e depends on syntactic, lexical/semantic, and discourse factors.
These will be discussed in turn in the following sections.
8.3.1.1. Syntactic factors

The use of e partly depends on the position of the S/A argument in the clause. The
tables below show how S/A arguments are marked in clauses with different constituent
orders: Table 56 gives data for clauses containing only S or A, Table 57 gives data for
transitive clauses containing both A and O.
Table 56: Marking of S/A in one-argument clauses
Ø S/A e S/A other S/A total

V S (intransitive) 1644 185 183 2012
V A (transitive) 30 129 13 172
Total V S/A 1674 314 196 2184
S V (intransitive) 295 0 27 322
A V (transitive) 23 5 6 34
Total S/A V 318 5 33 356
387
ØS/A = S or A without case marker; eS/A = S or A marked with e; ØO = O without case
marker; iO = O marked with i or (with middle verbs) ki.
Table 57: Marking of S/A in two-argument clauses
ØA eA other A total
VAO 190 55 29 274
AVO 69 1 15 85
VOA 3 22 1 26
OVA 1 16 1 18
AOV 0 0 6 6
OAV 3 0 1 4
Total 266 94 53 413
These figures allow a number of conclusions.

1. Preverbal S/A is never marked by e; it is either unmarked or has different marking.
The only exceptions to this rule (1x AVO, 5x AV) are a few object relative clauses (→
11.4.2 sub 2), such as the following:
(8) Kai nei [e au ka naꞌa nei ꞌi raro i a koe] e maꞌu hiohio.
-
food PROX AG 1SG CNTG hide PROX at below at PROP 2SG EXH carry strong:RED
“This food which I hide below you, hold it tight.” (R310.074)
2. Final A in a two-argument clause (i.e. VOA or OVA) is almost always marked by e;

the following examples illustrate this:
(9) He tuꞌu he haka uru i te ꞌuha e Ŋumi ki roto ki te hare
NTR arrive NTR CAUS enter ACC ART chicken AG Ngumi to inside to ART house
ki a Oti.
to PROP Oti
“Ngumi arrived and put the chicken in the house for Oti.” (MsE-105b.004)
(10) ꞌO ira au i haka ꞌariki ai e to tāua matuꞌa.
because_of PRO 1SG PFV CAUS king PVP AG ART:of 1DU.INC parent
“Therefore our father made me king.” (Ley-2-06.03)
3. e-marked arguments occur in both VS- and VA-clauses (i.e. both in intransitive
clauses and in transitive clauses without an expressed O), but in very different
proportions. In VA-clauses, 129 subjects are e-marked, while 30 are unmarked; in VS-
clauses, 185 are e-marked, while 1643 are unmarked. That is, 81% of all “markable” A
are e-marked, against 10% of all “markable” S.388
388
N. Weber (2003:39) concludes that intransitive subjects marked with e are very infrequent.
NB In these counts, serial verb constructions consisting of a transitive + intransitive verb have
been considered as a single transitive verb phrase. (See N.Weber 2003:39 for examples.)
The intransitive examples will be further discussed in sec. 8.3.1.4 below. Concerning
transitive clauses, N.Weber formulates the rule that A is obligatory case-marked when
O is not expressed, as in the following examples:
(11) He hakarere e te hānau momoko.
-
NTR leave AG ART raceslender

“The ‘slender race’ left them.” (Ley-3-06.044)
(12) I poreko era te poki nei, he hāŋai e te rūꞌau nei
PFV born DIS ART child PROX NTR feed AG ART old_woman PROX
ararua ko tāꞌana kenu.
the_two PROM POSS.3SG.A husband
“When this child was born, the old woman raised it with her husband.”
(R352.005)
In some cases e-marking can be explained as disambiguation, as omission of the case

marker would lead to ambiguity: in (11) the hānau momoko could also be interpreted
-
as O, were it not for the case marker. But in other cases the sentence is unambiguous:
in (12), the verb hāŋai “feed, raise up” is used, which always has the parent as Agent
and the child as Patient; even so, e is used.
The rule that VA-clauses must have e is not without exception: in 30 cases, e is
omitted. No less than 18 of these occur in older texts.389 In general, e is much less
common in older texts than in newer texts (→ 8.3.1.5 below); out of 36 VA-clauses in
older texts, only 18 are e-marked. This suggests that e-marking in these clauses was
optional in older Rapa Nui; possibly e-marking was mainly used to avoid ambiguity, in
cases where the only argument could also be misinterpreted as O.
In modern texts, only 12 VA-clauses have an unmarked A, while 111 are e-marked.390
Weber’s rule that A-marking in single-argument transitive clauses is obligatory, thus
holds in newer texts with relatively few exceptions.
This rule also implies that A is e-marked in relative clauses with object relativisation
(→ 11.4.2 sub 2).
389
For example, seven occur in the construction toꞌo “take” + transitive clause, a sort of clause-
chaining construction in which the object of toꞌo is expressed in the next clause. toꞌo seems to
indicate an initiative on the part of the subject. An example:
(i) He toꞌo mai Kaiŋa matuꞌa, he tiŋaꞌi i a Kaiŋa poki.
NTR take hither Kainga father NTR kill ACC ART Kainga child
“Father Kainga took (and) killed (his) son Kainga.” (Mtx-3-01.027)
This construction also occurs in new texts, but always with an e-marked subject. Possibly toꞌo in
this construction was conceived as intransitive in the past.
390
Concerning the 12 occurrences of transitive V ØS in newer texts, some may have been
conceived as intransitive rather than transitive, i.e. the speaker may not have implied a direct
object.
Four examples occur (somewhat unexpectedly) in object relative clauses, such as the following:
(i) He manaꞌu tahi i te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa era [e aŋa era a Kava ararua ko Vaha].
NTR think all ACC ART thing all DIS IPFV do DIS PROP Kava the_two PROM Vaha
“He thought of all the things that Kava and Vaha did.” (R229.349)
4. There is one more syntactic condition on the use of e, which does not show up in
the tables above: e is obligatory when a subject pronoun is followed by the identity
marker ꞌā or ꞌana (→ 5.10).
(13) He mātaki e ia mau ꞌā.
NTR open AG 3SG really IDENT
“(His knock was not answered so) he opened [the door] himself.” (R399.189)
This is even true when the subject is preverbal, even though preverbal subjects are
normally not e-marked:
(14) E rāua mau ꞌana ka ꞌaꞌamu nei i te rāua ꞌati.
AG 3PL really IDENT CNTG tell 3PL problem
PROX ACC ART
“They themselves told (about) their misfortune.” (R361.035)
8.3.1.2. Semantic patterns

As discussed above, in other Polynesian languages the use of agentive e is restricted to
transitive verbs: either canonical transitives only (in ergative languages), or any
transitive verb in the passive (in accusative languages). The figures in the previous
section show, that e in Rapa Nui is also used in intransitive clauses. Alexander
(1981b:143) suggests that e can be used with active intransitive verbs, those involving
volition on the part of the subject.391
A more refined analysis shows, that there is a correlation between the use of e and the
type of verb. In the following table, all verbs in the corpus have been assigned to a
semantic category, and the number of ØSA and eSA counted.392 The verb categories are
roughly ordered by agentivity. (Percentages should be read horizontally, e.g.: with
prototypical transitive verbs with markable subjects, 67% has zero marking, while
33% has e.)
391
Alexander (1981b:145) further suggests that Rapa Nui is an “active language”, in which
intransitive verbs are split along the following lines: Agent subjects can be marked like transitive
Agents (i.e. with e), while Patient subjects – for example the subject of “to fall” – can be marked
like Patients (i.e. with the ACC marker i). However, as N.Weber (2003:40) shows, the idea that
subjects can be i-marked is based on an erroneous interpretation of the data.
392
Other subjects, such as possessive subjects and NPs containing a prenominal numeral, have
been disregarded. The right-hand column gives the totals of ØS and eS only.
Table 58: Verb classes and the use of e
Ø S/A e S/A (total)

prototypical transitive 67% (293) 33% (145) (438)
active perception, attention 88% (99) 12% (14) (113)
passive perception 9% (4) 91% (41) (45)
rovaꞌa/ravaꞌa “to obtain” 12.5% (2) 87.5% (14) (16)
cognitive 74% (60) 26% (21) (81)
affection, emotion 95% (58) 5% (3) (61)
speech 62% (256) 38% (155) (411)
motion & position 98% (815) 2% (17) (832)
other agentive intransitive 92% (23) 4% (1) (25)
non-agentive: aspectual; adjective;
process; existential 100% (636) 0% (2) (638)
total 84% (2246) 16% (413) (2659)
This table shows, first of all, that e is largely limited to active participants. It is
common with prototypical transitive verbs; a prototypical transitive involves a
deliberate action performed by a volitional Agent, which affects the patient,393 e.g. kai
“to eat” and tiaŋi “to kill”. It is also common with cognitive verbs such as ꞌite “to
know”, perception verbs such as takeꞌa “to see”, and speech verbs such as kī “to say”. It
occurs occasionally with motion verbs such as turu “to go down” and verbs of affection
such as haŋa “to love”. It is hardly used – if used at all – with other agentive
intransitives such as piko “to hide oneself” and ruruku “to dive”, with
-
adjectives/statives such as ꞌitiꞌiti “(to be) small”, with process verbs (verbs which have
-
a Patient or Theme subject) such as haꞌuru “to sleep” and hiŋa “to fall”, with existential
verbs such as ai “to be”, and with aspectual verbs such as oti “to be finished”.
Even though the use of e is clearly correlated with agentivity, it cuts across the
transitive/intransitive distinction. Speech verbs are usually intransitive (they may
involve an addressee, but usually do not have a nominal object); even so, they
commonly take an e-marked S. On the other hand, verbs of affection are often
transitive, but rarely involve e-marking.
Remarkably, the highest proportion of e-marking is not found among prototypically
transitive verbs. Prototypical transitive verbs do have a relatively high proportion of e-
marked Agents, but the same is true for cognitive verbs, which do not involve an
affected patient. Moreover, there are two verb categories which are not prototypical
transitives, yet which show an overwhelming preference for e-marking:
393
For discussion on prototypical transitivity, see Hopper & Thompson (1980) and more recently
Ball (2007); Naess (2007).
(1) uncontrolled perception verbs; (2) rovaꞌa/ravaꞌa “to obtain”.394 For both, around
90% of all A arguments is e-marked.395 These will now be discussed in some detail.
The difference between controlled and uncontrolled perception verbs is discussed in
section 7.5.2 sub 3. Uncontrolled perception verbs indicate the mere registration of a
stimulus by the experiencer (tikeꞌa/takeꞌa “to see” and ŋaroꞌa “to hear, perceive”);
controlled perception verbs involve deliberate attention on the part of the subject (uꞌi
“to look” and hakaroŋo “to listen”). Perception verbs in general are not canonically
transitive (as the O is not affected), passive perception verbs even less so (as the act
may be involuntary); even so, about 90% of their A arguments are e-marked. An
example:
(15) He takeꞌa e Eva tōꞌona nua era ꞌi tū kona era.
NTR see Eva POSS.3SG.O Mum DIS at DEM place DIS
AG
“Eva saw her mother there.” (R210.086)
By contrast, controlled perception verbs take an unmarked A in almost 90% of all

occurrences.
rovaꞌa “to obtain” (var. ravaꞌa, varaꞌa, rovā and redup. rovarovaꞌa) also shows a strong
-
preference for e-marking.396 This verb usually involves a deliberate act, but the O is not
affected to the same degree as with verbs like “to eat” and “to hit”. An example:
(16) He ravaꞌa e rāua i te vārua era o tū repa era.
NTR obtain AG 3PL spirit DIS of ART young_man DIS
ACC ART
“They obtained the spirit of that young man.” (R310.319)
These data make clear that e in Rapa Nui does not function as an ergative marker, as it
does in Samoic and Tongic languages. It is not restricted to canonical transitives; there
is even a tendency for it to be used more frequently with non-canonical transitives,
394
Interestingly, both tikeꞌa (< PPN *kite + *–a) and ŋaroꞌa (< PPN *roŋo + *–na) are
historically passive forms, both of which underwent metathesis. This may well account for the
predominance of “passive” syntax with an e-marked Experiencer and a Ø-marked Stimulus. The
glottal in tikeꞌa is secondary, while the glottal in ŋaroꞌa is derived from n in Rapa Nui (possibly –
na > –ra > –ꞌa; the shift from r to glottal is not uncommon in Rapa Nui (→ 2.5.2; Davletshin
2015).
395
Of the few remaining cases, some involve a preverbal subject, which precludes e-marking (→
8.3.1.1).
396
The unusual syntax of rovaꞌa/ravaꞌa in Rapa Nui may have to do with its history. It was
borrowed from Tahitian roaꞌa and is one of the few borrowings already well established in older
texts (→ 1.4.1). In Tahitian, roaꞌa is a “patientive verb” (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:241), meaning
“to be obtained, caught”; its Patient is expressed as subject, while the Agent is marked with
agentive i (→ 8.6.4.7). The same is true for Hawaiian loaꞌa (Elbert & Pukui 1979:50). In Rapa
Nui, ravaꞌa/rovaꞌa became an active and transitive verb, but the frequency of agentive e, together
with the frequent absence of the ACC marker (→ 8.4.1 sub 4 below) shows that it retained some
of its “patientive”, passive-like character, even though its argument structure was fundamentally
changed.
verbs which have an O not affected by the action. e is not even restricted to transitives
as such: it is used commonly with speech verbs and sometimes with motion verbs.
The use of e is linked to agentivity, though: it almost exclusively occurs with verbs that
involve a volitional agent. (One apparent counterexample is discussed in the following
section.) The only exception to this generalisation is, that e is far more common with
uncontrolled perception verbs than with controlled perception verbs.
However, the notion of agentivity as involving a volitional participant deliberately
performing the action, may be too narrow. While Agents are typically animate, e-
marked constituents sometimes refer to an inanimate entity causing an event; this
semantic role can be labelled Force (Payne 1997:47). This happens especially in
passives (→ (55) in 8.5.1 below) and pseudopassives (→ 8.5.2, ex. (62)). The fact that
e is used with inanimate entities, may indicate a gradual widening of its use, whereby
its status as an agentive marker is weakened.
8.3.1.3. e with statives?

N. Weber (2003:36f) argues on the basis of an example from Englert (1978) that e may
also be used with stative verbs. The example is as follows:
(17) E ora rō e ia.
IPFVlive EMPH AG 3SG
“He will live.” (Egt. 1978:65)
While this is indeed an e-marked S with a non-agentive verb, it seems to be a slender

basis to deny the agentivity of e. Notice that this is a single isolated example; it occurs
without context in Englert’s grammar sketch as an example of the future tense marker
e – rō. Secondly, the same sentence does in fact occur in a text by Englert (a translated
Bible story), but there e is absent: e ora rō ia (Egt-03.041). This raises the question if
(17) is not erroneous, or at least anomalous.
Thirdly, in the corpus I analysed, only one out of 413 e-marked arguments involves a
stative verb:
(18) Rohirohi e tāꞌaku
- poki i iri ai i here mai ai.
tired:RED AG POSS.1SG.A child PFV ascend PVP PFV tie hither PVP
“My son tired himself out when he went up to tie up (the sun).” (R352.099)
e tāꞌaku poki is the S of rohirohi “tired”. Now rohirohi is normally stative, but in this
- -
case it may have an active sense: “to work hard, to wear oneself out.” (The Spanish
translation reads “Se cansó mucho mi hijo al ir a amarrarlo”.)
We may conclude that the characterisation of e as an agentive marker remains valid;
apart from a single example from Englert’s grammar, all occurrences of e involve
agentive participants.
8.3.1.4. Pragmatic/discourse factors

The preceding sections have shown that e is more or less obligatory in the following
situations:
• in VOA and OVA clauses;
• in VA clauses;
• with uncontrolled perception verbs and rovaꞌa.
On the other hand, e is not used:
• with non-agentive S;
• with preverbal S/A.
In the remaining situations, e is optional, i.e. in the following cases:
• in VAO-clauses;
• in VS-clauses with agentive S, especially with speech and motion verbs.
In contexts where e-marking is optional, the use of e is governed by discourse

considerations: e marks Agents which are highly significant in the context. Usually this
means that the participant has a high degree of agentivity.
e is used when a new participant is introduced in the Agent role. New participants in a
story are usually introduced in a nominal clause or in a non-agentive role. In the
following example, however, Kainga – who has not been mentioned before – is
introduced as the Agent of the verb hakaroŋo, and e-marked:
(19) I oti era i te hakaroŋo e Kaiŋa, te matuꞌa tane o Huri ꞌa Vai,
PFV finish DIS ACC ART listen AG Kainga ART parent male of Huri a Vai
he kī...
NTR say
“When Kainga, the father of Huri a Vai, had finished listening, he said...”
(R304.011)
In the following example, the turtle (which will play an important role in the story) is
introduced as Agent of oho:
(20) He oho e te honu ꞌitiꞌiti,
- he raŋi a Uho...
NTR go turtle small:RED NTR call PROP Uho
AG ART
“A small turtle came by, and Uho shouted...” (Mtx-7-12.007)
e is also used when a participant which has been mentioned before, takes the initiative
and starts to act.397
(21) I ꞌōtea era he eꞌa mai a Kaiŋa ararua ko Huri ꞌa Vai
PFV dawn DIS NTR go_out hither PROP Kainga the_two PROM Huri a Vai
ki haho, he kī e Kaiŋa...
to outside NTR say AG Kainga
“When dawn broke, Kainga went outside with Huri a Vai; then Kainga said...”
(R304.017)
More generally, e tends to be used in the case of subject shift, when a different
participant becomes active. In some dialogues, for example, every turn of conversation
397
Levinsohn (2007:61) uses the term “prominent entities” for entities which have a significant
role to play in the subsequent discourse, and which may therefore be highlighted in some way.
is marked with e. This explains the large number of e-marked S with speech verbs in
certain texts:
(22) He kī e Kuha ki a Pea... He ꞌui e Pea ki a Kuha...
NTR say AG Kuha to PROP Pea NTR ask AG Pea to PROP Kuha
He kī e Kuha ki a Pea...
NTR say AG Kuha to PROP Pea
“Kuha said to Pea... Pea asked Kuha... Kuha said to Pea...” (R229.034ff)
Finally, e may be used when an Agent is emphatic because it is contrasted with other
possible participants. This happens when it is singled out among a group (as in (21)
above), when it is followed by ꞌā/ꞌana “self” (see (13)–(14) above), and in examples
like the following:
(23) E hāpaꞌo rō e au i tāꞌana poki.
IPFVcare_for EMPH AG 1SG ACC POSS.3SG.A child
“I will take care of her child.” (R229.081)
These pragmatically motivated uses of e confirm that e is an agentive marker: when

case marking is not determined by the syntax of the clause or the semantics of the
verb, e is used when the participant is high in agentivity.398
8.3.1.5. Diachronic developments in the use of e

Most of the examples in the previous section are from new texts. This is no accident:
the use of e has significantly increased over time. The table on the following page
shows subject marking in old and new texts.399
As this table shows, e is much more common in new texts than in old texts.400 In old
texts, 40 out of 739 potentially case-marked arguments are e-marked (5.4%), in new
texts 368 out of 1608 (22.9%).
In intransitive clauses, the difference is even more remarkable: in old texts, only 9 out
of 610 intransitive clauses have e-marking (1.5%), in new texts 176 out of 1218
(14.4%).401
398
Pragmatically motivated use of an agentive marker is not unique in Rapa Nui. Duranti (1990,
1994) gives examples from Samoan speeches where ergative e is used to emphasize agentivity
and responsibility for an action, while other constructions are used to downplay a person’s
contribution towards an event.
399
The column “other” includes all types of noun phrases which syntactically do not allow a case
marker; see section 8.2.3.
400
Pace Finney & Alexander (1998:31), who assert that e is becoming less frequent under the
influence of Tahitian.
401
This partly confirms Finney’s (2001:409) assertion that e (which he labels “ergative”) is
becoming a marker for all subjects. Notice, however, that e is still largely limited to agentive
verbs, as shown in sec. 8.3.1.2.
Table 59: Diachronic shifts in the use of e
old texts new texts

ØS/A eS/A other total ØS/A eS/A other total
Two-argument
clauses: 80 13 9 102 186 81 44 311
of which: VAO 64 3 4 71 126 52 25 203
VOA 3 7 1 11 0 15 0 15
One-argument
clauses:
VS (intransitive) 601 9 46 656 1042 176 137 1355
VA (transitive) 18 18 1 37 12 111 12 135
total 699 40 56 795 1240 368 193 1801
In VA-clauses, A arguments are almost obligatorily e-marked in modern Rapa Nui,

while in older texts only half are e-marked. Most uses of e in older texts can be
explained either syntactically (VOA clauses) or lexically (with rovaꞌa “obtain” or
passive perception verbs); the pragmatically motivated uses described in the previous
section are rare in old texts.
These data suggest that at an earlier stage e was only used in transitive clauses, in a
limited number of contexts. Texts from the 1930s show the beginning of an extension
of its use towards intransitive clauses, a use which is nowadays well established.
8.4. Marking of O
8.4.1. Use and non-use of the accusative marker

The O argument is normally preceded by the accusative marker i. With certain verbs,
ki is used as well (→ 8.6.4.2).
The accusative marker is used whether A is expressed – postverbal as in (24) or
preverbal as in (25) – or implicit as in (26)–(27):
(24) E maꞌu mai ꞌā a mātou i te rēkaro nei māꞌau.
carry hither CONT PROP 1PL.EXC ACC ART present DIS BEN.2SG.A
IPFV
“We bring this present for you.” (R210.127)
(25) Te ŋā viꞌe e uruuru
- rō ꞌā i te kahu kākaka.
ART PLwoman IPFV put_on:RED EMPH CONT ACC ART clothes banana_fibres
“The women wore banana fibre dresses.” (R210.132)
(26) He hāŋai i te moa i te puaꞌa.
NTR feed chicken ACC ART pig
ACC ART
“They raised chickens and pigs.” (R229.112)
(27) He hakarē i te poki.

NTR leave ACC ART child
“They left the child behind.” (R532-07.057)
These examples also illustrate that the accusative marker is used whether O is definite
or indefinite (as in (25)), and whether it is human or non-human (as in (26)).
Moreover, disambiguation does not play a role in the use of the accusative marker: in
all these examples it is semantically clear that the underlined NP must be O, yet the
accusative marker is used.
Under certain conditions the accusative marker is omitted, either obligatorily or
optionally.402 These conditions are as follows:403
1. Preverbal O is unmarked, just like preverbal S/A. This happens both in OVA
clauses and in AOV clauses:
because_of PRO 1SG PFV CAUS king PVP AG ART:of 1DU.INC parent
“Therefore our father made me king.” (Ley-2-06.036)
(29) O te rūhia ia te hohoꞌa nei i toꞌo.
of ART tourist then ART image PROX PFV take
“(It was) the tourists (who) took this photo.” (R415.735)
2. The accusative marker i is often omitted in the imperative mood (whether marked
with ka, exhortative e or hortative ki):
(30) Ka hakarē taꞌa ŋā poki.
IMP leave POSS.2SG.A PL child
“Leave your children behind.” (R245.224)
(31) E haka ꞌiti tāꞌau ꞌau ꞌumu.
EXH CAUS small POSS.2SG.A smoke earth_oven
“Reduce the smoke of your earth oven.” (Mtx-7-12.026)
The marker ki (used with middle verbs, → 8.6.4.2) is preserved, though:
402
Alexander (1981a:165) claims that a noun phrase (whether subject or object) is marked to
bring it into focus. Noticing that the object is marked with i more often than not, Alexander
suggests that possibly the object is often in focus. I will argue below that, while the presence of
the ACC marker does not signal focus or salience, its absence sometimes signals non-salience.
403
As discussed in section 8.2.3, in certain noun phrases the use of a case marker is syntactically
impossible. In order to analyse the use and non-use of the ACC marker, these noun phrases should
be disregarded. Thus, the following example is not counted as a case of an omitted ACC marker,
as a noun phrase starting with the numeral e tahi cannot contain a ACC marker at all:
(i) Ko māhani ꞌā a au e tahi kona...
PRF accustomed CONT PROP 1SG NUM one place
“I know a certain place...” (R296.001)
(32) Ka haŋa ki taꞌa kenu ko Pāpuꞌe.

IMPlove to POSS.2SG.A husband PROM Papu’e
“Love your husband Papu’e.” (R372.034)
When the subject of an imperative clause is expressed, O is always marked:

(33) ¡Ka ꞌaꞌaru mai
- koe i te poki!
IMP grabhither 2SG ACC ART child
“Grab the child!” (R210.063)
Even when the subject is not expressed, the accusative marker may be used; this
happens especially with pronominal objects:
(34) ¡Ka maꞌu i a au ki tōꞌoku kāiŋa!
IMPcarry ACC PROP 1SG to POSS.1SG.O homeland
“Carry me to my country!” (Ley-9-55.089)
3. Certain verbs take a nominalised verb complement, i.e. a verb preceded by a

determiner. These complements may or may not have the accusative marker.
Complements of ꞌite “know” and hāpī “learn” usually have the accusative marker:
(35) ¿Ko ꞌite ꞌā koe i te hī?
PRFknow CONT 2SG ACC ART fish.V
“Do you know how to fish?” (R245.101)
The complement of oti “finish” may have the accusative marker, but only when the
clause has a subject. This subject is the S/A argument of the complement verb, but is
raised to the subject position of oti (→ 11.3.2.2). As the following pair of examples
shows, after a raised subject the object marker is optional:
(36) I oti tahi era tū ŋā poki era i te hīmene...
PFV finish all child DIS ACC ART sing
DIS DEM PL
“When all the children had finished singing...” (R315.353)
(37) I oti era a mātou te kai...
PFV finish DIS PROP 1PL.EXC ART eat
“When we had finished eating...” (R157.032)
When the subject is not expressed, the complement is not marked.

(38) He oti te puke i te ꞌuhi...
NTR finish ART heap_up ACC ART yam
“(When) they finished heaping up (earth mounds for) the yams....” (Mtx-2-
01.010)
4. The verbs rovaꞌa “obtain”, takeꞌa “see” and ŋaroꞌa “hear, perceive”, which usually
have an e-marked A (→ 8.3.1.2), tend to take an unmarked O, especially when A is not
expressed:
(39) Paurō te pō ka pere era he rovaꞌa te tara.

every ART night CNTG play DIS NTR obtain ART money
“Every night, when he played, he obtained/won money.” (R250.146)
The accusative marker is sometimes used, but only when A is expressed (→ (16) in
8.3.1.2).404
Constructions like (39) can be explained as passives (→ 8.5 below); this would mean
that rovaꞌa is constructed passively when the Agent is not expressed – something which
is not surprising, given the fact that passives serve to downplay the Agent and to
enable the Patient to function as subject.
Apart from the three verbs mentioned in 4 above, the presence or absence of the
accusative marker is generally unrelated to the way the subject is marked. This is
illustrated in the following table, which gives total frequencies for A- and O-marking in
VAO clauses:
Table 60: Argument marking in VAO clauses
ØO i/ki O other O total

ØA 20 157 13 190
eA 8 40 7 55
other A 1 23 5 29
total 29 220 25 274
As this table shows, omission of the accusative marker is relatively rare in VAO clauses
(29 out of 249 possible cases, i.e. 8%), regardless whether A is e-marked or unmarked.
As it happens, all but one of these unmarked O belong to categories 3 and 4 above. In
other words: apart from the factors discussed so far, accusative marking in VAO
clauses is obligatory.
On the other hand, in clauses without an overt A it is more common for the accusative
marker to be omitted. Frequencies for VO-clauses are as follows:405
Table 61: Object marking in VO clauses
ØO i/ki O other O total

old texts 126 260 46 432
new texts 149 506 136 791
total 275 766 182 1223
404
Another peculiarity of rovaꞌa is its ability to take an incorporated object (→ 8.6.4.5).
405
OV-clauses are disregarded; as discussed under 1 above, preverbal objects are never marked.
As this table shows, the accusative marker is omitted in 275 out of 1047 possible
clauses (26.4%). The percentage is somewhat higher in old texts (32.6%, 126 out of
386) than in new texts (22.7%, 149 out of 655).
Now 138 of these can be explained by factors 2, 3 and 4 above: these objects are a
nominalised verb, occur with an imperative, or with one of the verbs in category 4.
However, this leaves 137 cases unexplained in VO clauses, i.e. 13.1% of all “markable”
objects: 65 in old texts (19.4%), 72 in new texts (11.0%).406 These will now be
considered.
5. Turning to the 137 unexplained cases of omitted ACC markers in VO-clauses: the first
observation that can be made, is that almost all of these arguments are non-human.
Many of them concern common collocations, verb-object combinations which
frequently occur together. The sense of these collocations may or may not be
idiomatic, but in all cases the object is highly predictable. Some of these expressions
hardly ever occur with an accusative marker. Examples are hoa (i) te ꞌaka “let down
(lit. throw) the anchor”, maꞌoa (i) te ꞌumu “open the earth oven”, ꞌamo te vaꞌe “to lift up
the feet = to stride”:407
(40) He tuꞌu, he hoa te ꞌaka o te miro.
NTR arrive NTR throw ART anchor of ART ship
“They arrived and lowered the anchor of the ship.” (Egt-02.099)
More in general, the accusative marker is frequently omitted when the object is highly
predictable. For example, ao “serve food” in (41) is naturally used with food as object,
and haka hū “to light, kindle” in (42) has either a fire or an engine as direct object.
With both verbs, the accusative marker tends to be omitted:
(41) I ao mai era te kai he ꞌate māmoe.
PFVserve_food hither DIS ART food PRED liver sheep
“When the food was served, it was sheep liver.” (R245.232)
(42) He haka hū te ahi, he tunu he kakai.-
NTR CAUS burn ART fire NTR cook NTR PL:eat

“They kindled the fire, cooked and ate.” (R245.209)
In other cases it is less clear why the accusative marker is omitted; the only thing that
can be said is, that all of these involve a non-human object. Two examples:
406
N. Weber (2003:50f) mentions the possibility that the omission of the ACC-marker may be the
result of a defective transcription: the transcriber may simply not have heard the particle i,
especially after words ending in i. However, this does not explain why omission of i is common in
VO-clauses, but rare in VSO-clauses (apart from the well-defined contexts described above). The
difference is especially telling in older texts. Even though these were transcribed neither by
professional linguists nor by native speakers, in VSO clauses only 3 out of 59 “markable” direct
objects lack the ACC marker, and all of these concern a nominalised verb. We may conclude that
the omission of the ACC marker cannot be attributed to defective transcription.
407
Notice that not all common collocations allow omission of the ACC marker. For example, haka
teꞌe i te kōkoma “to remove the intestines, to gut” occurs 13x with ACC marker, 1x without.
(43) He maꞌu atu tū kai era...

NTR carry away DEM food DIS
“He carried that food...” (R245.067)
(44) He toꞌo mai, he haka pā te kūpeŋa.
NTR take hither NTR CAUS double ART net
“He took the net and folded it.” (Mtx-3-01.171)
We may tentatively conclude that the accusative marker can be left out when the
object is non-human and non-salient,408 in clauses where the subject is not
expressed.409 This tendency may have weakened over time: new texts show fewer
examples of unmarked objects than old texts.
Finally, some cases of unmarked objects are best explained as passive constructions.
These are discussed in section 8.5 below.
8.4.2. Conclusion: Rapa Nui is an accusative language

The preceding sections have shown that Rapa Nui is an accusative language: S and A
arguments have identical marking (either Ø or e), while O is marked differently (either
i or Ø). S and A together can be called subject, while O is object.
Case marking of S, A and O is governed by the following rules:
1. In certain noun phrases (e.g. those starting with a numeral), case markers are
excluded. These noun phrases are unmarked regardless their semantic role and
regardless syntactic, semantic and pragmatic considerations.
2. Preverbal S, A and O are never case-marked.
3. S and A are unmarked by default. In the following situations they are marked with
e:
• in VOA and OVA clauses;
• in VA clauses without explicit O;
• with the verbs rovaꞌa “obtain”, takeꞌa “see” and ŋaroꞌa “hear, perceive”;
• optionally with any agentive verb (whether transitive or intransitive), to
signal a high degree of agentivity.
4. Postverbal O are normally marked with i. They are unmarked
• in the imperative, if the subject is not expressed;
• usually when the object of oti “to finish” is a nominalised verb;
408
“Non-salient” means that the importance of the ACC is downplayed. It does not necessarily
mean that the object is nonthematic, i.e. does not play a significant role in the larger discourse.
N.Weber (2003:50) suggests that in some cases the ACC marker may have been omitted because
the ACC is indeterminate or non-referential. This may explain some cases; however, three of her
examples involve the verbs ŋaroꞌa and takeꞌa, which allow omission of the ACC marker anyway.
409
Notice that this is somewhat the opposite of the conditions on the use of the agentive marker
e: e is obligatory in transitive clauses when the object is not expressed, and optional when the
object is expressed.
• often with the verbs rovaꞌa “to obtain”, takeꞌa “to sea” and ŋaroꞌa “to hear”;
• in VO clauses, when the object is non-salient.
8.5. The passive
8.5.1. Passivisation in Rapa Nui

In the previous sections, verb arguments have been referred to by their semantic roles,
not by their syntactic role. Now in transitive clauses, the A argument (whether e-
marked or unmarked) is often the subject of the clause, while Patient (whether i-
marked or unmarked) is object. Alexander (1981b:136f) shows that various tests
indicate that the e-marked noun phrase is the subject of the clause. For example, when
two coordinated clauses have the same subject, one of these may be deleted under
Equi-NP-deletion, even when the other is e-marked. In the following example, the
deletion of the subject in the first clause indicates that e tōꞌoku pāpā era is the subject
of the second clause.
(45) Ko oho mai ꞌā Ø ko ꞌaꞌaru ꞌā
- i tōꞌoku pūꞌoko
PRF go hither CONT PRF grab CONT ACC POSS.1SG.O head
e tōꞌoku pāpā era.
AG POSS.1SG.O father DIS
“My father came and touched my head.” (Alexander 1981b:137; spelling
corrected)
In other words, constructions with an e-marked Agent are accusative constructions, in

which the Agent is subject and the Patient is object.
Other EP languages (such as Tahitian and Maori) have a passive construction, in which
not A, but O is syntactically the subject of the clause. These constructions involve a
fourfold transformation:410
1. The Patient (O) is not marked with the accusative marker i.
2. the Agent (A) is marked with e.
3. The verb takes the passive suffix –(C)ia.
4. The order of A and O is often reversed: while the default order for active clauses is
VAO, passive clauses tend to have the order VOA.
Now Rapa Nui does not have the passive suffix (3); moreover, the accusative marker is
omitted under certain conditions anyway (1), the Agent is e-marked under certain
conditions (2), and constituent order is relatively free (4). It may thus seem that Rapa
Nui cannot have a passive; or if it has a passive, it would be impossible to detect, as all
three possible criteria already apply otherwise. It is therefore not surprising that
Chapin (1978:167) denies the existence of a passive in Rapa Nui.
410
See e.g. N.Weber (2003:53); Clark (1976:67); Harlow (2007a:171; 2007b:90).
However, Alexander (1981b) and N.Weber (2003) show that it is possible to

distinguish a passive in Rapa Nui. The passive occurs in clauses such as the following:
“My bread has been snatched by Te Manu.” (R245.039)
(47) Ku ŋau ꞌana Kirireva e te niuhi.
PRF bite CONT Kirireva AG ART shark
“Kirireva has been bitten by a shark.” (R361.065)
In these examples, the Patient is unmarked (criterion 1), the Agent is marked with e
(2), and the constituent order is VOA (4). More importantly, Weber (2003:56–58)
argues that in such constructions, the Patient is subject of the clause. This is
demonstrated by two phenomena:
a. Equi-NP-deletion. In a subordinate clause introduced by mo “in order to”, the

subject can be omitted if it is coreferential with the subject of the matrix clause. In
order words, if a noun phrase in such a clause is omitted, it must be the subject. The
fact that in the following example the Patient is omitted under coreferentiality with
the matrix clause subject, shows that the Patient is the subject, while the Agent phrase
is an oblique:
(48) He haŋa a aui [mo hoŋi Øi e te poki].
NTR want PROP 1SG for kiss AG ART child
“I want to be kissed by the child.” (N. Weber 2003:56, adapted from Alexander
1981b:134)
This argument may not be as strong as it seems, though, as it is not certain that
deletion in these clauses only operates on subjects. Patients (i.e. direct objects) are
freely omitted in Rapa Nui, both in main clauses and in mo-clauses, without any
evidence of passivisation. See for example (49), where the Agent is expressed as a
possessor (as is usual in mo-clauses → 11.5.1.2), while in (50) the Agent is not
expressed at all. In both cases the Patient is left unexpressed under coreferentiality
with a constituent of the matrix clause, even though there is no evidence that the
Patient is subject of the mo-clause.
(49) ꞌIna he vaii [mo unu o te taŋata Øi].
NEG PRED water for drink of ART man
“There is no water for the people to drink.” (R372.013)
(50) He hipa ki ruŋa i a Mahatū ki te raupā niui
NTR pass_by to above at PROP Mahatu to ART leaf palm_tree
[mo hahati- mai Øi].
for RED:break hither
“He passed by Mahatu, (looking) for palm leaves to break.” (R304.111)
b. More convincing evidence for the subject status of the Patient comes from subject
raising. In many Polynesian languages, there is a rule which raises the subject of a
subordinate clause to the subject position of the matrix clause. The constructions in
which this rule operates, vary per language (see Chung 1978:132; N. Weber 2003:57);
in Rapa Nui, subjects are raised after the negator ꞌina and the aspectual verbs oti
“finish” and haꞌamata “begin”.411
Now it turns out that when the complement clause contains a transitive verb, the
Patient of this verb can be raised to the subject position of the matrix clause. This
suggests that the embedded clause is a passive construction with the Patient as subject.
This suggestion is reinforced by the fact that the Agent in these constructions, if
expressed, is always e-marked. Here is an example for each construction:
(51) ꞌIna te hoii [kai puꞌapuꞌa Øi e ꞌOrohe].
-
NEG ART horse NEG.PFV beat:RED AG Orohe

“The horse was not whipped by Orohe.” (N. Weber 2003:58)
(52) Ku oti ꞌā te nuai [te kaui Øi e Nune rāua ko te vārua].
PRF finish CONT ART cape ART sew AG Nune 3PL PROM ART spirit
“Nune had finished sewing the cape (or: the cape had finished being sewn by
Nune), together with the spirit.” (Mtx-7-09.051)
(53) He haꞌamata te hoii [he puꞌapuꞌa Øi e ꞌOrohe].
-
NTR begin ART horse NTR beat:RED AG Orohe

“The horse started to be whipped by Orohe.” (N. Weber 2003:58)
We may conclude that Rapa Nui has a true passive construction, in which the
unmarked Patient is subject, while the e-marked Agent is oblique.412
Pragmatically, passives are characterised by the fact that the Patient is the topic of the
clause (Keenan & Dryer 2007:326). The passive construction enables the Patient to
function as subject. This is clear in the following sentence, which is part of a story
about the arrival of the first airplane on Rapa Nui; the airplane is topical:
(54) Ko puru tahi ꞌana tū ꞌavione era e te viꞌe, e te taŋata,
PRF close all CONT DEM airplane DIS AG ART woman AG ART man
e te ŋā poki hare hāpī.
AG ART PL child house learn
“The plane was completely surrounded by women, men, and school children.”
(R379.012)
411
See sec. 10.5.1, 11.3.2.2 and 11.3.2.1, respectively. Weber mentions ꞌina and haꞌamata, not oti.
412
Because e marks both Agent phrases that are subject and Agent phrases with oblique status,
N.Weber (2003:60) distinguish two different particles e: a nominative particle, marking subjects
(in Weber’s view not necessarily agentive in active clauses, see sec. 8.3.1.3), and an agentive
particle, marking oblique Agent noun phrases in passive clauses. In my analysis e is treated as a
single particle, which always marks Agent noun phrases, whether in subject position or oblique.
As the discussion in this section will show, it is not always possible to determine whether a
clause is active or passive.
One situation in which the Patient tends to be topical, is when the Agent is non-
animate and the Patient is animate. Animate entities tend to be more topical in
discourse than non-animate entities; the passive construction may be used to reflect
this syntactically. This leads to constructions such as the following, in which a non-
animate Agent (more precisely: Force) is e-marked:
(55) A totoru
- ko haka vari tahi ꞌana e te pūai ꞌanaꞌana o te
- ꞌAtua.
PROP RED:three PRF CAUS pass all power splendour of ART God
CONT AG ART
“The three were completely surrounded by the glorious power of God.” (Luke
9:31)
In all languages that have passives, the Agent of a passive construction can be omitted
(Keenan & Dryer 2007:329). In Rapa Nui, agentless passives can be detected in Patient
raising constructions: (56) and (57) are agentless counterparts of (52) and (53),
respectively.
(56) Ki oti hoꞌi te tāua kāpēi [i te unu Øi]...
when finish indeed ART 1DU.INC coffee ACC ART drink
“When we have finished our coffee... (lit. when our coffee has finished being
drunk).” (R301.043)
(57) ꞌAi hoꞌi te taŋatai e haꞌamata era [e tari era Øi ki ruŋa
there indeed ART man IPFV begin DIS IPFV transport DIS to above
i te pahī].
at ART ship
“Then the people started to be transported aboard the ship.” (R210.040)
We would expect agentless passives to occur in simple clauses as well; however, these
are harder to detect. An agentless simple passive clause will be a Verb–Patient clause
with unmarked Patient, but there are no syntactic criteria to tell whether such a
construction is active (Verb–ObjectPatient) or passive (Verb–SubjectPatient): VO-clauses
with an unmarked object are not uncommon (→ 8.4.1).
There are semantic/pragmatic clues, however. A possible indication is, whether or not
the clause has an implied Agent. When the Agent is left out in active clauses, this is
usually because it is already known; it is coreferential with a noun phrase in a previous
clause. In (44), here repeated, the identity of the Agent is known, so we may presume
that the sentence is active. Moreover, the Agent is topical, therefore likely to be the
subject:
(44) He toꞌo mai, he haka pā te kūpeŋa.
NTR take hither NTR fold ART net
“He took the net and (he) folded it.” (Mtx-3-01.171)
With agentless passive clauses, the Agent is not known from the preceding context; the
identity of the Agent may simply be irrelevant. In the following example, the identity
of the Agent is unknown, so a passive interpretation with the Patient as subject is
plausible:
(58) Hora iva ko tari ꞌā te taŋata ki ruŋa ki te pahī.

hour nine PRF transport CONT ART man to above to ART ship
“At 9 o’clock the people are transported aboard the ship.” (R210.037)
Besides this semantic criterion, there is also a possible syntactic clue for passivity.
Cross-linguistically, there is a correlation between passive voice and perfect aspect.413
The perfect aspect focuses on the state resulting from the action, rather than the action
itself; similarly, the passive tends to focus on the result of the activity and its effect on
the patient. As it happens, quite a few examples of the passive in Rapa Nui are in the
perfect aspect, like (46), (47) and (58) above.
In conclusion: simple VO clauses may be either active or passive. Use of the perfect
aspect may be an indication of passivity, but often only the context will tell whether a
clause is active or passive. In the first case, the Agent is implied from the context; in
the second case, the Agent is unspecified and irrelevant.
8.5.2. The pseudopassive

A few intransitive verbs of motion or position (uru and oꞌo “to enter”, eke “to mount,
embark, climb”, noho “to sit, stay”) exhibit a process very similar to passivisation.
These verbs normally take an Agent subject, as well as an optional oblique constituent
expressing the target of movement or position:
(59) He eke a Korikē ki ruŋa i te hoi.
NTR go_up PROP Korike to above at ART horse.
“Korike mounts the horse.” (R616.059)
But there are also examples where the locative constituent becomes the subject and is
unmarked or left unexpressed, while the Agent is expressed as an oblique e-marked
phrase.414 This construction can be characterised as a pseudopassive: the Agent is
expressed as oblique, but unlike the regular passive, it is a locative phrase rather than
a Patient which becomes the subject. A few examples:
(60) Poki era ko eke ꞌā e te vārua.
child DIS PRF enter CONT AG ART spirit
“The child is possessed (lit. entered) by a spirit.” (R310.268)
413
See e.g. Comrie (1976:84); Foley (2007:382); Keenan and Dryer (2007:340); Dixon
(2012:219). Cf. Milner (1973), who argues that the difference between suffixed and unsuffixed
verbs in Samoan (a distinction usually described as active versus passive) has to do with aspect,
not voice.
414
Hooper (1984b:40) points out that in Maori, verbs of motion and posture can freely occur in
the passive.
(61) ¿E hia motu noho e te taŋata?

NUM how_many island stay AG ART man
“How many inhabited islands are there? (lit. How many islands lived by
people)” (R616.132)
(62) E oꞌo rō tōꞌona hare e te tokerau.
EXH enter EMPH POSS.3SG.O house AG ART wind
“Let his house be entered by the wind.” (Acts 1:20)
Like the regular passive, the pseudopassive tends to be used when the Patient is more
topical than the Agent.
8.5.3. Two other uses of e

Apart from its use in the passive, e also functions as an oblique marker in two other
situations.
1. The verb ꞌī “to be full” has two possible argument structures: the subject either
expresses the filled entity (the Container) as in (63), or the filling entity (the
Substance) as in (64).415 When the Substance is subject, the Container may be
expressed as a locative phrase (ꞌi rote vai in (64)).
(63) Ko ꞌī ꞌana tū vaka era.
PRF full CONT DEM canoe DIS
“The canoe was full.” (R615.716)
(64) Ko ꞌī ꞌana te taŋata ꞌi rote vai.
PRF full CONT ART man at inside_the water
“There were plenty of people in the water, the water was full of people.”
(R210.166)
Now when the Container is subject, the Substance (whether animate or inanimate)
may be expressed with an e-marked phrase. In the following example, this happens
twice:
(65) Hai oho iŋa nei ko ꞌī ꞌā te motu nei e te iŋoiŋo.
-
INST go NMLZ PROX PRF full CONT ART island PROX AG ART dirty
ꞌE te vai, ko ꞌī ꞌā e te meꞌe ꞌiꞌino.
-
and ART water PRF full CONT AG ART thing PL:bad

“When this happens, this island will be full of pollution. And the water will be
full of bad things.” (R649.119)
415
While this alternating argument structure is not uncommon for verbs meaning “full” in
Polynesian (Ross Clark, p.c.), in Rapa Nui it represents an independent development: ꞌī was
borrowed from Tahitian, where the Container is always subject and the Substance is marked with
the multifunctional preposition i.
(65) can be considered as a kind of passivisation of the construction in (64): the

Substance, in (64) expressed as subject, is demoted to an e-marked oblique noun
phrase, while the Container becomes subject. The difference with regular passivisation
is, that the Container subject is not the original direct object: in construction (64), the
Container can only be expressed as an oblique, not as direct object. In this respect,
(65) is very similar to the pseudopassive construction discussed in the previous section;
the difference is, that unlike the pseudopassive examples, the e-marked noun phrase
does not have an agentive role.
2. e occasionally marks a noun phrase indicating something potentially harmful. I have

found this mainly in the Bible translation with the verbs hāpaꞌo “to take care of” and
uꞌi “to watch, look”, which can both be used in the sense “to watch out for, to be on
one’s guard against”.416 However, (68) shows that this use of e is also found in other
contexts.
(66) E uꞌi koe e te meꞌe haka hara i te nuꞌu ꞌāpī.
EXH look 2SG AG ART thing CAUS sin people new
ACC ART
“Watch out for the things that make young people sin.” (2 Tim. 2:22)
(67) E hāpaꞌo kōrua e te nounou.
-
EXH care_for 2PL AG ART greed

“Be on your guard against greed.” (Luke 12:15)
(68) Kona pava e te ꞌua.
place shelter AG ART rain
“(Ovahe is) a place sheltered from the rain.” (R157.024)
8.6. Non-standard verbal clauses
Under this heading, clauses are discussed which have a non-standard constituent order,
non-canonical marking of arguments, or both. Sec. 8.6.1 deals with clauses involving a
non-standard constituent order, in which the arguments still have their usual markers
(Ø or e for the subject, i or Ø for the direct object). 8.6.2 discusses topicalisation, in
which a preposed subject has a special marker (either ko or he). 8.6.3 deals with the
actor-emphatic construction, which serves to put an Agent in focus. Other
constructions involving non-standard marking of arguments are discussed in 8.6.4.
8.6.1. Marked constituent orders

As discussed in section 8.1, the default constituent order is VS/VAO, but all other
possible orders occur in varying proportions. In this section, different constructions are
discussed involving constituent orders other than VS/VAO.
416
The complement of these verbs (the negative thing one should watch out for) can also be
introduced by mai “from”, or as a clause introduced by ꞌo “lest”.
8.6.1.1. Preverbal subjects

Subjects are often placed before the verb. In certain situations, this is syntactically
conditioned.
Preverbal subjects are common after various clause-initial elements (obligatorily
after a–b, optionally after c–d):417
a. the negator ꞌina (→ 10.5.1);
b. interrogative phrases with ai “who” and aha “what” (→ 10.3.2);
c. the conjunction ꞌāhani/ꞌani “if only” (→ 11.6.6);
d. the deictic particles ꞌī “here, now, immediately” and ꞌai “there, then, subsequently”
(→ 4.5.4.1).418
In fact, there is a general tendency for the subject to be preverbal after any oblique
initial constituent, e.g. a prepositional phrase as in (69), or an adverb as in (70):419
(69) Mai tū hora era a Eva ꞌina he taŋi hakaꞌou.
from DEM time DIS PROP Eva NEG NTR cry again
“From that moment on Eva did not cry again.” (R210.137)
(70) Āpō nō tāua ana vānaŋa.
tomorrow just 1DU.INC IRR talk
“Tomorrow we will talk.” (R304.014)
Apart from these syntactically conditioned environments, subjects may be placed

before the verb for pragmatic reasons. The frequency with which this happens depends
417
Subjects can also be raised from the complement of the aspectual verbs oti “finish” and
haꞌamata “begin” (→ 11.3.2), but as this places them in the postverbal subject position of the
aspectual verbs, this in itself does not result in S V order. However, given the right context, the
raised subject can be raised once more to a position before the aspectual verb. In the following
example, the original and intermediate position of the subject is indicated by traces ti:
(i) ꞌĪ [te vai]i [ko haꞌamata ꞌana ti [ko oꞌo mai ꞌā ti]]...
IMM ART water PRF begin CONT PRF enter hither CONT
“Immediately the water started to enter (the ship)...” (R210.162)
418
It is interesting to note that certain clause-initial elements trigger a number of phenomena
that make the clause differ from a standard main clause:
1. The subject tends to be preverbal.
2. After many of these elements, the aspectual he is avoided in favour of i or e (→ 7.2.8), a
pattern characteristic of subordinate clauses.
3. In some cases, the constituent/subordinate negator taꞌe is used (→ 10.5.6 sub 7) rather than
the main clause negators ꞌina, kai and e ko.
We may conclude that the preposed constituent takes on some characteristics of a predicate,
followed by the subject + the rest of the clause as a subordinate clause.
Interestingly, the negator ꞌina, for which predicate status has sometimes been argued, is less
predicate-like than initial locative and interrogative phrases: while the latter tend to trigger the
use of i rather than he, this is not true for ꞌina (→ 10.5.1).
419
The same tendency exists in Maori, see Harlow (2007b:96).
on the speaker, and it is hard to pin down the exact conditions under which this is
done (cf. Dryer 2007a:77). A few generalisations can be made, though.
The preposed subject is often a highlighted topic: preposing the subject signals that
the clause is about the entity referred to by the subject.420 Usually subject shift is
involved: the subject is different from the subject of the preceding context. Appropriate
paraphrases are “As for X...” or “Concerning X...”.
(71) A nua he uru ki roto te hare.
PROP Mum NTR enter to inside ART house
“(Orohe and Tiare peel corn and feed the chickens.) Mum enters into the
house.” (R184.071)
(72) A Tiare ꞌina kai ꞌite, he turu iho, paꞌi, ki te hāpī.
PROP Tiare NEG NEG.PFV know NTR go_down just_now in_fact to ART learn
“(Orohe knows the national anthem.) As for Tiare, she doesn’t know it, as she
goes to school for the first time.” (R334.023)
This does not mean that every subject shift is marked by a preposed subject. A subject
which is already thematic in the story (or in the current episode of the story) usually
occurs in the default postverbal position, even when it is different from the subject of
the preceding clause or sentence. In fact, most explicit subjects in discourse – whether
pre- or postverbal – involve subject shift, as the subject is usually not expressed when
it is identical to the subject of the preceding clause. Subjects are preposed especially
when they are not thematic in the wider context, but are the topic of a single sentence
or clause. An example:
(73) Te ŋā viꞌe e uruuru
- rō ꞌā i te kahu kākaka,
ART PL woman IPFV dress:RED EMPH CONT ACC ART clothes banana_leaf
ꞌe te ŋāŋata he piripō tetea - he kamita pāreu.
and ART men PRED trouser PL:white PRED shirt printed_cloth
“The women wore banana leaf dresses, and the men (wore) white trousers and
coloured shirts.” (R210.132)
Preposed subjects may also mark the start of a discourse or a new episode in the
discourse. In the following example the subject Taparahi is identical to the subject of
the preceding clauses; no subject shift is involved. Even so, the subject is preposed,
indicating that the story moves on to a new topic.
(74) A Taparahi e turu era ki te hāpī, kona kē e oho era.
PROP Taparahi IPFV go_down DIS to ART learn place different IPFV go DIS
“Taparahi, when he went to school, he would go somewhere else.” (R250.033)
Summarizing: subjects are preposed

• after oblique clause-initial constituents;
420
Cf. Lambrecht (1994:131): “A referent is interpreted as the topic of a proposition if in a given
situation the proposition is construed as being about this referent”.
• to mark the subject as highlighted topic, often in contrast to other

participants;
• to mark a new episode in discourse.
8.6.1.2. Preverbal objects

Just like subjects, direct objects may also be placed before the verb, though this is
relatively rare (see Table 55 in sec. 8.1). The direct object is preverbal when it is
highlighted as topic, often in combination with subject shift with respect to the
preceding clause. When the subject is also expressed, the constituent order is usually
OVS. As the subject in OVS-clauses is always e-marked (→ 8.3.1.1) and the preverbal
object is unmarked (→ 8.4.1), these constructions may also be analysed as passives, in
which the fronted Patient is actually the subject.
In (75) below, the Patient au is topical in the context (the speaker is talking about
himself). Example (76) marks the start of a new section in a story, with a shift to a new
topic; this topic is the object of the clause, hence it is fronted. (77) is the start of a
direct speech, in which the Patient a koe is clearly topical.
because_of PRO 1SG PFV CAUS king PVP AG the.of 1DU.INC parent
“Therefore our father made me king (or: I was made king by our father).” (Ley-
2-06.036)
(76) E tahi hānau momoko viꞌe

- i toꞌo e te hānau ꞌeꞌepe.
NUM one race slender woman PFV take AG ART race corpulent
“One ‘slender race’ woman had been taken by the ‘corpulent race’.” (Ley-3-
06.020)
(77) E repa ē, a koe ko toke mai ꞌā e te vārua e rua.

VOC young_man VOC PROP 2SG PRF steal hither CONT AG ART spirit NUM two
“Young man, you have been stolen by two spirits.” (R310.057)
8.6.1.3. Topic-comment constructions

In the examples in the previous section, the preposed constituent is subject or object of
the clause. Rapa Nui also has a topic-comment construction, in which a topic noun
phrase is followed by a complete clause providing information about this topic. The
topic NP is left-dislocated: it is not part of the following clause and does not
necessarily have a semantic role in relation to the predicate of the clause. The topic
may be coreferential to an argument of the verb (as in (78), where it is coreferential to
the A of aŋa), but it is not a verb argument itself; the comment is a complete clause in
its own right. Below are a few examples.
(78) [Te matuꞌa tane o Taparahi]TOP [te aŋa iŋa ꞌi Mataveri.]COM
ART parent male of Taparahi ART work NMLZ at Mataveri
“As for Taparahi’s father, his work (lit. the working) was in Mataveri.”
(R250.043)
(79) ꞌE [a Eva]TOP [ko nenenene - ꞌā te hakari ꞌi te riꞌariꞌa.]COM

-
and PROP Eva tremble:RED CONT ART body at ART afraid

PRF
“And Eva, her body trembled with fear.” (R210.031)
(80) [A koe,]TOP e Vai Ora ē, [e ko ai taꞌa rua poki.]COM
PROP 2SG VOC Vai Ora VOC IPFV NEG.IPFV
exist POSS.2SG.A two child
“As for you, Vai Ora, you won’t have a second child.” (R301.077)
Topic-comment constructions are also found in possessive clauses (→ 9.3.3).
8.6.2. Topicalisation
As discussed in sec. 8.6.1.1, the subject of a verbal clause may be preposed without
special marking. Preposed subjects may also be marked with ko, or (occasionally) he.
These are discussed in the following sections.
8.6.2.1. Topicalisation with ko

Preverbal subjects marked with ko are topicalised: they are highlighted as the topic of
the sentence or of a longer stretch of discourse. Comparison of preposed subjects with
and without ko suggests, that topicalisation with ko signals that the subject is
prominent in some way.421
There are various reasons why the topic of the clause may be prominent. Sometimes
the participant referred to is contrasted with other participants:
(81) Ko nua he toꞌo i te huri mo hao... Ko Tiare i maꞌu
PROM Mum NTR take ACC ART banana_shoot for plant PROM Tiare PFV carry
i te karu mautini mo ꞌoka.
ACC ART seed pumpkin for plant
“Mum takes the banana shoots to plant... Tiare has brought the pumpkin seeds
to plant.” (R184.055f)
(82) Ko tū hoi era i eꞌa hakaꞌou ki ruŋa. Ko tū poki era
PROM DEM horse DIS PFV go_up again to above PROM DEM child DIS
i hiŋa era ki raro he rerehu rō
- atu ꞌai.
PFV fall DIS to below PRED faint EMPH away SUBS
“(The horse and the boy fell.) The horse stood up again. The boy who had
fallen down fainted.” (R399.025f)
The noun phrase may also be thematic over a longer stretch of speech: it is the theme
of the section that follows. A few examples will illustrate this. In the following
sentence, Anisia and Marina have been mentioned earlier in the text, but not very
421
Cf. the definition of prominence by Callow (1974:50): prominence is “any device whatever
which gives certain events, participants, or objects more significance than others in the same
context”.
recently. They are now re-introduced as the theme of conversation of a new section:
“As for Anisia and Marina...”
(83) ꞌĒ, ko Anisia ararua ko Marina ꞌi te hare hāpī era ꞌā o rāua
thus PROM Anisia the_two PROM Marina at ART house learn DIS IDENT of 3PL
e kai era.
IPFV eat DIS
“Anisia and Marina eat in their school.” (R103.191)
ko-marking thus signals a shift to a new theme. This also happens in the following
example. The preceding context is about a group of people; the sentence quoted here
starts a new section, in which one of the group, Artillero, is the sole participant. To
signal the switch to Artillero as theme, the subject is preposed and preceded by ko.
(84) Ko Artillero i hoki i iri ki tōꞌona kona hare era.
PROM Artillero return PROM ascend to POSS.3SG.O place house DIS
PFV
“As for Artillero, he returned to his house.” (R437.055)
Topicalisation tends to happen especially with proper nouns and pronouns; however, it
also occurs with common nouns, as (82) above shows. What they all have in common,
is that they bring a participant to the front which has been introduced earlier and is
known to the hearers.422 The participant in question is highlighted as the topic of a
clause, sentence, or longer stretch of discourse.
ko also serves to mark preverbal direct objects. Just as with subjects, the prominence
marker ko gives prominence to the preposed constituent, signalling that it is thematic
in discourse.
(85) Ko te pāherahera ena e
- kī nei ꞌi ꞌaŋarīnā he haka nini
PROM ART sport MED IPFV say PROX at today.PAST PRED CAUS slide
ꞌi ruŋa i te vave.
at above at ART wave
“(Surfing is an old sport of our ancestors.) Today this sport is called ‘sliding on
the waves’.” (R645.003)
422
There are one or two interesting exceptions, where topicalisation is used right at the start of a
story. The following sentence is an example:
(i) Ko ꞌOrohe e tahi mahana he eꞌa ꞌi te pōꞌā ararua ko koro.
PROM Orohe NUM one day NTR go_out at ART morning the_two PROM Dad
“Orohe went out one day in the morning with Dad.” (R154.001)
In such cases, the participant may still have been accessible in the original context of the story;
for example, someone may have asked the speaker to tell about such and so. (This possibility was
pointed out to me by Stephen Levinsohn.) In fact, R154 is part of a collection or stories, and
Orohe has figured in the preceding stories as well – possibly the story should be considered as an
episode in an ongoing narrative.
ko may mark the left-dislocated noun phrase of topic-comment constructions (→

8.6.1.3).
(86) Ko te mākini era, e haro mai e tahi meꞌe a te muꞌa....
PROM ART machine DIS IPFV pull hither NUM one thing by ART front
he roaroa - mai mo puē mo toꞌo o te hohoꞌa.
NTR long:RED hither for can for take of ART picture
“(The captain showed up, carrying a camera.) This device, you had to pull
something at the front to take a picture.” (R379.027)
Time adjuncts may also be introduced by ko.

(87) Ko te ahiahi- ꞌao i oho ai mātou ki Pamataꞌi.
PROM ART afternoon day PFV go PFV 1PL.EXC to Pamata’i
“In the late afternoon we went to Pamata’i.” (Egt-02.275)
(88) Ko te ꞌāvaꞌe era o te evinio ꞌe ko te mahana maha ia,
PROM ART month DIS of ART fasting and PROM ART day four then
he eꞌa te nuꞌu hoko rua.
NTR go_out ART people NUM.PERS two
“In the month of Lent, on a Thursday, two people went out.” (R357.001)
These time phrases serve as “points of departure” (Levinsohn 2007:39), signalling the
shift to another time at the start of a new episode in the story.
Clark (1976:37) discusses initial ko-marked subjects in Proto-Polynesian and analyses

these as cleft constructions: the ko-marked noun phrase is the predicate of a nominal
clause, the subject of which is a relative clause with an empty head:
[ ko N ]Pred [ Ø [ A/M V .... ]Rel ]S
This analysis is suggested by the formal similarities between verbal clauses with
topicalisation and nominal clauses with a ko-marked predicate, and enables a unified
account of both.423
For Rapa Nui however, there is little ground for taking the topicalised constructions
under discussion as clefts. Constructions which are unambiguously clefts in Rapa Nui
always contain an anchor noun as head of the relative clause (→ 9.2.6), which
suggests that headless relative clauses are not possible in Rapa Nui. Moreover, these
clefts have quite a different function from the topicalisation constructions under
discussion here: cleft constructions put the initial noun phrase in focus as new
information, backgrounding the verb, while topicalisation signals that the initial noun
phrase is thematic in discourse.
Now it could be argued that Rapa Nui has two types of clefts with different
423
Bauer (1991) applies the same analysis to Maori, arguing that topicalised ko-NPs are clefts in
some cases, when the ko-NP is in focus and receives sentence stress.
functions:424 a focus construction with head noun and a topicalisation construction

without head noun. However, there are syntactic reasons not to analyse topicalising
constructions as relative clauses. In relative clauses, the neutral aspect marker he is
extremely rare (→ 11.4.3), while in topicalisation construction he is common, as
shown in (81) above.
Another characteristic of relative clauses in Rapa Nui is, that the verb tends to be
followed by a postverbal demonstrative like era, whereas in many topicalisation
constructions no PVD is used. And thirdly, while relative clauses often do not have an
aspectual (→ 11.4.5), topicalisation clauses always contain an aspectual.
We may conclude that there are good reasons not to consider topicalisation
constructions in Rapa Nui as clefts. Besides, even if such an analysis were adopted, it
would not account for all occurrences of ko in verbal clauses; sec. 8.6.4.5 discusses
cases where the ko-marked noun phrase is even more clearly part of the main clause.
Finally, one more topicalisation construction deserves attention: occasionally a ko-

marked topicalised subject is followed by a nominalised verb:
(89) ꞌO ira ko tū ŋā taina rikiriki nō era ōꞌona te oho ki te hāpī.
because_of PRO PROM DEM PL sibling littlejust DIS POSS.3SG.O ART go to ART school
“Therefore only her little brothers went to school.” (R441.011)
(90) Te taŋata e mate tahi rō ꞌā; ko koe nō, te ora te oho.
ART person IPFV die all 2SG just ART live ART go
EMPH CONT PROM
“All people die, but you just keep on living.” (R445.016f)
These constructions mostly have a habitual or continuous sense. They are very similar
to the nominalised actor-emphatic construction (→ 8.6.3 sub 3), which likewise has a
preposed subject followed by a nominalised verb with habitual sense. They are also
similar to constructions in which ko is followed by a nominalised verb (→ (23)–(24) in
3.2.3.1).
8.6.2.2. Topicalisation with he

Occasionally, a preverbal subject is introduced by the nominal predicate marker he.
This is somewhat surprising, as he normally introduces non-referential noun phrases
and is limited to nominal predicates and other non-argument NPs (→ 5.4.1).
The sentence may state a general fact about a category as a whole as in (91), or refer
to a specific entity or group as in (92):
(91) He nuꞌu paꞌari ꞌina e ko aŋa tahaŋa nō i a koe
PRED people adult NEG IPFV NEG.IPFV do aimlessly just at PROP 2SG
424
Clark (1976:38) points out that in most Polynesian languages, clauses with a topicalised ko-
marked NP are ambiguous: the ko-NP can be either predicate (“it was John who was chopping
the yam”) or topic (“as for John, he was chopping the yam”). Regardless the analysis of
topicalised constructions, it is clear that the two are syntactically distinguished in Rapa Nui.
i te aŋa i manaꞌu.
ACC ART work PFV think
“Grown-ups don’t simply do425 the work they think of (i.e. without
preparation).” (R363.145)
(92) ...ꞌe he mataroa repahoa o koro ko maꞌu mai ꞌā ka rahi atu
and PRED sailor friend of Dad PRF carry hither CONT CNTG many away
te pahu peti.
ART can peach
“(When she entered there were many people,) and some sailors, friends of
Dad, brought many cans of peaches.” (R210.125)
In both examples above, the he-marked noun phrase refers to an entity not mentioned
before and therefore not yet known to the hearer. In other cases, the subject refers to
someone or something whose existence the hearer may be presumed to know or infer
from the context. The following examples illustrate this:
(93) He taŋata he oho he ruku i te ika mo te hora kai.
PRED man NTR go NTR dive ACC ART fish for ART time eat
“(The women sat down to cook the food.) The men went diving for fish for
lunch.” (R183.019)
(94) Kai pū a Taparahi; he paratoa nō ōꞌona i vera a
NEG.PFV perforate PROP Taparahi PRED jacket just POSS.3SG.O PFV burn by
te kēkeꞌu mataꞌu.
ART shoulder right
“Taparahi was not hit (by the bullet); only his coat was scorched on the right
shoulder.” (R250.225)
(95) He matahiapo i mate, he haŋupotu i ora.
PRED firstborn PFV die PRED lastborn PFV live
“(Two boys were born.) The eldest died, the youngest survived.” (Fel-1978.121)
What all these examples have in common, is that the he-marked subject is singled out
from among other entities; in other words, the he-construction serves as topicalisation.
This is particularly clear in (93), where the subject he taŋata is contrasted with other
actors in the discourse, and in (95), where the two babies introduced in the preceding
context are mentioned individually.
In fact, clauses with he-marked subjects are very similar to clauses with topicalised ko-
marked subjects (→ 8.6.2.1). ko-marked topicalisations refer to individuated entities (a
single referent or a clearly defined group) which are accessible to the hearer; in other
words, the exact referent of the ko-marked subject has been introduced in the
preceding context. By contrast, the he-marked subjects in the examples above are not
accessible as individuated entities. Even though the hearer can infer their existence
425
The phrase i a koe “to/regarding you” seems to be s a second person of personal involvement
(→ 4.2.4.2), involving the addressee in the discourse in some way.
from the context, they have not been mentioned as such. In (93), the context tells
about a group of people – men, women and children – who go on an outing; prior to
the sentence quoted here, the men have not been mentioned separately. Similarly, in
(95), the preceding sentences tell about the birth of two boys; the hearer can infer the
existence of an oldest and a youngest boy, but it is only in the sentence quoted here
that each boy is singled out. In both cases, the referent of the he-marked noun phrase
is not accessible as such, as it has only been introduced as undefined part of a larger
group. By contrast, subjects topicalised with ko-marking are always accessible as
individual referents; for example in (81) above, both mother and Tiare play a role in
the preceding context.
It is not very surprising that topicalisation with ko often involves a pronoun or proper
noun, noun types typically associated with accessible referents.
The difference between ko and he in marking topicalised subjects is reminiscent of the
use of ko and he with nominal predicates (→ 9.2.1): in both cases, ko marks an
accessible, individuated entity, while in other cases he is used.
8.6.3. The actor-emphatic construction

Many Polynesian languages have a construction commonly called the “actor-emphatic”
(AE).426 This construction is used when the Agent is in focus and shows the following
characteristics:
• The Agent occurs before the verb and is expressed as a possessive.
• A few languages (e.g. Maori and Mangarevan) have two sets of possessive
prepositions and pronouns: n- (realis) and m- realis. These languages have two
AE constructions: a perfective one (expressing realised possession) with n-
marked Agent and an imperfective one (expressing unrealised/future
possession) with m-marked Agent. In languages lacking m-possessive pronouns
(such as Tahitian), only the n-marked AE construction occurs.
• The aspectual is either i (perfective) or e (imperfective).
• The Patient may be unmarked. In Maori, the Patient in AE constructions is
never marked (hence it can be analysed as subject); in Tahitian, it is
unmarked when preverbal and optionally marked when postverbal.
• The construction tends to be limited to transitive verbs, or to (transitive or
intransitive) agentive verbs.
The actor-emphatic construction also occurs in Rapa Nui.427 As in other languages, it
serves to put the Agent in focus and to background the action; the action is often
426
See Harlow (2001:196f; 2007a:175f); Elbert & Pukui (1979:147f); Lazard & Peltzer
(2000:62f). More extensive treatments are found in Clark (1976:111-123) for PPN; Waite (1990)
and Bauer (2004) for Maori; Potsdam & Polinsky (2012) for Tahitian. The construction is mainly
found in EP languages, but Wilson (2012:315) gives an example from Luangiua and suggests that
the AE construction is an innovation in the Northern Outlier + EP subgroup he proposes.
427
Actor-emphatic constructions are also common in questions; these are discussed in section
10.3.2.1 and 10.3.2.2.
presupposed. Different from other languages, there are three varieties, which are
1. In the perfective AE, the Agent is a possessive pronoun or noun phrase. For
pronouns, this is a Ø-possessive, i.e. a pronoun without determiner (→ 4.2.2.2). As
pointed out in section 6.3.2, singular pronouns show a distinction between a- and o-
possessives: ꞌāꞌaku versus ōꞌoku. The same distinction is made with proper nouns:
preposition ꞌa versus o.428 In the AE construction, the a-possessive is used with singular
pronouns and proper nouns. For plural pronouns and with common nouns, no a-forms
exist, so the default o is used.
The verb in this construction is always marked with perfective i; the construction
refers to actions prior to the time of reference, usually in the past. Two examples:
(96) O tōꞌona matuꞌa i aŋa i te hare nei mo Puakiva.
of POSS.3SG.O parent PFV make ACC ART house PROX for Puakiva
“It was her father who made this house for Puakiva.” (R229.269)
(97) ¡ꞌĀꞌau rō taꞌa moeŋa nei o māua i toke!
POSS.2SG.A EMPH POSS.2SG.A mat of 1DU.EXC PFV steal
PROX
“It was you who stole that mat of ours!” (R310.428)
As these examples show, the Patient either follows or precedes the verb. When it
follows the verb as in (96), it is i-marked; when it precedes the verb as in (97), it is
unmarked. This corresponds to the general pattern of object marking in Rapa Nui (→
8.4.1), so there are good reasons to consider the Patient as direct object in either
position.
It is remarkable that the object of an AE construction is often preverbal, while
preverbal objects in general are rare (→ Table 55 in 8.1). This may have to do with the
pragmatic status of Agent and Patient. The AE construction is used when the Agent is
in focus: the Agent is presented as new information, an appropriate paraphrase is “It
was X who...” or “X was the one who...”. The rest of the sentence, including the
Patient, is known information. The Patient will often be topical, and this may be the
reason it is preverbal: there is a tendency in Rapa Nui to place topical constituents
early in the clause (→ 8.5.1 on passives; 8.6.1.1 on preposed subjects and objects; cf.
428
As initial glottals are not contrastive, perfective AE’s with proper nouns (marked with ꞌa) are
difficult to distinguish from a preposed topical subject construction with perfective aspect, in
which the noun is marked with the proper article a. The following example is syntactically
ambiguous:
(i) A/ꞌA Kuha i kī mai ki a au mo iri mai ki nei.
PROP/of.A Kuha PFV say hither to PROP 1SG for go_up hither to PROX
“Kuha told me to come up here.” (R229.105)
In the context it is more likely that the subject is in focus (“It was Kuha who said...”) than that it
is topical (“As for Kuha, she said...”), so that an AE reading is plausible. On the other hand,
topicalised subjects sometimes occur at the start of a direct speech without further apparent
reason, which may be the case here.
Potsdam & Polinsky (2012:68) for a similar observation in Tahitian). Another example
is the following:
(98) O te rūhia ia te hohoꞌa nei i toꞌo.
of ART tourist then ART image PROX PFV take
“(It was) the tourists (who) took this photo.” (R415.735)
2. In the imperfective AE, the verb has the IPFV marker e and the Agent is expressed as
a benefactive pronoun or noun phrase (→ 4.2.3; 4.7.7). Again, a-forms are used when
available: māꞌa- in singular pronouns, mā in front of proper nouns. Plural pronouns
and common nouns, which lack a-forms, are marked with the default mo.
The imperfective AE refers to an action posterior to the time of reference. Usually this
is the future, but as (101) shows, this is not necessarily so:
(99) Māꞌaku ꞌā a koe e hāpaꞌo atu.
BEN.1SG.A IDENT PROP 2SG IPFV care_for away
“I will take care of you myself.” (R310.067)
(100) Mo kōrua e kī i tāꞌaku vānaŋa nei e kī atu nei
for 2PL IPFV say ACC POSS.1SG.A word PROX IPFV say away PROX
ki a kōrua ararua.
to PROP 2PL the_two
“You must tell my word, which I will say to you two.” (R229.275)
(101) Māꞌana e haka nuinui hakaꞌou i
- a rāua i te itaraera.
BEN.3SG.A IPFV CAUS big:RED again ACC PROP 3PL ACC ART Israel
“He was the one who would make them, the Israelites, great again.” (Mat. 1,
intro)
As in the perfective AE, postverbal objects have the ACC marker, while preverbal
objects are unmarked.
3. The third AE construction has a possessive Agent as in construction 1, but the verb
is nominalised. This construction refers to habitual actions, regardless the time of
action:
(102) ꞌĀꞌana te haka tere i te henua.
POSS.3SG.A ART CAUS run ACC ART land
“He was the one who governed the country.” (R370.005)
(103) O te ika nei te kai i te oꞌioꞌi o te
- naonao.
-
of ART fish PROX ART eat ACC ART larva of ART mosquito
“This fish eats the larvae of the mosquito.” (R535.110)
The nominal AE construction is almost identical to a proprietary clause (→ 9.4.2),

which equally consists of a possessive constituent (the predicate) + a noun phrase (the
subject):
(104) ꞌĀꞌana hoꞌi te viꞌe era.

POSS.3SG.A
indeed ART woman DIS
“The woman is his.” (R416.1156)
The only difference is that the subject of the AE construction is a nominalised verb,
which may have an object. As in other AE constructions, this object may be preposed:
(105) ꞌĀꞌana a au te hāpaꞌo mai te hāŋai mai.
POSS.3SG.A PROP 1SG ART care_for hither ART feed
hither
“She was the one who took care of me and fed me.” (R310.480)
All examples of AE constructions so far involve a transitive verb. The AE also occurs
with intransitive verbs, but only with agentive verbs, i.e. verbs with an Agent
argument:
(106) Mo rāua, mo te ŋāŋata nei e rua, e uru ki roto ki te kūpeŋa.
for 3PL for ART men two IPFV enter to inside to ART net
PROX NUM
“They, these two men, entered into the net.” (R310.265)
(107) Māꞌaku ꞌā e eꞌa ki te manu.
BEN.1SG.A IDENT IPFVgo_out to ART bird
“I myself will go up to the birds.” (Egt-01.014)
AE constructions are negated using the constituent negator taꞌe, which precedes the
Agent:
(108) Taꞌe ꞌāꞌaku i toꞌo mai i te parau nei.
NEG.CONS POSS.1SG.A PFV
take hither ACC ART document PROX
“It wasn’t me who took the letter.” (Egt-02.336)
(109) Taꞌe māꞌana e aŋa i te aŋa o nei.
NEG.CONS BEN.3SG.A IPFV do
work of PROX
ACC ART
“He is not the one who does the work here.” (R229.462)
Finally: AE constructions are also used in “who”-questions (→ 10.3.2.1).
To summarize: Rapa Nui has two actor-emphatic constructions which differ in aspect.
The perfective AE uses the Ø-possessive, while in other languages a n-possessive is
used.429 As in other languages, the imperfective AE has a ma/mo-marked Agent. A third
construction, not found in other languages, uses a nominalised verb and expresses
habitual actions.
As in other languages, the object may either precede or follow the verb. No special
rules are needed to account for object marking in AE constructions.
429
On the relation between the Rapa Nui Ø-possessive and the n-possessive in other languages,
see fn. 288 on p. 277.
8.6.4. Other non-canonical arguments

In the next subsections, constructions are discussed in which the S/A argument is
marked differently from e or Ø, or in which O is marked differently from i or Ø. The
last subsection (8.6.4.7) discusses agentive phrases marked with i; these are not
syntactic subjects or objects, but are discussed under this heading because agentive i is
similar in function to the agentive subject marker e.
8.6.4.1. Possessive S/A arguments

Sometimes the S/A argument is expressed as a possessive, using the preposition o or a
possessive pronoun of the o-class. In two contexts this is the normal marking: with
nominalised verbs (→ 8.6.4.7), and in subordinate clauses introduced by mo (→
11.5.1.2). However, possessive S/A arguments are found in main clauses as well. They
may occur when the following two conditions are met:
1. The referent is well established in the context, i.e. it is already a thematic
participant.
2. The aspect marker is he.
Two examples:
(110) He kī o tū rūꞌau era...
NTR say of DEM old_woman DIS
“The old woman said...” (R313.171)
(111) He uꞌi atu ōꞌoku i tōꞌoku pāpā era...
NTR look away POSS.1SG.O ACC POSS.1SG.O father DIS
“Then I saw my father...” (R101.012)
The use of possessives to express arguments in main clauses is largely speaker-

dependent: this construction is frequent in some texts, but absent in others. Though the
precise conditions are not clear, possessive marking appears to be a device to demote a
non-salient Agent. The fact that this is only found with the neutral marker he, which is
also the nominal predicate marker, suggests that these clauses have been nominalised:
(110) could tentatively be paraphrased as “(There was) the saying of that old
woman...”. In that case, the verb is nominalised and he is the nominal predicate
marker.430
8.6.4.2. Middle verbs: ki-marked objects

Certain transitive verbs take ki as object marker rather than i. This happens with verbs
of perception, knowledge, emotion, speech, as well as a few others. In Polynesian
linguistics, these verbs are distinguished as a separate subclass, which has been
labelled “middle verbs” or “experiential verbs”.
430
The directional atu in (111) may suggest that the phrase is still a verb phrase, but notice that
atu occasionally occurs with nominalised verbs (→ 3.2.3.3).
Generally speaking, ki-marked objects are not affected by the action. Rather, they are
the Goal of the event: the focus of attention, the person or thing at which a feeling is
directed, the content of knowledge or the addressee of a speech.431
Some verbs always take a ki-marked object, while other verbs allow both i and ki. With
some verbs there is a clear difference in function between i and ki-marked objects; in
other cases the difference is less clear. In this section, different semantic classes of
verbs taking ki-complements are discussed.
1. Regarding perception verbs, the active perception verbs432 uꞌi “look” and hakaroŋo
“listen” take either i or ki, though i is more common.433
Generally speaking, ki tends to be used with more intensive or purposeful actions. uꞌi i
and uꞌi ki both mean “to look at, to watch”, but uꞌi ki may indicate a more focused
attention as in (113), or is used in the sense “to look for, to search”, as in (114):
(112) He noho he uꞌi i tū nuꞌu era e aha ꞌana.
NTR sit NTR look ACC DEM people DIS IPFV what CONT
“She sat and watched the people, what they were doing.” (R229.332)
(113) He uꞌi ki te hare era i kā mai era te ꞌau o te ꞌumu.
NTR look to ART house DIS PFV ignite hither DIS ART smoke of ART earth_oven
“She looked to the houses where the smoke of the earth oven rose (in order to
snatch the food as soon as it was cooked).” (R368.004)
(114) He uꞌi a roto i te vai ki tū ika era, ꞌina kai takeꞌa.
NTR look by inside at ART water to DEM fish DIS see NEG NEG.PFV
“He looked for that fish in the water, but did not see it.” (R301.232)
hakaroŋo i means “to hear” or “to listen”. hakaroŋo ki likewise means “to listen”, but is
also used in a more intensive sense: “to pay attention” or “to obey”, as in (116).
(115) ¿He aha ia i taꞌe hakaroŋo ai i tāꞌana vānaŋa?
NTR what then PFV NEG.CONS listen PVP ACC POSS.3SG.A word
“Why didn’t you listen to his words?” (Luke 20:5)
(116) A Tiare poki hakaroŋo ki a nua.
PROP Tiare child listen to PROP Mum
“Tiare is a child who listens to Mum.” (R492.009)
2. With verbs expressing emotion (feeling, attitude), object marking depends on the
verb.
— The object of haŋa “love, like, want” is always marked with ki, never with i:
431
Notice that ki also expresses the Goal of motion, as well as the Recipient of an act of giving.
432
The object of passive perception verbs either takes i or zero marking (→ 8.4.1; see also 7.5.2
on the difference between active and passive perception).
433
i may have become more popular over time, as the following rough count suggests: in old
texts, uꞌi (mai/atu) (ena/era) is followed 51x by i, 28x by ki (proportion i/ki roughly 2:1); in new
texts, it is followed 152x by i, 34x by ki (proportion i/ki roughly 5:1).
(117) Ko haŋa ꞌā a au ki tōꞌoku koro.

PRF love CONT PROP 1SG to POSS.1SG.O Dad
“I love my Dad.” (R210.115)
— With ꞌaroha, there is a clear semantic difference: ꞌaroha i means “to pity”, while
ꞌaroha ki means “to greet”.
— riri “to be angry” can be followed by i or ki, without a clear difference in meaning:
(118) Ko riri rivariva mai
- ꞌana a au i a koe.
PRF angry good:RED hither CONT PROP 1SG ACC PROP 2SG
“I’m really angry at you.” (R229.362)
(119) ꞌIna koe ko riri ki te ŋā nuꞌu era.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV angry to ART PL people DIS
“Don’t be angry at those people.” (R229.331)
Other emotion verbs taking a ki-marked object are e.g. koromaki “to miss, long for”,
manava mate “to be in love with”.
3. Cognitive verbs:
— manaꞌu “to think” and māhani “to be accustomed to, acquainted with” take either ki
or i, without a clear difference in meaning. There may be a tendency for ki to be used
with human objects and i with non-human objects, but cf. the following examples,
which both have a non-human object:
(120) E manaꞌu nō ꞌā a Te Manu i tou meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa era.
IPFV think
just CONT PROP Te Manu ACC DEM thing all DIS
“Te Manu thought about all those things.” (R245.011)
(121) He manaꞌu ki te hora era ōꞌona e noho era
NTR think to ART time DIS POSS.3SG.O IPFV stay DIS
ꞌi muri i tōꞌona nua era.

at near at POSS.3SG.O Mum DIS
“He thought about the time when he lived with his mother.” (R245.003)
— ꞌite “to know”, on the other hand, always takes an i-marked object.
4. Two types of speech verbs should be distinguished.

a. “say”-type verbs include kī “say”, ꞌaꞌamu “tell”, raŋi “call”, pāhono “answer”, pure
“pray”, hāꞌaki “inform, make known”. These verbs are often followed by a direct
speech. Alternatively, they may have a direct object expressing the content of
speech:434
434
As the example shows, the addressee of these verbs may be expressed by a ki-marked noun
phrase, but this noun phrase is not the direct object.
(122) He kī ki a Kava i tū vānaŋa kī era e Pea.

NTR say to PROP Kava ACC DEM word say DIS AG Pea
“She said to Kava the words said by Pea.” (R229.075)
b. “talk”-type verbs include hakameꞌemeꞌe “to mock”, ture “to scold” and
haꞌahanahana “to praise”. These verbs are usually not followed by a direct speech435
-
and do not take a direct object expressing the content of speech. The addressee may be
expressed with a ki-marked noun phrase, but with some verbs i can be used as well.
The latter would not be possible with a “say”-type verb. Compare the two following
examples:
(123) ꞌI tū hakameꞌemeꞌe era ꞌā ki a Taparahi he riri rō ꞌai.
at DEM mock to ACC Taparahi NTR angry EMPH SUBS
DIS IDENT
“Because they mocked Taparahi, he got angry.” (R250.012)
(124) I oti era i te hakameꞌemeꞌe i a Huri ꞌa Vai e Vaha...
PFV finished DIS ACC ART mock Huri a Vai AG Vaha
ACC PROP
“When Vaha had finished mocking Huri a Vai...” (R304.094)
5. Various other verbs take either ki or i.

— With hāꞌūꞌū “help”, the person helped is usually expressed with ki (though i is found
as well), while i marks the activity. In (125), both are used together:
(125) Ko Tiare i oho i hāꞌūꞌū ki a nua i tāꞌana aŋa.
PROM Tiare PFV go PFV help
to PROP Mum ACC POSS.3SG.A work
“Tiare went and helped Mum with her work.” (R334.125)
— kimi “search” is marked with either ki or i, though i is more common.

— tiaki “wait” is usually marked with ki; i is used when the verb has the sense “to
guard”:
(126) Ko au mo noho mo tiaki i te tātou hare.
PROM 1SG for stayfor guard ACC ART 1PL.INC house
“I will stay (home) to guard our house.” (R399.130)
While ki often marks an oblique constituent (e.g. a Recipient, or the Goal of motion),
there are several indications that the ki-marked object of middle verbs is the direct
object of the clause.
1. The ki-constituent can be relativised in the same way as object noun phrases (→
11.4.2 sub 2): the constituent is not expressed in the relative clause and the subject is
e-marked:
435
The following example shows that the speaker felt a second speech verb was needed to
introduce the direct speech giving the content of the scolding:
(i) He ture e nua ki a Taparahi he kī...
NTR scold AG mother to PROP Taparahi NTR say
“Mother scolded Taparahi and said...” (R250.018)
(127) ...Tahiti, henuai [haŋa Øi e te taꞌatoꞌa].

Tahiti land love all
AG ART
“...Tahiti, the island loved by all.” (R303.019)
By contrast, other constituents marked with ki use a different relativising strategy (→

11.4.2 sub 3).
2. The ki-marked constituent can be passivised. In the following example the Goal of
haŋa is not expressed, but the fact that (a) it is topical in the context, and (b) the Agent
is e-marked, suggests that it is the implicit subject of the clause.
(128) E haŋa rahi rō ꞌā e te ꞌAtua ꞌe e te taŋata taꞌatoꞌa.
IPFV love much EMPH CONT AG ART God and AG ART man all
“(Jesus grew up...) He was loved much by God and by all the people.” (Luke
2:52)
3. In causative constructions, the causee (the S/A of the root verb) is expressed as
direct object (DO). However, when the root verb is transitive, its Patient is often
expressed as DO, in which case the DO position is not available for the causee; in that
case the causee is expressed as an oblique, introduced by ki (→ 8.12.3). In the
following example, the verb manaꞌu (which may take a ki-marked object, see (121)
above) is causativised. The causee ki a koe “you” is expressed with ki, not i, which
suggests that the DO position is already occupied by the noun phrase ki tū vānaŋa...
(129) ...mo haka manaꞌu atu ki a koe ki tū vānaŋa kī mai era e koe
for CAUS think away to PROP 2SG to DEM word say hither DIS AG 2SG
ki a au.
to PROP 1SG
“(We came) to remind you of the words you said to me.” (R229.207)
In other words, the presence of the oblique phrase ki a koe indicates that the other ki-
marked noun phrase occupies the DO position.
8.6.4.3. Patient as instrument

Sometimes a Patient or Theme is not expressed as direct object as usual, but as an
instrument phrase, marked with the instrumental preposition hai. This preposition (→
4.7.9) is usually not followed by a determiner (→ 5.3.3.1) and marks a non-specific
entity.436
This construction only occurs when the Patient is non-specific. The entity may be
unknown (e.g. something which is being sought, bought or asked for) as in (131), but
436
The hai-marked Patient in (131) could be considered a “demoted objects”, which would imply
that the construction in (131) is derived from the one in (130). While this may seem plausible in
some cases, in other cases it is not at all clear that the construction with Patient as DO is more
basic than the instrumental construction (see the discussion on (136)–(139) below. Goldberg
(1995:103ff) argues that it is unnecessary and often unwarranted to assume a transformational
relationship between two constructions with alternative argument expression.
this is not necessarily so. Two pairs of examples: (130) and (132) show the usual
construction with the Patient as DO, while in (131) and (133) the same argument is
marked with hai.437
(130) He iri māua ki ꞌuta, he hoꞌo mai i te mareni.
NTRascend 1DU.EXC to inland NTR buy hither ACC ART watermelon
“We went inland and bought a watermelon.” (R121.070)
(131) He oho au he hoꞌo hai kūmara.
NTR go 1SG NTR buy INST sweet_potato
“I’m going to buy sweet potatoes.” (Notes)
(132) He noho ararua he kai i te haraoa, he unu i te ū.
NTR sit the_two NTR eat ACC ART bread drink ACC ART milk
NTR
“They sat down together, ate bread and drank milk.” (R334.119)
(133) Hai tūava ꞌana e kai era, hai vai o roto o te tāheta e unu era.
INST guava IDENT IPFV eat DIS INST water of inside of ART rock_basin IPFV drink DIS
“He ate (or: fed himself with) guavas, he drank water from inside a rock
pool.” (R439.014)
Argument expression by means of hai is especially common with verbs that involve
both a Theme (or Patient) and a Goal (or Recipient or Beneficiary), like vaꞌai “to give”
and hoa “to throw”. The Theme of vaꞌai is usually expressed as DO, while the Goal is
marked with ki, as in (134). In (135) however, the Goal is expressed as DO, while the
Patient “food” is marked with hai. The motivation for this may be pragmatic: the Goal
is more topical in discourse, hence expressed as a core argument.438
(134) He vaꞌai i te kūmā ꞌōꞌotu ki a Eugenio.
NTR give ACC ART sweet_potato cooked to PROP Eugenio
“He gave cooked sweet potatoes to Eugenio.” (R231.132)
(135) ꞌIna he ꞌavai mai i a au hai kai.
NEG NTR give hither ACC PROP 1SG INST food
“She doesn’t give me food.” (R229.414)
Thus with three-argument verbs we encounter the following two patterns:
(i) verb i + Theme ki + Goal

(ii) verb i + Goal hai + Theme
437
Notice that non-specific objects can also be constructed with a ACC marker + determiner; see
examples (23)–(25) in section 5.3.2.
438
In the terminology of Haspelmath 2005 (quoted in Reesink 2013), the DO-Theme construction
is “indirective”, while the hai-Theme construction is “secundative”. Reesink finds that in a
sample of 72 Papuan languages, a large majority has a secundative construction as the only
option. In languages that allow a choice between both constructions, the choice may be
determined by a variety of pragmatic factors.
With the verbs discussed so far, (i) is the rule, while the hai-Theme construction in (ii)
only occurs occasionally. However, with a number of verbs, the hai-Theme
construction is very common; all of these have two arguments, apart from the Agent.
— The Patient of tau “throw” may be expressed as DO, as in (136); alternatively, the
Goal is expressed as DO as in (137), and the Patient is marked with hai.
(136) ꞌI ira e hāpī era i te tau i te matā.
at PRO IPFV learn DIS ACC ART throw ACC ART obsidian
“There he learned to throw obsidian spear points.” (R304.003)
(137) He toke i te rāua meꞌe, he tau i te hare hai māꞌea.
NTR steal ACC ART 3PLthing NTR throw ACC ART house INST stone
“They stole their things and threw stones at the house.” (R231.278)
— Verbs referring to covering or filling potentially have a Container argument (the

object filled or covered) and a Substance argument (the stuff filling or covering the
object). Either one can be expressed as a core argument. For intransitive verbs such as
ꞌī “to be full”, this can result in a passive-like construction, illustrated in (65) in sec.
8.5.3. For transitive verbs, the following examples illustrate the two options. In (138),
the Container is direct object, while the Substance is marked as instrument; in (139),
the Substance is direct object, while the container is marked with a locative
preposition.
(138) He eꞌa a ꞌOrohe ki haho he haꞌaꞌī i te pahu hai vai.
NTR go_out PROP Orohe to outside NTR fill ACC ART barrel INST water
“Orohe went outside and filled a barrel with water.” (R169.002)
(139) He haꞌaꞌī i te vai ki roto i te kaha.
NTR fill ACC ART water to inside at ART gourd
“He filled a gourd with water, he put water into the gourd.” (Fel-97.035)
What unites the hai-Theme constructions, is that in most cases the Theme has a
somewhat instrumental sense: it refers to an object used to perform the act (e.g. a
stone thrown at somebody), or a means to reach a certain goal (e.g. food to alleviate
hunger). This also means that the entity is usually non-human. However, the following
example shows that it may be human as well:
(140) He kimi mai hai nuꞌu mo oho hai ika mo ruku mai.
NTR search hither INST people for go INST fish to dive hither
“He looked for people to go looking for fish, to dive.” (R309.100)
8.6.4.4. Variable argument assignment

The previous section showed that Patients may be expressed as instrument, allowing
other arguments to be expressed as direct object. This is in fact part of a wider
phenomenon: with many verbs, arguments can be expressed in different ways,
depending on which arguments are relevant or topical in the context. An exhaustive
treatment is beyond the scope of this grammar; a few examples show the types of
variation involved.
— amo “to clean, to wipe”. The direct object may express either the object cleaned as
in (141), or the substance removed as in (142).
(141) He amo i te ꞌāriŋa.
NTR wipe/clean ACC ART face
“She wiped her face.” (Ley-9-55.030)
(142) ...i haꞌamata ai i te amo i te māꞌea era o te kona ena.
PFV begin wipe/clean ACC ART stone DIS of ART place MED
PVP ACC ART
“...they started to clear away the stones in that place.” (R539-2.213)
— oŋe “to lack, to be in need, to suffer shortage”. The subject may express either the
person(s) in need as in (143), or the substance which is lacking as in (144).
(143) Ku oŋe ꞌā tātou.
PRFshortage CONT 1PL.INC
“We are in need.” (R352.118)
(144) Ku oŋe ꞌā te kai, ko pakapaka ꞌā
- ku mei ꞌā.
PRF shortage CONT ART food PRF dry:RED CONT PRF wither CONT
“The food was scarce, (the crops) were dry, they were withered.” (R352.112)
8.6.4.5. ko with non-topicalised arguments

As discussed in sec. 8.6.2.1, ko in verbal clauses marks topicalised subjects, preverbal
subjects which are highlighted as topics. Occasionally, ko is used to mark postverbal
arguments. In these cases, the argument is marked as prominent for a certain reason;
different motivations can be distinguished.
1. The subject of poreko “be born” is sometimes ko-marked. The noun phrase
introduced by ko introduces a new participant (“new” in an absolute sense!); ko may
indicate that the referent will be thematic in the text that follows.
(145) He tuki hakaꞌou he poreko ko Tikitiki ꞌe
- ko ꞌŌroŋo.
NTR copulate again NTR born PROM Tikitiki and PROM Orongo
“They slept together again, and Tikitiki and Orongo were born.” (R234.007)
(146) He poreko ko te heke ꞌAkaverio.
NTR born octopus Akaverio
PROM ART
“The octopus Akaverio was born.” (Mtx-7-14.003)
2. ko is also used in the complement of the naming verbs kī “to call” and nape “to
name, convey a name to”.439 The complement of these verbs can be analysed as an
439
The same happens in Tongan and Samoan (Clark 1976:45); in Tongan, hoko “become” and ui
“call” both take a ko-marked complement.
identifying clause with the ko-marked noun phrase as predicate. Its subject can be
implicit as in (147), or expressed as ꞌīŋoa (which is case-marked as direct object of
nape or kī) as in (148).440
(147) He poreko te poki he nape ko Tikitiki ꞌa Ataraŋa.
-
NTR born ART child NTR name PROM Tikitiki a Ataranga

“The child was born, they called it Tikitiki a Ataranga.” (R532-02.005)
(148) He nape i te ꞌīŋoa ko Māhina Tea.
NTR name.V ACC ART name PROM Mahina Tea
“They called her (lit. her name) Mahina Tea.” (R399.003)
With common nouns, the noun phrase is he-marked, and the complement can be
analysed as a classifying clause; again, its subject is case-marked as direct object of the
main verb.
(149) He nape i te rāua ꞌīŋoa he hānau momoko.
-
NTR name.V ACC ART 3PL name PRED race slender

“They called them ‘slender race’.” (R370.008)
Under this analysis, the noun phrase marked with ko or he as such is not a complement
of the verb, but rather the predicate of a complement clause.
3. As a prominence marker, ko signals information that the speaker wishes to highlight

in some way, for example because it is thematic. This may explain why ko can be used
to mark the complement of perception verbs like takeꞌa “see”, uꞌi “look” and ŋaroꞌa
“perceive”. Normally, perception verbs take a direct object as in (150):441
(150) He uꞌi a Makemake i
- te kona rivariva, kona Kauhaŋa.
-
NTRlook PROP Makemake ACC ART place good:RED place Kauhanga

“Makemake saw a good place, the place Kauhanga.” (Mtx-1-01.026)
But the perceived object may also be marked with ko, which highlights the significance
of the object for the participant. The perceived object may be surprising and
unexpected. This use of ko can be characterised as participant-oriented.
(151) He uꞌi atu ōꞌoku ko te vave e tahi e oho nō mai ꞌā.
NTR look away POSS.1SG.O PROM ART wave NUM one IPFV go just hither CONT
“I saw a wave that was coming.” (R406.040)
440
These constructions are sometimes characterised as “small clauses”, a pair of constituents
which are in a subject-predicate relation, but which may not be a single constituent syntactically
(see Bowers 2001). Bauer (1991:12) also analyses the same constructions in Maori as embedded
equative (=identifying) clauses. See sec. 9.2.2 and 9.2.1 on identifying and classifying clauses,
respectively.
441
With passive perception verbs, the object may be unmarked – see (15) in sec. 8.3.1.2. With uꞌi,
the object may be marked with ki – see (113) in sec. 8.6.4.2.
(152) I ꞌao popohaŋa era he hakaroŋo atu ia ōꞌoku ko te manu

PFV dawn morning DIS NTR listen away then POSS.1SG.O PROM ART insect
ka kiukiu.
-
CNTG chirp:RED
“In the early morning I heard an insect chirping.” (R109.005)
If the complement involves an event or action, this is expressed as a clause following

the ko-marked noun phrase, for example e oho nō mai ꞌā “it was coming” in (151) (→
11.3.1.2).
8.6.4.6. Object incorporation with rovaꞌa

Object incorporation is rare in Rapa Nui; it mainly occurs with modifying verbs in
noun phrases (→ 5.8.2.3). On the clausal level, object incorporation does not occur,
but there is one exception: the object of rovaꞌa/ravaꞌa “obtain”. As shown in section
8.4.1 above, the object of rovaꞌa is usually expressed as a regular noun phrase, though
the accusative marker i is often omitted. However, when the object is something
edible, it tends to be incorporated into the verb.442 The incorporated object shows the
following characteristics:
— it occurs immediately after the verb, without a preceding accusative marker or
article;
— it is not followed by any other noun phrase element;
— postverbal particles, such as ꞌā in (153), occur after the object. This shows that the
object has become part of the verb phrase.
(153) Ko rovaꞌa ika ꞌā a ia.
PRFobtain fish CONT PROP 3SG
“He has caught fish.” (R416.112)
(154) ꞌĪ tātou ka rovā kai.
IMM 1PL.INC CNTG obtain food
“We’ll have food straightaway.” (R352.067)
In the following example, the object noun meꞌe is incorporated into the verb phrase,
but the relative clause mo kai, which modifies meꞌe, is left stranded at the end of the
clause.
(155) Māuruuru ki tū taŋata era i rovaꞌa [meꞌe] ai rāua [mo kai].
thank to DEM man DIS PFV obtain thing PVP 3PL for eat
“Thanks to that man they had obtained something to eat.” (R349.021)
442
Object incorporation with rovaꞌa only occurs in modern Rapa Nui; in older texts rovaꞌa always
takes a full NP object.
8.6.4.7. Agentive use of i

As discussed in section 8.3.1 above, the Agent is marked with e under certain
conditions. Rapa Nui also has a second Agent marker: the locative preposition i (→
4.7.2.3) is used to mark agents which are not an argument of the verb. Usually, i-
marked Agents occur with intransitive verbs which have a non-agentive S, such as
motu “break (intr.)” and ꞌōꞌotu “be cooked”.443 Agentive i is especially common with a
few patientive verbs: mate “die”, rehu “be forgotten” and ŋaro “to be lost; to be
forgotten”; however, it may occur with any intransitive verb. A few examples:
(156) ꞌIna a au e ko rehu i a koe.
NEG PROP1SG IPFV NEG.IPFV forgotten at PROP 2SG
“You won’t forget me.” (R226.006)
(157) He mate koe i a au.
NTR die 2SG at PROP 1SG
“You will die by me = I will kill you.” (Mtx-3-01.147)
(158) ¡I a au tau honu ena ana ŋaeꞌi!
at PROP 1SG DEM turtle MED IRR move
“By me that turtle will move! (=I will move that turtle)” (MsE-028.002)
(159) Kai ꞌite mai a au pē nei ē: e tuꞌu mau rō koe i a au.
NEG.PFV know hither PROP 1SG like PROX thus IPFV arrive really EMPH 2SG at PROP 1SG
“I don’t know if I’ll manage to get you there (lit. if you will arrive by me).”
(R314.049)
(159) is remarkable because tuꞌu is an active verb; its subject is an Agent. Even so, an
agentive i-phrase is added, expressing an external (higher order) Agent which causes
the event to happen. A construction like this is semantically similar to causativisation
of an agentive verb (→ 8.12.2).
In the examples so far, the Agent noun phrase is animate. This is to be expected, as
prototypical agentivity implies that the action is done volitionally, something which is
443
Hooper (1984b) discusses the same construction in Maori, where agentive i is used with a
closed class of verbs. Hooper characterizes these verbs as inherently passive. In Maori, these
verbs share certain syntactic characteristics: they do not occur in the imperative and cannot
function as NP head or modifier. (See also Pucilowski 2006:33.) Different from Maori, Rapa Nui
allows agentive i with any intransitive verb, even active verbs, though it mostly occurs with
verbs having a Patient subject.
Alexander (1981b:135) claims that agentive i in Rapa Nui only occurs with inanimate subjects,
while e is only used with animate subjects. Neither claim is correct: see the examples in this
section and in 8.5.2. Finney & Alexander (1998:21) characterise the agentive i construction as a
“lexical passive”: a passive without a corresponding active form. The subject expresses a Patient,
while the Agent is expressed as an oblique, just as in passive constructions. Notice, however, that
the Agent is not part of the case frame of the verb; the inherent meaning of the verb is not such
that the action is carried out by the Agent on the Patient; rather, the Patient undergoes the event,
without an Agent being in view.
only possible with an animate agent. However, the event can also be caused by an
animal, object, force or event. In the latter case, Rapa Nui orthography uses the
preposition ꞌi (with glottal); note however that i and ꞌi are merely different spellings of
the same preposition (→ 2.2.5; 4.7.2). Below are two examples; more examples are
given in sec. 4.7.2.2.
(160) He hati te ŋao o ꞌOto ꞌUta ꞌi te pureva.
NTR break ART neck of Oto Uta at ART rock
“The neck of (the statue) Oto Uta broke by/from the rock.” (MsE-089.002)
(161) Ku ŋarepe ꞌā te kahu ꞌi te ꞌua.
PRF wet clothes at ART rain
CONT ART
“The clothes got soaked by the rain.” (Egt. lexicon)
8.7. Case marking in nominalised clauses
With nominalised verbs and verbal nouns (→ 3.2.3), case marking is governed by the
same rules as with verbs in general, with one important difference: arguments that
would be unmarked in a verbal clause, are expressed as possessives when the verb is
nominalised. Agents may be either a- or o-possessed; Patients are o-possessed (→
6.3.3.4).
This results in the following situation:
1. The Agent is usually possessive, as in (162)–(163).
(162) Ku ŋaroꞌa ꞌā te honu te kī ꞌa Kuꞌukuꞌu.
-
PRF perceive CONT ART turtle ART say of.A Ku’uku’u

“The turtle heard what Ku’uku’u said (lit. heard the saying of Ku’uku’u).” (Ley-
2-02.034)
(163) ꞌI te kī nō o Puakiva ki a Pea i tāꞌana vānaŋa...

at ART say just of Puakiva to PROP Pea ACC POSS.3SG.A word
“When Puakiva was still saying (lit. in the saying of Puakiva) his words to
Pea...” (R229.489)
2. The Agent is e-marked in the situations listed in sec. 8.4.2, for example in VOA
clauses as in (164), and in transitive clauses with implied O as in (165):
(164) I oti era i te hakameꞌemeꞌe i a Huri ꞌa Vai e Vaha...
PFV finish DIS ACC ART mock Huri a Vai AG Vaha
ACC PROP
“When Vaha had finished mocking Huri a Vai...” (R304.094)
(165) ꞌIna he taŋata toe, ku oti ꞌā te vaꞌai e Vaha ki ruŋa ki te vaka.
NEG PRED man remain PRF finish CONT ART give AG Vaha to above to ART canoe
“There were no men left, they had all been handed over by Vaha (lit. the
giving by Vaha had finished) to (the people in) the canoe.” (Mtx-3-01.122)
3. The Patient usually has the accusative marker, regardless whether the Agent is
expressed or not; cf. (163) above and (166) below:
(166) He oti te keri i tau rua era...
NTR finish ART dig ACC DEM hole DIS
“When they had finished digging that hole...” (Mtx-3-02.010)
4. Sometimes the Patient is expressed as possessive; this may indicate passivisation, i.e.
the Patient has become subject.
(167) Ka toru mahana o te tanu o Kava...
CNTG three day of ART bury of Kava
“Three days after Kava’s burial...” (R229.358)
It never happens that both subject and object are expressed as possessive.
8.8. Obliques
8.8.1. Indirect object?

Apart from the subject and the direct object, verbs may have various other arguments,
expressing roles such as Goal (of movement or action), Beneficiary and Recipient. This
includes semantic roles traditionally labelled as “indirect object”, e.g. the Recipient of
vaꞌai “give”. In Rapa Nui, these constituents are syntactically not different from any
other oblique role; they do not share the characteristics of the core grammatical
relations, subject and direct object, but behave like other obliques, as the following
evidence shows.
1. While subjects and direct objects are unmarked when they are preverbal (→ 8.3.1.1
sub 1; 8.4.1 sub 1), other constituents keep their preposition, including Recipients:
(168) Ki a koe a au i oho mai nei.
to PROP 2SG PROP 1SG PFV go hither PROX
“To you I have come.” (R617.181)
(169) Ki a ia e vaꞌai era e Tū.
to PROP 3SG IPFV give DIS AG Tu
“To him Tu gives it.” (R416.080)
2. Patients can be expressed as subject in passivisation (→ 8.5.1), but arguments such

as recipients and beneficiaries cannot; the following construction is impossible:
(170) *He vaꞌai au e tahi puka e tōꞌoku pāpā.
NTR give 1SG NUM one book AG POSS.1SG.O father
“I was given a book by my father.”
3. In relative clauses, relativised subjects and direct objects can be omitted; other
constituents (including recipients) need to be expressed (→ 11.4.2).
4. This also has consequences for content questions with the interrogative pronoun ai
“who”. Interrogative subjects and objects are constructed as clefts, nominal clauses
containing a relative clause (→ 10.3.2.1–10.3.2.2). As a consequence, an interrogative

direct object is not marked with the accusative marker i, but as a nominal predicate.
By contrast, interrogative obliques are always preceded by the appropriate preposition;
this includes recipients, as in (172):
(171) ¿ꞌI muri i a ai a Eva ka noho era ꞌi a Tire?
at near at PROP who PROP Eva CNTG stay DIS at PROP Chile
“With whom will Eva stay in Chile?” (R615.660)
(172) ¿Ki a ai ki a ai i kī ai mo hāꞌūꞌū mai ꞌi tōꞌona ꞌati?
to PROP who to PROP who PFV say PVP for help hither at POSS.3SG.O problem
“Whom and whom did he ask to help him in his problem?” (R615.145)
We may conclude that all constituents other than subject and direct object are
obliques, none of which has a special status as “indirect object”.
8.8.2. Marking of obliques

Any preposition may serve to mark an oblique constituent. Examples are given in the
sections discussing these prepositions (subsections of 4.7). Two prepositions which are
particularly common with obliques, are the directional preposition ki “to” (→ 4.7.3)
and, to a lesser extent, mo “for”. Because of their wide range of uses, both will be
discussed in some detail here.
1. ki marks the object of middle verbs (→ 8.6.4.2 aboce). In addition, it marks

semantic roles such as Recipient, Addressee and Goal:
(174) He kī e Kuha ki a Pea...
NTRsay AG Kuha to PROP Pea
“Kuha said to Peha...” (R229.034)
ki marks the oblique argument of a diverse group of verbs, including for example
nonoꞌi “ask for”, moe “sleep with”, tauꞌa “to fight against”, māhani “get to know” and
-
koromaki “to miss, long for”:

(175) ꞌĀꞌaku ꞌana i nonoꞌi ki te
- ika.
POSS.1SG.A IDENT PFV request to ART fish
“I myself asked for fish.” (Mtx-7-04.061)
(176) He moe ki te viꞌe, he tupu te poki.
NTR sleep to ART woman NTR grow ART child
“He slept with his wife, she got pregnant.” (Mtx-7-20.002)
(177) Ko koromaki ꞌā a au ki a koe.
PRF miss CONT PROP 1SG to PROP 2SG
“I miss you.” (R208.203)
Finally, ki expresses the causee in causative constructions based on a transitive verb

(→ 8.12.3).
2. Some verbs take a Goal complement marked with the benefactive preposition mo.
The complement of riri “to be angry” is always marked with mo:
(178) ꞌIna koe ko riri mo tuꞌu māmā era.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV angry for POSS.2SG.O mother DIS
“Don’t be angry with your mother.” (R103.071)
With other verbs both ki and mo are possible. With verbs of giving, benefactive mo/mā
may be used instead of the more usual ki. The choice between mo and mā depends on
the semantic relationship between the Recipient and the given object (→ 6.3.3).
(179) Ka vaꞌai mai te ika hiku meamea ena māꞌaku.
-
IMP give hither ART fish tail red:RED MED BEN.1SG.A

“Give me the red-tailed fish (to eat).” (Mtx-5-04.014)
(180) E maꞌu mai ꞌā a mātou i te rēkaro nei māꞌau.
carry hither CONT PROP 1PL.EXC ACC ART present PROX BEN.2SG.A
IPFV
“We are bringing this present for you.” (R210.127)
As a benefactive preposition (expressing intended possession), mo emphasizes

possession of the object by the Recipient which results from the act of giving. By
contrast, a ki-marked Recipient is not necessarily the possessor of the given object. In
the following example, Tiare is not the (ultimate) possessor of the given object. In this
case benefactive mo may not be appropriate.
(181) He toꞌo mai he vaꞌai i tou mareni era ki a Tiare...
NTR take hither NTR give ACC DEM watermelon DIS to PROP Tiare
“She took the watermelon and gave it to Tiare (and told her to give it to
Merahi).” (R309.072)
mo may mark the object of a feeling (like ki), or the topic of an utterance (“about”):
(182) He ꞌaroha a Vai Ora mo Tahoŋa ꞌo te taŋi mo rā ika.
NTR compassion PROP Vai Ora for Tahonga because_of ART cry for DIS fish
“Vai Ora had pity with Tahonga, because of his crying for the fish.” (R301.249)
(183) He taŋi a Tahoŋa ꞌi tū vānaŋa era ꞌa Hotu mo tū ika era ꞌāꞌana.
NTR cry PROP Tahonga at DEM word of.A hotu for DEM fish DIS POSS.3SG.A
DIS
“Tahonga cried because of the words Hotu said about his fish.” (R301.295)
Nowadays, “about” tends to be expressed by o ruŋa (→ (154) on p. 121).
Regarding the order of constituents: as the examples above show, oblique constituents
usually come after the subject. They may also be preposed as in (168)–(169) above. If
there is also a direct object, the oblique constituent usually comes last as in (173),
though the reverse order also occurs:
(184) He tuhi e Vaha [ki a Kava]Obl [i te kona mo titi o te hare.]DO

NTR point_out AG Vaha to PROP Kava place for stack of ART house
ACC ART
“Vaha pointed out to Kava a place to build the house.” (R229.110)
This happens when the oblique is more topical than the direct object, or when the
oblique is lighter (i.e. shorter and structurally simpler) than the direct object. In (184)
the oblique is short, while the direct object is a complex noun phrase.
8.9. Reflexive and reciprocal
Reflexivity occurs when two constituents in a clause are coreferential, in most cases
subject and object. Reciprocality involves two participants which are mutually
involved in an action. Rapa Nui does not have specific pronouns or other forms to
express these categories; various strategies are used, which are discussed below.
Reflexivity can be expressed by a personal pronoun in the appropriate person and

with the appropriate preposition:444
(185) He haka riro i a ia pa he pīkea.
NTR CAUS become ACC PROP 3SG like PRED crab
“She turned herself into a crab.” (R310.050)
(186) ¿Ko haŋa ꞌā koe mo hore atu i a koe?
PRF want CONT 2SG for cutaway ACC PROP 2SG
“Do you want to cut yourself?” (R428.009)
Reflexive reference may be made more explicit by the identity particle ꞌā or ꞌana (→
5.10):
(187) Ko riꞌariꞌa ꞌana ꞌi tū
- māuiui era ōꞌona
- e maꞌu era
PRF afraid CONT at DEM sick DIS POSS.3SG.O IPFV carry DIS
ꞌi roto i a ia ꞌā.
at inside at PROP 3SG IDENT
“She was afraid of the sickness she carried inside herself” (R301.091)
(188) He noho ꞌi ruŋa i te māꞌea e tahi, he kī ki a ia ꞌā...
NTR sitat above at ART stone NUM one NTR say to PROP 3SG IDENT
“He sat down on a stone and said to himself...” (R229.365)
A reflexive action, which the subjects performs on itself, can also be expressed by a
causative verb with unexpressed object (→ 8.12.2).
444
According to Anderson & Keenan (1985:265), there “appears to be a universal constraint
against using ordinary pronouns and noun phrases for referring to the same individual twice
within a single clause”. This constraint does not operate in Rapa Nui.
Like reflexivity, reciprocality may be expressed by a pronoun + identity marker

ꞌā/ꞌana as in (189), or left implicit as in (190):
(189) He hēŋuꞌiŋuꞌi
- rō atu ꞌai tū ŋā rūꞌau era ki a rāua ꞌā.
NTR murmur:RED EMPH away SUBS DEM PL old_woman DIS to PROP 3PL IDENT
“Then the old women began to murmur to each other (among themselves).”
(R347.045)
(190) Te taŋata ꞌe te viꞌe e ai ena mo hāꞌūꞌū ki a rāua.

ARTperson and ART woman IPFV exist MED for help to PROP 3PL
“Man and woman are there to help each other.” (1 Cor. 11:11)
8.10. Comitative constructions: “with”
8.10.1. Introduction
A comitative relationship (“X with Y”) is expressed by a the following construction:
NP1 comitative marker ko NP2
An example:
(191) He hoki Makemake1 rāuaCOMIT ko
- Haua2.
NTR return Makemake 3PL PROM Haua
“Makemake and Haua returned.” (Mtx-1-01.029)
The comitative marker can be realised in several ways:

1. a pronoun, as in the example above;
2. ararua “the two” or ananake “together”;
3. koia;
4. Ø.
1 is specified for number and person, 2 for number. Both 1 and 2 are used in an
inclusory sense: they denote the total set of referents of NP1 and NP2. In other words,
when both NP1 and NP2 are singular, the comitative marker is dual if a dual form is
available (i.e. in the 1st person) and plural otherwise; when either NP1 or NP2 is dual or
plural, the comitative marker is plural. This is illustrated in (191) above, where the
plural rāua connects two singular noun phrases.
All four constructions are used commonly in both older and newer texts. They will be
discussed in turn in sections 8.10.2–8.10.5. Sec. 8.10.6–8.10.7 discuss issues
concerning pronouns, especially the inclusory pronoun construction, which is a
truncated variant of comitative constructions.
The particle ko in these constructions is best considered as the prominence marking ko,
rather than a separate lexeme meaning “with”. As section 4.7.11 shows, ko has a wide
variety of uses; in section 4.7.11.4 I suggest that ko is a default preposition, marking
any noun phrases without a thematic role assigned by a verb or preposition. The
second noun phrase in a comitative construction is exactly that: it is not governed by a

verb or preposition, and therefore gets the default preposition ko.445
The noun phrase as a whole is plural, even when NP1 is singular. This is shown by the
fact that a plural verb can be used with a singular NP1 (whether explicit or implied). In
the example below, the implied NP1 is singular “he”, yet the verb is plural.
(192) He nonoho Ø1 ararua ko
- [tū repa era ꞌāꞌana]2.
NTR PL:sit the_two PROM DEM young_man DIS POSS.3SG.A
“He sat down together with his son.” (R310.020)
8.10.2. Pronouns as comitative markers

When the comitative marker is a pronoun, this pronoun is inclusory: it refers to the
total group of NP1 and NP2. In other words, dual/plural rāua is used regardless whether
NP1 and NP2 are singular or plural. An example:
(193) He mataku Rapu ꞌi te hatutiri rāua ko te ꞌuira.
NTR fear Rapu at ART thunder 3PL lightning
PROM ART
“Rapu feared the thunder and the lightning.” (Fel-40-028)
In practice, rāua ko is mostly used to connect pairs of single participants, just like
ararua ko (→ 8.10.3 below); larger sets are usually expressed by ananake ko (→
8.10.3).
First and second person pronouns can also be used as comitative markers, and they are
inclusory as well. First person pronouns make a distinction between dual and plural.
Dual pronouns are used when NP1 and NP2 are both singular as in (194); when NP1
and/or NP2 is plural as in (195), the pronoun is plural.
(194) ꞌĪ au he iri māua ko Taria ki te māua ketekete.
-
IMM 1SG NTR ascend 1DU.EXC PROM Taria to ART 1DU.EXC ketekete
“I’m going up with Taria to find ketekete (a kind of plant).” (R153.021)
-
(195) He hoki koe kōrua ko te matuꞌa ko Iporito Roussel.

NTR return 2SG 2PL PROM ART parent PROM Hippolyte Roussel
“(spoken to one man:) You will return with father Hippolyte Roussel.”
(R231.258)
445
Additional confirmation that the sense “with” is not expressed by ko as such but by the
construction as a whole, comes from the following example from the Bible translation. Here
ararua “the two” (→ 8.10.3 below) is used in an inclusory sense in a relative clause; in this
construction, ko is not used: due to the gapping strategy, there is no constituent to be marked
with ko.
(i) ...mo haka ūtuꞌa i te kope [ararua i ture ai].
for CAUS punish ACC ART person the_two PFV quarrel PVP
“to condemn the person with whom she had a conflict (lit. ...the person the two
quarrelled)” (Luke 18:3)
These constructions are similar to the inclusory pronoun construction, discussed in

section 8.10.7 below.
8.10.3. ararua and ananake “together” as comitative markers

ararua is a definite numeral meaning “the two” (→ 4.3.4). ananake means “together”
in modern Rapa Nui; in older texts has the more general sense “all” (→ 4.4.4). Both
words indicate a collectivity or group: ararua refers to a group of two, ananake to a
group larger than two.
As a comitative marker, ararua is used when the total set denoted by NP1 + NP2 is
two; it is thus similar in use to rāua ko, which usually connects two singular noun
phrases. Though both constructions are common, the use of ararua ko has increased
over time, while the use of rāua ko has decreased. An example:
(196) He eeke- a Rāvī ararua ko Hotu ki ruŋa i te hoi.
NTR PL:go_up PROPRavi the_two PROM Hotu to above at ART horse
“Ravi mounts the horse with Hotu.” (R616.736)
ananake is used for sets larger than two, in which NP1 and/or NP2 is plural. In (197)
NP1 “the people” is plural, while NP2 is singular. In (198), NP1 is singular while NP2 is
plural.
(197) He takataka he oho te
- taŋata ꞌi rote hare pure ki te hāpī
NTR gather:RED NTR go ART man at inside_ART house prayer to ART learn
ananake ko te matuꞌa.
together PROM ART parent
“The people gathered in the church to learn together with the priest.”
(R231.288)
(198) He noho a Uho ananake ko te matuꞌa, ko te taina.

NTR stay PROP Uho together PROM ART parent sibling
PROM ART
“Uho lived together with her parents and siblings.” (Mtx-7-12.055)
In the examples so far, the comitative construction is a constituent in a clause, usually

the subject. The comitative construction can also be a (nonverbal) clause by itself,
meaning “A is with B.” In that case, its construction is as follows:
ararua/ananake NP1 ko NP2
Here are two examples. In these constructions, both the comitative marker
(ararua/ananake) and the NP1 pronoun are inclusory, denoting the total set of referents
of NP1 and NP2: plural in (199), dual in (200).
(199) ꞌĀhani ꞌō ananake mātou ko tōꞌoku huaꞌai era.
if_only really together 1PL.EXC PROM POSS.1SG.O family DIS
“I wish I were together with my family.” (R210.134)
(200) Ararua kōrua ko te ꞌAtua.

the_two 2PL PROM ART God
“(the angel said to Mary:) God is with you.” (R339.005)
8.10.4. koia ko “with”

koia is originally the third person pronoun ia preceded by the prominence marker ko.
However, when used as a connector it has lost the character of a pronoun and is
written as one word.
koia ko marks attendant circumstances. As such it may introduce both noun phrases
and circumstantial clauses: the following noun phrase or clause indicates an action,
state of mind, person or object which in some way accompanies the main clause or a
participant in the main clause.
8.10.4.1. koia ko + noun

Like rāua ko and ananake/ararua ko, koia ko may serve as a comitative marker
connecting two noun phrases which are closely associated:
(201) Te huaꞌai nei a Paio koia ko tāꞌana viꞌe ko Uka ꞌa Nei Ariro.
ARTfamily PROX PROP Paio COMIT PROM POSS.3SG.A woman PROM Uka a Nei Ariro
“This family (consisted of) Paio with his wife Uka a Nei Ariro.” (R439.003)
However, koia ko + noun phrase usually indicates a looser connection to the

preceding context than other comitative markers. The following example, in which
rāua ko and koia ko are both used, is illustrative. The first set of referents, “he”
(implied) and “his two brothers”, is connected by rāua ko. Another entity, “the
warriors” is added to this first set.
(202) He hoki mai rāua ko tōꞌona ŋā taina e rua,
NTR return hither 3PL PROM POSS.3SG.O PL sibling NUM two
koia ko te nuꞌu pāoa.
COMIT PROM ART people warrior
“He returned together with his two brothers, and with the warriors.” (Fel-
64.107)
Often koia ko + NP is not directly connected to a preceding noun phrase, but

introduces an additional item to the clause as a whole. In the following example,
rēkaro “present” is not linked to a specific noun phrase, but adds an additional
circumstance to the clause: “they gathered around Eva with (=while carrying) gifts.”
(203) Ko takataka tahi ꞌana te
- rapa nui ꞌi muri koia ko te rēkaro
PRF gather:RED all CONT ART Rapa Nui at near COMIT PROM ART present
e vaꞌai era ki a Eva.
IPFV give DIS to PROP Eva
“All the Rapa Nui people gathered next to (her) with presents they gave to
Eva.” (R210.218)
Notice that there are a few other expressions in which ko is not followed by a
determiner (→ 5.6.2).
8.10.4.2. koia ko + verb

koia ko followed by a verb phrase or adjective indicates a secondary circumstance
under which the main clause takes place (→ 11.6.8). This circumstance can be
expressed by anything ranging from a single word to a full clause:
(204) He hoki mai a Kāiŋa koia ko taŋi.
NTR return hither PROP Kainga COMIT PROM cry
“Kainga returned crying.” (R243.173)
(205) He mate rō atu ꞌai ꞌi te taŋi koia ko ꞌui pē hē hū ꞌati era paꞌi.
NTR die EMPH away SUBS at ART cry COMIT PROM ask like CQ DEM problem DIS in_fact
“She cried bitterly (lit. she died from crying), while asking how that accident
had happened.” (R437.101)
In modern Rapa Nui, the verb is sometimes is preceded by the article te; this does not
seem to make much difference in meaning.
(206) He kī atu a nua koia ko te taŋi...
NTRsay away PROP Mum COMIT PROM ART cry
“Mum said crying...” (R237.014)
8.10.5. ko without comitative marker

Occasionally ko on its own, without comitative marker, is used to connect two noun
phrases. As with koia ko, the determiner before the noun may be left out.
(207) ꞌI te pō varu tōꞌou miro ko aka ko raurau.
-
at ART night eight POSS.2SG.O tree PROM root PROM branch:RED

“On the eighth day your tree (will arrive), with roots and branches.” (Mtx-7-
18.003)
This construction is used both in older and newer texts, but is not common in either
corpus.
ko on its own is somewhat more common in comitative constructions containing three
or more elements: the first two nouns are linked by one of the comitative markers;
after that, only ko is used without repeating the comitative marker. An example:
(208) He noho Rano rāua ko tāꞌana poki, ko te viꞌe.
NTR stay Rano 3PL PROM POSS.3SG.A
child PROM ART woman
“Rano lived with his child and his wife.” (Mtx-7-18.001)
This construction reminds of the use of ko in lists: in a list of items every item may be
preceded by ko, regardless its syntactic function in the clause (→ 4.7.11.1).
8.10.6. Pronouns as NP1: inclusory and exclusory use

When NP1 in a comitative construction is a pronoun, it may either include or exclude
the referent(s) of NP2; in other words, it may be either inclusory or exclusory. In (209),
the dual pronoun māua is inclusory: its reference includes NP2 Peŋipeŋi: “me and -
Pengipengi”.
(209) E tahi mahana māua ararua ko Peŋipeŋi
- e noho era ꞌi Tuꞌu Tapu.
NUM one day 1DU.EXC the_two PROM Pengipengi IPFV stay DIS at Tu’u Tapu
“One day, Pengipengi and I were staying in Tu’u Tapu.” (R133.001)
In (210), NP1 is exclusory: the pronoun is singular and does not include NP2 “a person
of your house”.
(210) ¿ꞌI ꞌaŋahē te mahana hopeꞌa i noho i vānaŋa rivariva -
at when.PAST ART day last PFV sit PFV talk good:RED

koe ararua ko te kope e tahi o tuꞌu hare?
2SG the_two PROM ART person NUM one of POSS.2SG.O house
“When was the last day you sat down and talked well with a person of your
house?” (R209.032)
8.10.7. The inclusory pronoun construction

The inclusory446 pronoun construction consists of a dual or plural pronoun denoting a
set of referents, followed by a noun phrase denoting a subset of these referents.447 The
referents indicated by the noun phrase are included in the set indicated by the
pronoun. Here is an example:
(211) Te parautiꞌa, e haŋa rō ꞌā a au ki a kōrua ko koro.
ART truth love EMPH CONT PROP 1SG to PROP 2PL
IPFV PROM Dad
“The truth is, I love you and Dad very much.” (R229.498)
This sentence is spoken by a child to her mother. The dual/plural pronoun kōrua refers
to mother and father (even though the father is not directly addressed); the father,
indicated by the noun koro, is a subset of this group. The noun koro is marked with the
default preposition ko.448 The phrase as a whole could be paraphrased “you, including
father”.
446
I use the term “inclusory” following Lichtenberk (2000) for pronouns which denote the
complete set of referents of the noun phrase; by analogy, “exclusory” means that a pronoun
denotes a subset of referents, excluding another subset. Dixon (2010b:207) uses the term
“pronoun elaboration”: the noun phrase elaborates on the reference of the pronoun.
447
Anderson & Keenan (1985:267), consider the pronoun in such cases to be semantically
singular. Schwartz (1988) takes the same approach. However, it seems more straightforward to
take the pronoun as the head of the construction with plural reference.
448
Schwartz (1988:241) points out that connectors used in inclusory pronoun constructions are
generally not the same connectors used in coordination, but rather elements also used to indicate
accompaniment. This is also true in Rapa Nui, where ko without any further marker can be used
in comitative constructions (→ 8.10.5).
Two more examples:

(212) Ko turu mai ꞌā māua ko te poki mai ꞌuta ki Haŋa Roa.
PRFgo_down hither CONT 1DU.EXC PROM ART child from inland to Hanga Roa
“The child and I have come from inland to Hanga Roa.” (R229.209)
(213) E uꞌi atu era e mātou ko tū ŋā poki era o muri i a au.
IPFV look away DIS AG 1PL.EXC PROM DEM PL child DIS of near at PROP 1SG
“I and the children near me were watching.” (R379.023)
The inclusory construction is a concise or truncated variety of the comitative

construction: where other comitative constructions have a NP1 + comitative marker,
in the inclusory pronoun construction there is only a pronoun. The latter can be
analysed in several ways:
1. The comitative marker is omitted; NP1 is an inclusory pronoun. This analysis is
plausible, as there are other cases where the comitative marker is Ø (→ 8.10.5), as
well as cases where NP1 is an inclusory pronoun (→ 8.10.6).
2. NP1 is omitted; instead, the comitative marker itself – which is a plural pronoun as
in 8.10.2 – indicates that the set of referents is larger than NP2. This analysis is less
plausible, as there are no other cases where NP1 is empty, except when it is implied
from the context.
3. Underlyingly, both NP1 and the comitative marker are an inclusory pronoun, and
one of these identical pronouns gets deleted. This analysis would explain an otherwise
explained gap in the list of comitative constructions. There are cases where NP1 is an
inclusory pronoun and the comitative marker is a different inclusory form (such as
ananake, see (199)–(200) on p. 417); there are also cases where NP1 is a full noun
phrase and the comitative marker is an inclusory pronoun (→ 8.10.2); but there are no
cases where both NP1 and the comitative marker are a pronoun. A deletion strategy
would explain why the latter do not occur.449
8.11. The vocative
Vocative phrases occur in various positions in the sentence: initial as in (214), after the
first phrase or clause as in (215), and final as in (216).
(214) E Eva, e Eva, ka ꞌara koe.
VOC Eva VOC Eva IPFV wake_up 2SG
“Eva, Eva, wake up.” (R210.187)
(215) ¿He obispo rā, e koro ē, e tuꞌuraꞌarima ꞌā i te ŋā poki?
NTR bishop DIS VOC Dad VOC IPFV confirmation CONT ACC ART PL child
“Is that the bishop, uncle, confirming the children?” (R413.591)
449
The reasons for this deletion could be pragmatic: a repeated pronoun can be perceived as
redundant or stylistically awkward.
(216) ¿Ko ŋaroꞌa ꞌana e koe, e Hana ē?

PRFperceive CONT AG 2SG VOC Hana VOC
“Did you hear that, Hana?” (R485.016)
As (215) and (216) show, the end of a vocative phrase is often marked by ē.450 This
particle is always used when the vocative occurs in the middle or at the end of a
clause, but rarely with initial vocatives.
These examples also illustrate that names and proper nouns like koro “father” in the
vocative are not preceded by the proper article a.
When common nouns occur in the vocative, they occur with or without article te. In
modern Rapa Nui the following tendencies can be observed regarding the use of the
article:
1. Kinship terms which can be used as personal nouns, do not have the article. For
example, māmārūꞌau may function either as common noun or as personal noun, but in
the vocative it never has the article.
(217) ¿Nā ꞌō koe, e māmārūꞌau ē?
MED really 2SG VOC grandmother VOC
“Is that you, grandmother?” (R313.119)
2. Nouns preceded by the plural marker ŋā do not have the article.

(218) ¿Pē hē kōrua, e ŋā poki ē?
like CQ 2PL VOC PL child VOC
“How are you, children?” (R359.007)
3. In other situations, the article tends to be used. This includes familial terms never
used as personal nouns, as well as other common nouns.
(219) Ka oho rivariva koe, e
- te poki ē.
IPFV go
good:RED 2SG VOC ART child VOC
“Farewell (lit. go well), child.” (R210.047)
8.12. The causative
The preverbal particle haka (< PPN *faka) expresses causation. When haka is placed
before a verb, the valency of the verb is increased by one: an Agent-subject is added
expressing an entity which causes the event to happen; the S/A of the root verb is
demoted to direct object.
haka is used with intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, adjectives and nouns; examples
will be given in the following sections. Furthermore, it is used with copula verbs (see
450
This particle is glossed VOC, but it may be compared to two other particles ē which occur
before a pause: ē in the expression pē nei ē “thus”, which occurs before an indirect speech (→
4.6.5.1), and ē indicating an ongoing event (found e.g. in (157) on p. 349).
(239) below)451 and with adverbs (see (249)). There are no examples in the corpus
where it is used with locationals.
haka is fully productive, though in certain cases the meaning of haka + root is
lexicalised (→ 8.12.5 below).
Regarding the morphological status of haka: in many analyses of Polynesian languages,
haka is considered a prefix and written together with the root. Semantic motivations
may play a role here: haka + root forms a derived verb with its own argument
structure, often with a lexicalised (i.e. non-predictable) meaning. However,
phonologically and morphologically haka is no different from preverbal particles.
There is no phonological integration with the root: haka does not affect the root
phonologically any more than particles do. Moreover, haka may be separated from the
root by preverbal particles, both degree modifiers (see (250) below) and the
constituent negator taꞌe:
(220) te nuꞌu haka taꞌe au ꞌo tōꞌona rē i tū ꞌāꞌati era
ART people CAUS NEG.CONS pleased because_of POSS.3SG.O win ACC DEM contest DIS
“the people who were not pleased because of her winning the contest”
(R347.036)
8.12.2. Causativisation of intransitive predicates

In many cases haka expresses direct causation, as illustrated by the following pair of
examples. In (221) the Theme argument “the fire” is the subject; in (222), an (implicit)
Agent has been added, expressing the persons causing the fire to burn; the Theme
argument is now expressed as direct object.
(221) I totomo
- era ki ꞌuta, e hū rō ꞌā te ahi.
PFV PL:go_ashore DIS
to inland IPFV burn EMPH IDENT ART fire
“When they came ashore, a fire was burning.” (R359.019)
(222) He noho he haka hū i te ahi.
NTR sit NTR CAUS burn ACC ART fire
“They sat down and lighted (made burn) the fire.” (R178.016)
This example involves an inanimate argument and a non-agentive verb. With agentive
verbs, the Agent of the root (the causee) is often actively involved in the event, despite
the presence of an additional Agent (the causer). In (224) the children are just as much
the Agent of going as in (223), even though another Agent has been added.
- he oho te ŋā poki ki Mataveri.
at ART afternoon NTR go ART PL child to Mataveri
“In the afternoon, the children went to Mataveri.” (R159.015)
451
According to Dixon (2012:251), this is crosslinguistically unusual.
(224) He haka oho i te ŋā poki ki haho mo kokori.

-
NTR CAUS go child to outside for PL:play

ACC ART PL
“She made the children go outside to play.” (R236.013)
The degree to which the causee is actively involved in the event, may vary. The
following example can mean either that the subject lifts Poreone up and puts him on
the horse, or that he helps him to mount the horse. (The latter is more likely, as
Poreone happens to be about ten years old.)
(225) He haka eke ki ruŋa i te hoi i tū poki era ko Poreone.
NTR CAUSgo_up to above at ART horse ACC DEM child DIS PROM Poreone
“He made the child Poreone mount the horse.” (R105.095)
Non-agentive verbs – which have a Theme as subject – become agentive by

causativisation, as the following pair of examples shows. In (226), the subject koe is
Theme, while i marks the Agent (→ 8.6.4.7 on non-argument Agents). In (227), the
subject koe is Agent, while i marks the direct object.
(226) E ko rehu koe i a au.
IPFV NEG.IPFV forgotten 2SG at PROP 1SG
“I won’t forget you (lit. you won’t be forgotten to/by me).” (R216.020)
(227) ꞌIna koe ko haka rehu i a au.
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV CAUS forgotten ACC PROP 1SG
“Don’t forget me.” (R224.016)
When adjectives are causativised, the property expressed by the adjective is brought
about by an Agent; the person or thing having the property is expressed as direct
object, i te pista in (228), te tātou mahana in (229).
(228) Rā pau era mo haka roaroa - i te pista mo rāua ꞌā e aŋa.
DIS cost DIS for CAUS long:RED ACC ART airstrip for 3PL IDENT IPFV do
“The cost for lengthening the airstrip, they will pay it themselves.” (R201.035)
(229) ꞌIna ko haka rakerake te
- tātou mahana.
NEG NEG.IPFV CAUS bad:RED ART 1PL.INC day
“Don’t spoil our day.” (R649.184)
haka may also express indirect causation (cf. Dixon 2012:274). In this case the Agent
does not actively bring about the event, but facilitates the event in some way. This
may involve letting a natural process run its course as in (230), giving permission as in
(231), or waiting for something to happen as in (232):
(230) He hahaꞌo ki roto te vai... mo haka piro
- haka kōpiro ꞌi roto i te vai.
NTR insert to inside ART water for CAUS rotten CAUS ferment at inside at ART water
“He put the fibres in the water to let them rot and ferment in the water.”
(R352.030)
(231) Ka haka noho nō atu koe i a au ꞌi nei.

IMP CAUS stay
just away 2SG ACC PROP 1SG at PROX
“Let me stay here (allow me to stay here).” (R229.013)
(232) He noho he haka ahiahi, - ꞌai ka turu ki tai.
NTR stay NTR CAUS afternoon there CNTG go_down to sea
“We stay until the (late) afternoon, then we go down to the sea.” (R356.008)
8.12.3. Causativisation of transitive verbs

All the examples so far involve intransitive predicates; with these predicates, the
original subject (the causee) is demoted to direct object (DO), while the causative
Agent occupies the subject position. Now when the root is a transitive verb, the DO
position is already occupied.452 In that case, the original direct object remains the
direct object; the causee is expressed as oblique, marked with the preposition ki. This
happens whether the DO is expressed as in (233)–(234),453 or implied as in (235).
(233) Taꞌatoꞌa meꞌe rakerake e - haka aŋa era ki a Puakiva.
all thing bad:RED do
to PROP Puakiva
IPFV CAUS DIS
“He made Puakiva do all bad jobs.” (R229.397)
(234) He haka tikeꞌa ki a Tuhi Ira i tōꞌona kahu huruhuru.
-
NTR CAUS see

to PROP Tuhi Ira ACC POSS.3SG.O clothes feather
“He showed (=caused to see) Tuhi Ira his feather coat.” (Fel-33-011)
(235) He toꞌo mai te matuꞌa i te raŋo... He haka ꞌamo ki te taŋata.
NTR take hither ART parent ACC ART support NTR CAUS carry to ART man
“The father took the stretcher... He made the men carry (it).” (Mtx-7-13.044)
The same happens when the root is a middle verb which takes a direct object
introduced by ki; see the discussion about (129) in sec. 8.6.4.2.
When no Patient is implied, the verb is intransitive and the causee is expressed as DO.
The verb ꞌaꞌamu is often transitive (with a story as DO), but in the following example it
is used intransitively, which means that the DO position is available for the causee
“her grandmother”:
(236) He haka ꞌaꞌamu te aŋa i tōꞌona māmārūꞌau era ko Kena.
PRED CAUS tell ART do ACC POSS.3SG.O
grandmother DIS PROM Kena
“She always made her grandmother Kena tell stories.” (R380.015)
The DO position is also available for the causee when the Patient is realised as
instrument (→ 8.6.4.3). This is what happens in the following phrase: the Patient moni
is realised not as DO but as instrument; the DO position is available for the causee te
taŋata.
452
Languages employ various strategies in this case; Dixon (2012:256ff) lists no less than five.
453
In (233) the object is preverbal, therefore it does not have the ACC marker (→ 8.4.1).
(237) te nuꞌu haka ꞌauhau i te taŋata hai moni mo te rōmano

ART people CAUS pay ACC ART man INST money for the Roman
“those who made the people pay money for the Romans (= the tax
collectors)” (Luke 7:34)
8.12.4. Reflexive and implicit causatives

Causatives of intransitive predicates may be used reflexively: the object is a pronoun
which is coreferential with the Agent. The causative verb haka paka (lit. “cause to be
conspicuous”) means “to honour, praise”; in (238) it is used reflexively in the sense “to
praise oneself, to brag”, and the object i a ia is coreferential to the implied subject.
(238) Ku mate atu ꞌā a au ꞌi te kata ꞌi tū haka paka era
PRF die away CONT PROP 1SG at ART laugh at DEM CAUS conspicuous DIS
i a ia.
ACC PROP 3SG
“I laughed my head off from his bragging.” (R230.172)
Another example is the following causative of the copula verb riro:

(239) He haka riro i a ia pa he pīkea.
NTR CAUSbecome ACC PROP 3SG like PRED crab
“She made herself like a crab.” (R310.050)
More commonly, the reflexive object is not expressed. This means that the clause is on
the surface no different in argument structure from a clause with the corresponding
simple verb: the subject/causer is coreferential with the implied object, which is
identical to the subject of the original verb.
simple verb: Si V
reflexive causative: Si V (Oi)
This is illustrated in the following two pairs of examples, first with riro “become”, then
with takataka “gather”:
-
(240) Ko riro ꞌā pē he vārua ꞌā.

PRFbecome CONT like PRED spirit IDENT
“He had become like a spirit.” (R310.268)
(241) He uru Taŋaroa ki roto i te vai, he haka riro pa he kahi.
NTR enter Tangaroa to inside at ART water NTR CAUS become like PRED tuna
“Tangaroa entered into the water and turned himself into a tuna.” (Fel-
046.020)
(242) He oho mai he takataka ꞌi te- hare o te hānautama.

NTR go hither NTR gather:RED at ART house of ART pregnant
“They came and gathered in the house of the mother-to-be.” (Ley-9-55.024)
(243) He haka takataka ꞌi tū - hare era o tū taŋata era.

NTR CAUS gather:RED at DEM house DIS of DEM man DIS
“They gathered in the house of that man.” (R352.079)
These “implicit reflexives” are part of a larger phenomenon: in many cases, causatives
do not add a new argument to the verb, so the argument structure of the root is not
modified. What addition of haka does in such cases, is adding a semantic element,
usually an element of agentivity, activity or intensity. For example, while ꞌui means “to
ask”, haka ꞌui is used in the sense “to ask persistently and/or repeatedly, to inquire”.
Both verbs have the same argument structure, but the causative verb is more intensive.
(244) He haka ꞌui mai te aŋa e te ŋā poki repahoa ōꞌoku pē nei ē...
PRED CAUS ask hither ART do child friend AG ART PL POSS.1SG.O like PROX thus
“My friends kept asking me as follows...” (R380.042)
ꞌavaꞌava means “to be at a distance” or “to move away, to withdraw”; haka ꞌavaꞌava
- -
also has the latter sense, but underlines that the act of withdrawing is volitional.
Compare the following pair of examples:
(245) Te naonao ꞌina he ꞌavaꞌava
- - rahi mai tōꞌona kona poreko.
ARTmosquito NEG NTR distance_oneself much from POSS.3SG.O place born
“The mosquito does not go far from its breeding place.” (R535.065)
(246) ꞌIna koe ko haka ꞌavaꞌava. -
NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV CAUS distance_oneself

“Don’t go away.” (R482.045)
The same phenomenon can be observed with adjectives. While haka + adjective may
be a true causative, expressing that the property is brought about by an external Agent
(see (228)–(229) above), it may also express that the subject reaches a state or
acquires a property through intentional action. A few examples:
hāhine “to be/draw near” haka hāhine “to approach (volitionally)”

aŋiaŋi “to know for sure”
- haka aŋiaŋi “to make sure, find out, verify”
-
rohirohi “to be tired”

- haka rohirohi “to tire oneself out”
-
(247) He haka hāhine atu o Hotu ki te ꞌōpani o tū piha era.

NTR CAUS near
away of Hotu to ART door of DEM room DIS
“Hotu approached the door of the room.” (R301.121)
(248) Ko haka_tiu ꞌā te repa mai ꞌuta ki te vaikava
PRF watch CONT ART young_man from inland to ART sea
mo haka aŋiaŋi - ana ai ko tano ꞌā mo hakahonu.
for CAUS certain:RED IRR exist PRF correct CONT for bodysurf
“The young men observe the sea to make sure whether the conditions are fit
for surfing.” (R431.001)
haka + adjective or adverb may also indicate that the subject acts in a way
characterised by the root. As (250) shows, this may involve simulating a certain
characteristic.454
(249) E haka koroꞌiti koe ana vānaŋa mai.
EXH CAUS softly 2SG IRR speak hither
“Speak softly (lit. make softly when you speak)!” (R408.046)
(250) Te tire e haŋa rō ꞌā mo haka ꞌata māramarama i - a rāua.
ARTChile IPFV want EMPH IDENT for CAUS more intelligent ACC PROP 3PL
“The Chileans want to pass themselves off as smarter.” (R428.006)
8.12.5. Lexicalised causatives

A number of haka forms have a meaning which cannot quite be predicted from the
meaning of the root. Some examples:
pāpaꞌi to write haka pāpaꞌi to enrol
ꞌomoꞌomo - to suck haka ꞌomoꞌomo - to breastfeed
rivariva
- good haka rivariva
- to improve; to prepare
roŋo message hakaroŋo to listen; to perceive
Another example is found in (248) above: haka honu “bodysurfing” is a lexicalised

causative from honu “turtle”. The same sentence also contains the verb hakatiu “to
watch”; even though this is formally a causative, there is no word tiu in the Rapa Nui
lexicon. There are a few more haka forms for which the root as such is not a Rapa Nui
word. This includes two very common words: hakaꞌou “again”, hakarē “to leave
(abandon; permit)”.
8.12.6. The causative prefix with nouns

When the root of the haka construction is a noun, the causative expresses an action
which is in some way characterised by the noun. The noun may be the product of the
action: haka N = “to cause the object to be N, to make something into N”, or more
generally “to make/create N”:
(251) He tītiŋi - i te ivi raꞌe, he haka parehe.
NTR PL:crush ACC ART bone first NTR CAUS piece
“He crushed the first bone into pieces.” (Mtx-3-01.199)
(252) ꞌI te mahana maha i haka kāuŋa tahi era te ŋā poki.
at ART day four PFV CAUS line all
child DIS ART PL
“On Thursday all the children lined up (formed a line).” (R334.139)
Other relationships to the noun are possible, whether conventional or creative. In

(253) the noun refers to something used in the action, or something characterizing the
454
Cf. Moyle (2011:14) about “similative use” of the causative prefix in Takuu.
direct object as a result of the action. In (254) the noun is used in a figurative way (cf.
English “cheeky”).
(253) E haka tiare rō ꞌana i a rāua.
IPFV CAUS flower EMPH CONT ACC PROP 3PL
“They have adorned themselves with flowers.” (R416.415)
(254) ꞌIna hoꞌi koe ko haka ꞌāriŋa ki tuꞌu māmā ena.
NEG indeed 2SG NEG.IPFV CAUS face to POSS.2SG.O mother MED
“Don’t be insolent to your mother.” (R103.065)
8.12.7. Lexical causatives

The term “lexical causative” refers to a situation where there are two lexemes,
unrelated in form, one of which is semantically the causative of the other. (Dixon
2012:248.)
There are very few lexical causatives in Rapa Nui; the following two are possible
candidates.
— hāŋai “to feed” can be considered a causative of kai “to eat”. Apart from the
obvious semantic relationship between the two, there are two reasons to assume a
causative relationship between the two:
1. The morphological causative haka kai does not occur; whenever a causative of kai is
called for, hāŋai is used.
2. The arguments of hāŋai show the same patterns of case-marking as morphological
causatives. When the object of eating is not expressed or implied, the causee (the
eater) is expressed as direct object:
(255) I tuꞌu era he hāŋai i a Ure ka oti rō.
PFV arrive DIS NTR feed Ure CNTG finish EMPH
ACC PROP
“When she arrived, she fed Ure completely.” (R310.291)
But when the object of eating is implied, the causee is marked with ki.455
(256) He toꞌo mai tū kai era, he hāŋai ki tū ŋā matuꞌa era o Tiare.
NTR take hither DEM food DIS NTR feed
to DEM PL parent DIS of Tiare
“They took the food and fed it to Tiare’s parents.” (R238.009)
Not all instances of hāŋai can be considered as lexical causatives, though: the verb is
also used in the sense “to raise/tend (animals); to raise/rear (children)”.
— Another possible lexical causative is tiŋaꞌi (var. tiaŋi) “to kill”, causative of mate “to
die”:
455
There are no examples in the corpus where the causee and the object of eating are both
expressed.
(257) He tiŋaꞌi i te taŋata, i te viꞌe, i te poki.

NTR kill ACC ART man woman ACC ART child
ACC ART
“They killed men, women and children.” (Mtx-3-01.250)
Apart from the sense “to kill”, tīŋaꞌi also has a different (though obviously related)
sense: “to strike, hit”. Note also that the sense “to kill” is also expressed occasionally
by the morphological causative haka mate.
A number of causative verbs were borrowed as a whole from Tahitian. These are
clearly recognizable as borrowings, as they start with haꞌa- (< Tah. faꞌa-) rather than
haka. Most of these are isolated lexical items, the root of which does not occur on its
own in Rapa Nui: haꞌatura “to obey, respect” (Tah. tura “respect.N”); haꞌatiꞌa “to
permit” (Tah. tiꞌa “to stand”). For most of these words, it is not at all obvious that haꞌa-
has a causative sense in Rapa Nui.
For a few haꞌa- forms, however, the root as such was also borrowed into Rapa Nui: ꞌī
“to be full”, haꞌaꞌī “to fill”. As haꞌa- is not a productive prefix in Rapa Nui, haꞌaꞌī can be
considered as a lexical causative of ꞌī, rather than a form derived through prefixation
of haꞌa-.
8.13. Conclusions
This chapter has explored the expression of core constituents of verbal clauses.
Rapa Nui patterns with other Polynesian languages in that the S/A argument is marked
with e or unmarked, while the O argument is marked with i or unmarked. However,
the resulting case marking patterns are different from those in other languages. At first
sight Rapa Nui may seem to have ergative traits, but a close analysis shows that the
language is unambiguously accusative. The case marking patterns which seem to
deviate from regular accusativity can be explained by the following features:
• obligatory omission of case markers in certain noun phrases, e.g. those
containing a prenominal numeral;
• extensive use of the agentive marker e, both in transitive and intransitive
clauses;
• omission of the object marker i in certain clause types;
• a passive construction which is somewhat inconspicuous because of the
absence of passive morphology.
Agent marking is determined by an interplay of heterogenous factors: syntactic
(preverbal subjects are always unmarked), lexico-semantic (some verbs show a strong
preference for e-marked Agents) and pragmatic (Agents which start to act, tend to be e-
marked). The same is true for object marking: the object marker is omitted under
certain conditions, which may be syntactic (OV clauses), lexico-semantic (with certain
verbs) or pragmatic (non-salient objects).
Rapa Nui has a passive construction, in which the Patient is expressed as subject while
the Agent is an optional oblique (but without morphological changes in the verb). In
fact, passivisation in Rapa Nui is part of a wider phenomenon: several (groups of)
verbs exhibit variation in argument assignment. For example, the verb ꞌī “to be full”
has two argument structures, with the Container and the Substance as subject,
respectively. Variable argument structure can also be observed with transfer verbs like
“to feed” and “to throw”: with these verbs, either the Patient or the Goal/Recipient is
expressed as direct object; the other argument is expressed as an oblique. When the
Patient is oblique, it is marked as an instrument (“he threw the enemy with a spear”).
Another argument-related operation is the addition of an external Agent to intransitive
verbs; this Agent is marked with the preposition i.
Rapa Nui has a number of different comitative constructions (“A with B”). In most of
these, a comitative marker is used, followed by the prominence ko; this marker is often
a plural pronoun (“Makemake they ko Haua”) or collective marker (“the people
together ko the priest”). These comitative markers are used in an inclusory way: their
number corresponds the total set of referents of both noun phrases. Similar are
constructions with comitative sense – but without a comitative marker – in which the
first noun phrase is an inclusory pronoun: “we ko the child”, meaning “the child
and I”.
The final topic of this chapter is causativisation. Causativisation is very common in

Rapa Nui; moreover, it is very versatile:
• it can be applied to any verbal predicate and is occasionally applied to nouns
as well;
• it indicates varying types of causation, both direct (“he made me do it”) and
indirect (“he let me do it, helped me to do it”);
• while a prototypical causative adds an external Agent to the event, some
causatives in Rapa Nui do not change the argument structure of the verb, but
add an element of intensity or agentivity.
9. Nonverbal and copular clauses
9.1. Introduction
This chapter deals with clauses which do not have a lexical verb as predicate. These
clauses contain either no verb, an existential verb, or a copula verb.
The following types can be distinguished and will be discussed in turn:
• NP NP clauses, i.e. clauses in which both the subject and the predicate are
noun phrases (9.2);
• existential clauses, both verbal and non-verbal (9.3);
• clauses with a prepositional predicate (9.4);
• numerical clauses (9.5);
• clauses containing a copula verb (9.6).
9.2. NP NP clauses
When a nominal clause consists of two noun phrases, one of them is the subject; for
the other noun phrase, there are two possibilities: it may either be referential or non-
referential. When the noun phrase is non-referential, it is a true predicate, which gives
new information about the subject, expressing that the subject belongs to a certain
class. When the non-subject noun phrase is a referential noun phrase, the clause
establishes a relation of identity between the two noun phrases, expressing that both
are descriptions of the same referent. In this grammar, these two constructions are
labelled classifying and identifying clauses, respectively.456
In Rapa Nui, these two types of clauses are distinguished by the use of the predicate
marker he in classifying clauses and the preposition ko in identifying clauses.
A third type of NP NP clauses, attributive clauses, is characterized by the absence of
any prenominal marker and the presence of an adjective in the predicate NP.
9.2.1. Classifying clauses

In classifying clauses, a nominal predicate provides information about the subject by
expressing that the subject belongs to a certain class of entities. The predicate is
introduced with he, which indicates non-referentiality (→ 5.4).
456
Various terms are used in the literature. Dryer (2007b:233) distinguishes between “equational
clauses” and “true nominal predicate clauses”. The distinction is fundamental in some Polynesian
languages; terms used in Polynesian linguistics include: classifying and equative predicates
(Bauer 1993:78), predicational and identificational NPs (Chung, Mason & Milroy 1995:430),
predicate nominals and equatives (De Lacy 1999), class-inclusion and equational sentences (Cook
1999:45).
The unmarked order in these clauses is Subject–Predicate.

(1) A Thor Heyerdahl he científico e tahi.
PROP Thor Heyerdahl NTR scientist NUM one
“Thor Heyerdahl was a scientist.” (R376.007)
(2) Te toromiro he tumu hauhaꞌa e tahi.
ART toromiro PRED tree
importan NUM one
“The toromiro is an important tree.” (R478.053)
(3) Rā meꞌe era pē he tiare he mōrī.
DIS thing DIS like PRED flower PRED light
“Those things (that look) like flowers are lights.” (R210.199)
The predicate may also come first. This happens only when the subject is well-
established, i.e. topical in discourse; it tends to be expressed by a pronoun as in (4), or
a generic noun phrase as in (5). In this construction, the predicate is prominent. In (5),
for example, the predicate conveys unexpected, surprising information.
(4) E ai rō ꞌā e tahi taŋata tire, he piroto ꞌavione a ia.
IPFVexist EMPH IDENT NUM one person Chile PRED pilot airplane PROP 3SG
“There was one Chilean, he was an airplane pilot.” (R378.013)
(5) He taŋata tau manu era, he poki ꞌa Uho tau manu era.
PRED person DEM bird DIS PRED child of.A Uho DEM bird DIS
“That bird was a human being, that bird was Uho’s child.” (Mtx-7-12.069)
In (6), Tangaroa (who has transformed himself into a seal, and is mistaken for a seal
by the people) wants to emphasize that he is the king, not a real seal as the people
think. The predicate he ꞌariki is counterexpectative and occurs before the subject.457
(6) He raŋi mai te reꞌo o te pakia: ‘He ꞌariki au ko Taŋaroa’.
NTR call hither ART voice of ART seal king 1SG PROM Tangaroa
PRED
“The voice of the seal cried: I am king Tangaroa.” (Mtx-1-05.008)
Just as in verbal clauses, the subject of classifying clauses may be left out:
(7) He aŋi mau ꞌā pē nei ē: he ꞌariki.
NTR true really IDENT like PROX thus PRED king
“It is true: he is a king.” (Fel-46.053)
(8) Taꞌe he taŋata, he ꞌakuꞌaku, pē ira ꞌā
- au.
NEG.CONS PRED person PRED spirit like PRO IDENT 1SG
“That is not a man, it is a spirit, and so am I.” (Mtx-7-04.058)
457
Notice that ko Taŋaroa, which is an apposition to the predicate, is not fronted but remains in
its post-subject position; see sec. 9.2.5 for more examples of split predicates.
Chapter 9: Nonverbal and copular clauses 435
9.2.2. Identifying clauses

Identifying clauses serve to identify the referent of one noun phrase with the referent
of the other noun phrase in the clause. Both NPs are preceded by a t-determiner (→
5.3.3) such as the article te, indicating that they are referential. In all identifying
clauses, one noun phrase is preceded by the prominence marker ko (→ 4.7.11).
A few examples:
(9) Te meꞌe ena o te pāꞌeŋa ꞌuta ko tōꞌoku māmā era.
ART thing MED of ART side inland PROM POSS.1SG.O mother DIS
“That (person) on the inland side is my mother.” (R411.057)
(10) Pero ko au te suerekao o te hora nei.
but PROM 1SG ART governor of ART time PROX
“But I am the governor now (or: the governor now is me).” (R201.007)
(11) Te ŋāŋata mātāmuꞌa o Rapa Nui ko te ꞌariki era ko Hotu Matuꞌa
ART men first of Rapa Nui PROM ART king DIS PROM Hotu Matu’a
ananake ko tōꞌona huaꞌai.
together PROM POSS.3SG.O family
“The first people of Rapa Nui were king Hotu Matu’a with his family.”
(R350.015)
Notice that the ko-marked NP, in the case of a common noun, is always followed by a
postnominal demonstrative nei, ena or era; the combination of the article te with one of
these demonstratives indicates definiteness (→ 4.6.3.1).
As both noun phrases are referential and definite, and both refer to the same entity, it
is not always clear which NP is subject and which is predicate. Constituent order
cannot be used as the sole criterion, as both subject and predicate of a nominal clause
may come first.458 It is even questionable whether the term “predicate” is appropriate
at all in identifying clauses (see Anderson 2004:440): as both noun phrases are
referential expressions, they are fundamentally different from predicates, which
designate properties or events rather than referring to entities.
Even so, the terms “subject” and “predicate” may be used in identifying clauses in a
loose way, in the sense that the subject is the entity to be identified, and the predicate
is the identifying expression. In some cases it is clear which NP is the subject, as this
NP functions as discourse topic. In other cases, however, it is difficult to identify
subject and predicate – unless we adopt a simple syntactic definition. As it happens, as
indicated above, in every identifying clause one noun phrase is marked with ko, while
the other is an unmarked NP. Taking the ko-marked NP as predicate provides a simple
criterion. Moreover, this analysis coincides with the intuitive assignment of subject and
predicate in those cases where the distinction is clear: in examples like (11), it is clear
458
See examples (1)–(6) in classifying clauses; the same is true in other types of nominal clauses,
e.g. locative clauses (→ 9.4.1).
that the unmarked NP is subject, while the ko-marked NP serves to identify this
subject.
In the examples so far, the identifying clause consists of two common noun phrases.
When the clause contains a pronoun or proper noun, the use of ko is characterized by
the following two rules:
1. If the clause contains a proper noun, this is always ko-marked.
2. If the clause contains a pronoun, this is usually ko-marked,459 unless the other
constituent is a proper noun.
This is illustrated in the following examples.
— Common NP + proper noun:
- ꞌAnakena.
“The most beautiful place (of the island) is Anakena.” (R350.013)
— Pronoun + common NP:

(13) Pero ko au te suerekao o te hora nei.
but PROM 1SG ART governor of ART time PROX
“But I am the governor now (or: the governor now is me).” (R201.007)
— Pronoun + proper noun:

(14) A au ko Omoaŋa.
PROP 1SG PROM Omoanga
“I am Omoanga.” (R314.101)
These patterns make sense if we assume that ko always marks the predicate. Proper
names are inherently highly identifiable (their reference is always unique and
unambiguous in a given context), so it is not surprising that they serve as identifying
expression (predicate) rather than as a referent to be identified (subject). The same is
true for pronouns. Between proper nouns and pronouns, the former are identifiable to
a higher degree: within a given context, a proper noun has unambiguous unique
reference; for a pronoun, more contextual clues may be needed to establish its
reference. This can be represented in a “hierarchy of identifiability”:
proper nouns > pronouns > common nouns
The idea that ko marks the predicate is also confirmed by the fact that an identifying
clause may consist of a ko-phrase only; this follows from the general rule in Rapa Nui
that the predicate is obligatory, while the subject can be omitted:
459
I have not found any exceptions to this rule in the text corpus, though there are a few
exceptions in the New Testament translation.
(15) —¿Ko ai koe? —Ko au ꞌana.

PROM who 2SG 1SG IDENT
PROM
“—Who are you? —It’s me.” (Mtx-7-04.071f)
(16) —Meꞌe era ko Tito. —ꞌĒē. Ko ia.
thing DIS PROM Tito yes PROM 3SG
“—That one (in the picture) is Tito. —Yes. It’s him.” (R414.163ff)
In (14) above, the pronoun is not marked with ko when the other constituent is a
proper noun. There are also a few cases in the corpus where a pronoun and a proper
noun are both ko-marked. Two examples:
(17) Ko au ko Totimo.
PROM 1SG PROM Totimo
“I am Totimo.” (R399.193)
(18) —¿Ko ai koe? —Ko au ko Huri ꞌAvai.
PROM who 2SG 1SG PROM Huri Avai
PROM
“—Who are you? —I am Huri Avai.” (Mtx-3-01.127f)
If the pronoun is taken as the subject, these clauses are counterexamples to the claim
that only the predicate is marked with ko. However, a different analysis is also
possible: the pronoun can be analysed as the predicate (with implicit subject), with the
proper noun added as apposition, “It’s me, Totimo”. In both examples above this
analysis is plausible. In (17), for example, the situation is as follows: there is a blind
girl, Mahina Tea, who knows a boy called Totimo. Totimo walks up to her, embraces
her and utters the clause quoted here. An analysis as predicate + apposition is
appropriate here.460
In other cases this analysis is less plausible, as in the following exchange:
(19) —¿Ko ai koe? ... —¡Ko au nei ko Vaha ko toꞌo i a Huri ꞌa
PROM who 2SG PROM 1SG PROX PROM Vaha PROM take ACC PROP huri a
Vai! ... —¡ꞌE ko au nei ko Kaiŋa ko toꞌo i a Vaha!
Vai and PROM 1SG PROX PROM Kainga PROM take ACC PROP Vaha
“—Who are you? —I am Vaha, who takes (=kills) Huri a Vai! —And I am
Kainga, who takes Vaha!” (R304.97-101)
460
This analysis is reinforced by the fact that in some cases the two constituents are separated by
a comma:
(i) Ko au, ko Hotu ꞌIti te Mataꞌiti ꞌa Hotu Matuꞌa.
PROM 1SG PROM Hotu Iti te Mata’iti of.A Hotu Matu’a
“It’s me, Hotu Iti te Mata’iti, son of Hotu Matu’a.” (Ley-2-08.025)
Especially in the last clause, an appositional analysis doesn’t appear to be appropriate.

Possibly these constructions can be analysed as topic + comment constructions (→
8.6.1.3): “(As for) me, I’m Kainga.”461
9.2.3. Comparing classifying and identifying clauses

In the examples of classifying clauses in 9.2.1 above, the predicate NP clearly indicates
that the subject belongs to a certain class of entities; the subject is part of a category
described by the predicate.
In some cases however, the class of entities described by the predicate has only one
member, i.e. this class coincides with the referent of the subject. This is illustrated in
the following examples:
(20) A Tiki he poki o te raꞌā ꞌe he ꞌatua rahi o rāua.
PROP Tiki PRED child of ART sun and PRED god great of 3PL
“Tiki was the son of the sun and their high God.” (R376.027)
(21) A au he pūꞌoko o Rapa Nui ꞌi te ao taꞌatoꞌa.
PROP 1SG PRED head of Rapa Nui at ART world all
“I am the head (leader) of Rapa Nui in the whole world.” (R648.290)
(22) A ia he matuꞌa tane o tōꞌoku matuꞌa vahine.
PROP 3SG PRED parent male of POSS.1SG.O parent female
“He is the father of my mother.” (R487.040)
These clauses are very similar in sense to identifying clauses, which express that two
noun phrases have identical reference (→ 9.2.2). In fact, in most examples above, the
predicate is translated with a definite noun phrase in English, mark of an identifying
clause. Some examples of identifying clauses are very similar to the classifying clauses
above:
(23) He ꞌite ia Tuꞌu Koihu ꞌi tū hora era tū ŋā nuꞌu era
NTR know then Tu’u Koihu at DEM time DIS DEM PL people DIS
ko tū ŋā tahutahu era.
-
PROM DEM PL witch DIS

“At that moment Tu’u Koihu knew that those people (whom he saw) were
those witches.” (R233.023)
(24) Te hau era, hoꞌi, e hī era ko te ŋā hau hiro era e toru kave.
ART cord DIS indeed IPFV fish.V DIS PROM ART PL cord braid DIS NUM three fibre
“(in a description of fishing techniques:) The lines they fished with, were
those lines braided with three strands.” (R539-1.218)
These examples show that the choice between the two constructions in Rapa Nui is not
determined by the criterion of uniqueness, that is, whether or not the predicate defines
461
De Lacy (1999:47) discusses cases in Maori where both constituents are ko-marked; these are
different in that both constituents are a (long) common noun phrase. This enables De Lacy to
analyse these as clefts, i.e. biclausal constructions.
a single unique entity.462 Rather, classifying constructions serve to describe the subject
by giving new information about it, while identifying clauses serve to identify a
referent with an entity already known by the hearer. The referent of the identifying
noun phrase must be accessible to the hearer, otherwise a classifying construction with
he is used.
To give an example, in the context preceding (20) above, there has been no mention of
the son of the sun and the high God, so the hearer does not necessarily know that there
is such a person as the child of the sun, or that the people in the story had a high God
at all. Therefore, this person is not accessible to the hearer. By contrast, in (23), “those
witches” refers to witches who have been mentioned earlier in the story; the
identifying clause enables the hearer to identify this known entity with the subject
“those people”. Similarly, in (24) the speaker refers to a type of fishing line which he
assumes to be known by the hearer (even though it has not been mentioned in the text
itself).
The referent of a noun phrase in an identifying clause must not only be unique and
accessible, it also needs to be a specific, bounded entity. In the following two
examples, the predicate noun phrase could be considered as unique and accessible, but
nevertheless it is marked with he, i.e. the construction is a classifying clause. In (25),
the noun phrase refers to priests in general, not to any specific priest. Likewise, in (26),
the reference is to adults in general.463
(25) He iviꞌatua nō te kope era e puā era ꞌi te taꞌu era i a ia te ꞌao.
PRED priest just ART person DIS IPFV touch DIS at ART year DIS at PROP 3SG ART reign
“The priest was the only person (lit. only the priest was the person) who
would touch him (te bird man) in the year in which he reigned.” (R641.008)
(26) Te ŋā poki ko ꞌite ꞌana o ruŋa i te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa o te naonao
-
ART PL child PRF know CONT of above at ART thing all of ART mosquito
ꞌe he paꞌari te meꞌe i taꞌe ꞌite.
and PRED adult ART thing PFV NEG.CONS know
“The children know everything about the mosquitoes, and the adults are the
ones who don’t know.” (R535.159)
We may conclude that a nominal predicate designating an accessible, individuated,

bounded entity is marked with ko; in all other cases, a classifying construction with he
is used. A similar difference between ko and he can be observed with topicalisation in
verbal clauses (→ 8.6.2.1).
As the examples above show, classifying predicates always consist of a common noun
phrase. Proper nouns and pronouns never serve as a classifying predicate; in fact, they
462
Lyons (1999) mentions uniqueness as one of the necessary conditions for definiteness.
Uniqueness is defined as: “there is only one entity satisfying the description used, relative to the
context.”
463
These examples are cleft constructions, which are discussed in more detail in sec. 9.2.6 below.
are never preceded by he. This is to be expected, as proper nouns and pronouns by
definition qualify as identifying predicates: they have unique reference, are accessible
in the context, and refer to a specific, bounded entity. On the other hand, they do not
designate a class of entities, hence are not suitable as classifying predicates.
9.2.4. Constituent order in identifying clauses

The order of constituents in an identifying clause depends to some extent on the type
of noun phrases involved. When both constituents are common noun phrases, the
predicate usually occurs after the subject, as illustrated in (23)–(24) and (11) above.
The predicate may come first when it conveys significant and possibly surprising
information as in (27), or when it is a discourse topic established in the preceding
context as in (28).464
(27) Taꞌe he ꞌatua tau meꞌe era, he taŋata; ko te ŋā io era
NEG.CONS PRED god DEM thing DIS PRED person PROM ART PL youngster DIS
ꞌĀmai tau meꞌe era.
Amai DEM thing DIS
“These beings are not gods, they are men; these beings are the Amai guys.”
(Mtx-7-37.029)
(28) Ko te meꞌe nei te meꞌe uꞌi rahi o te muꞌa ꞌā.

PROM ART thing PROX ART thing see much of ART front IDENT
“This (= the difficulties mentioned in the previous clause) was something
often seen in the past.” (R107.009)
When the identifying clause contains a pronoun (whether subject or predicate), this is
always in initial position, as illustrated in (13)–(14) above.
When the clause consists of a proper noun and a common noun phrase, they may occur
in either order, as the following examples show. Putting the predicate before the
subject gives it more prominence. In (31), for example, the predicate Ko Korikē is
contrasted with other persons. In (32), Anakena is singled out between other places on
the island.
- ꞌAnakena.
ART place last
of ART beautiful PROM Anakena
“The most beautiful place is Anakena.” (R350.013)
(30) Te matuꞌa o Hotu Matuꞌa ko Taꞌane Arai.
ART parent of Hotu Matu’a PROM Ta’ane Arai
“The father of Hotu Matu’a was Ta’ane Arai.” (Ley-2-01.003)
464
Cf. Levinsohn (2007): prominence may involve both new information (focal prominence) and
established information (thematic prominence).
(31) ¿Ko Korikē te meꞌe nei ꞌo ko Titata? ... ¿Ko Titata te meꞌe nei?
PROM Korike ART thing PROX or PROM Titata PROM Titata ART thing PROX
“(pointing at someone in a picture:) Is this Korike or Titata? Is it Titata?”
(R415.568ff)
(32) Ko ꞌAnakena mau nō te kona kai māuiui ꞌā

- e noho mai ena.
PROM Anakena really just ART place NEG.PFV sick CONT IPFV stay hither MED
“Anakena was the only place where the people who lived there did not get
sick.” (R231.098)
9.2.5. Split predicates

When a clause has a pronominal subject and the predicate comes first, certain
postnominal modifiers of the predicate are placed after the subject. In (33), ōꞌou is a
postnominal possessive modifying the predicate repahoa; it is separated from the
nucleus by the subject au.
(33) He repahoa nō au ōꞌou.
PRED friend just 1SG POSS.2SG.O
“I am just your friend.” (R308.032)
This predicate split is obligatory; clauses like the following do not occur:
(34) *He repahoa nō ōꞌou au.
The stranded element is often a possessive as in (33); it may also be a numeral as in

(35), or a relative clause as in (36). While in (36) the relative clause as a whole is
separated from the head noun famiria, in (37) the relative clause itself is split up: the
verb phrase (aŋa mau ꞌā) moves along with the head noun, while the direct object is
stranded after the subject (→ 11.4.5 on raising of relative clause verbs).
(35) He ꞌaꞌamu nō nei e tahi...
PRED story just PROX NUM one
“This (what follows) is a story...” (Luke 11:5)
(36) Famiria hopeꞌa rā oho mai mai kampō, mai ꞌAnakena.
family last DIS go hither from countryside from Anakena
“This was the last family who came from the countryside, from Anakena.”
(R413.889)
(37) He viꞌe [aŋa mau ꞌā] a ia [i te meꞌe haŋa o te ꞌAtua].

PRED woman do really IDENT PROP 3SG ACC ART thing want of ART God
“She is a woman who really does the things God wants.” (1 Tim. 5:10)
As discussed in sec. 4.6.6, this process also takes place when the subject is a
demonstrative pronoun. Split constituents also occur around the particle ia “then” (→
4.5.4.1), which occurs after the first constituent of the clause; postnuclear elements
occur after ia:
(38) Te matuꞌa vahine ia o Hēmi he haꞌamata he manaꞌu....

ARTparent female then of Hemi NTR begin NTR think
“Then Hemi’s mother started to think...” (R476.042)
(39) ꞌI tuꞌa ia o Kālia e tahi io ꞌāꞌana i ohu atu...
at back then of Kalia NUM one young_man POSS.3SG.A PFV shout away
“Behind Kalia, one young man of her (family) shouted...” (R345.084)
Clark (1976:119f) analyses this process as extraposition of the second constituent of

the predicate over the subject. Alternatively, the split can be described as movement of
the predicate with stranding of the postnominal modifier; fronting of a constituent is a
common process (both crosslinguistically and in Rapa Nui), while it is difficult to see
why a modifier would be moved to the right.
9.2.6. Clefts
A cleft construction consists of two noun phrases, one of which is a simple noun
phrase, while the other contains a relative clause, often without head noun (Payne
1997:278). Clefts are formally identifying clauses – their main constituents are two
coreferential NPs – but they express an event or action; the latter is relegated to the
relative clause. The effect of a cleft construction is to put the simple NP in focus.
In Rapa Nui cleft constructions, the simple NP comes first and is marked with ko. The
second noun phrase contains an anchor noun functioning as head of the relative
clause; this is either a repetition of the noun in focus, or a generic noun like meꞌe
“thing”. The cleft construction is thus similar to the English construction “Mary was
the one who won”,465 though a noun is used where English uses “one”, and there is no
copula verb. As in all relative clauses, the verb is usually marked with i, e or unmarked
(→ 11.4.3).
A few examples:
(40) Ko te nūnaꞌa era ꞌa ꞌŌrare [te nūnaꞌa i rē].
PROM ART group DIS of.A Orare ART group PFV win
“(in a report about a music contest:) Orare’s group was the group that won.”
(R539-3.313)
(41) Ko te ŋā meꞌe nei [te meꞌe mo ai o te taŋata

PROM ART PL thing PROX ART thing for exist of ART person
mo oho mo ruku o te hora nei].
for go for dive of ART time PROX
“These things (which have just been listed) are the things that people need to
go diving nowadays.” (R360.002)
465
Cleft constructions of the type “X was the one who...” are often called pseudo-clefts (Payne
1997:279; Bauer 1991:9 for Maori). On the question whether Rapa Nui also has “real” clefts, i.e.
without anchor noun, see sec. 8.6.2.1.
(42) Ko mātou nō [te meꞌe noho o nei].

PROM 1PL.EXC only ART thing stay of PROX
“(in the description of a house:) We are the only ones living here.” (R404.050)
(43) Ko Timo [te meꞌe ꞌori takoꞌa o roto nei].
PROM Timo ART thing dance also of inside PROX
“Timo is the one who is also dancing inside (= in this picture).” (R414.129)
The effect of relegating the verb to a relative clause is that the initial noun phrase is in
focus, while the event or action is backgrounded. Clefts are used when the event or
action as such is presupposed; it has already been mentioned as in (41), or can be
inferred from the context: in (40), the context of a musical contest presupposes that
there is a winner, while the important new information is the identity of the winner.
The act of winning is therefore backgrounded, while the noun phrase referring to the
winner is put in focus.
The examples so far are constructed as identifying clauses, in which the first noun
phrase is marked with ko. Clefts may also be classifying clauses, with a he-marked
predicate. As discussed in sec. 9.2.1, identifying clauses are used when the predicate
refers to a unique individual which is accessible to the hearer; in other cases,
classifying clauses are used. This happens for example when the noun phrase is
generic:
(44) Te ŋā poki ko ꞌite ꞌana o ruŋa i te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa o te naonao
-
ART PL child PRF know CONT of above at ART thing all of ART mosquito
ꞌe he paꞌari [te meꞌe i taꞌe ꞌite].
and PRED adult ART thing PFV NEG.CONS know
“The children know everything about the mosquitoes, and the adults are the
ones who don’t know.” (R535.159)
Classifying cleft constructions are especially common with the verb haŋa “want” and
other expressions of volition/desire (→ 3.2.3.1 sub 1e on the nominal tendency of
volition verbs). With these verbs, the noun phrase does not contain a full relative
clause, but a bare modifying verb, such as haŋa in (45); if the subject of this verb is
expressed, it is a possessive pronoun (tāꞌaku in (45)) or a genitive phrase (→ 11.4.4):
(45) He kāpē tāꞌaku meꞌe haŋa.
PRED coffee POSS.1SG.A thing want
“Coffee is what I want (lit. my thing want).” (R221.024)
(46) Mōꞌona te meꞌe manava mate he hoi eke...
BEN.3SG.O ART thing stomach die466 PRED horse climb
“For him, the thing he liked most was climbing his horse (and going around
the island).” (R439.008)
466
manava mate is an idiom expressing love or endearment.
Clefts also occur in questions, when a verb argument is questioned: identifying clefts
with ko ai “who” (→ 10.3.2.1), classifying clefts with he aha “what” (→ 10.3.2.2).
As discussed in sec. 8.6.2.1, the actor-emphatic (AE) construction also serves to put a
noun phrase in focus. It is not entirely clear which conditions determine the choice
between an AE construction and a cleft. However, AE’s are only used to put agentive
subjects in focus; in order to put non-agentive subjects in focus as in (41) or non-
subjects as in (45), only clefts can be used.
9.2.7. Attributive clauses

In an attributive clause, an inherent – and usually permanent – property is attributed
to the subject.467 This property is in most cases expressed as an adjective. Now an
adjective as such cannot serve as a nominal predicate in Rapa Nui, and therefore an
anchor noun is needed to fit the adjective into the syntactic structure. This anchor
noun is either identical to the subject noun or a generic noun like meꞌe “thing”.468
The predicate may be marked with he as in (47), in which case the clause is a
classifying clause (→ 9.2.1). This is rare, though; usually the predicate is a bare noun
phrase, lacking any determiner.
Below are some examples, with the anchor noun underlined:
— with repetition of the subject noun:
(47) Te ꞌati ena o te kahu ꞌi rā noho iŋa he ꞌati nuinui e
- tahi.
ARTproblem MED of ART clothes at DIS stay NMLZ PRED problem big:RED NUM one
“The problem of clothing at the time was a big one.” (R380.093)
(48) Taŋata ꞌuriꞌuri - te taŋata nei ꞌe taŋata rakerake.
-
person black:RED ART person PROX and person bad:RED

“This man is dark and ugly.” (R372.133)
— with a generic noun:

(49) Māuiui nei
- meꞌe rakerake, meꞌe peꞌe.
-
sick PROX thing bad:RED thing infect

“This disease was serious, it was contagious.” (R231.318)
(50) Meꞌe ꞌitiꞌiti
- koe ꞌi roto i te vaikava. Meꞌe nuinui koe mōꞌoku...
-
thing small:RED 2SG at inside at ART ocean thing big:RED 2SG BEN.1SG.O
“You are a little thing in the ocean. You are big to me...” (R474.007)
These examples show that, as in other nominal clauses, either the subject may come
first as in (47) and (49), or the predicate as in (48) and (50).
467
Non-permanent properties are expressed as verbal predicates, see sec. 3.5.1.5.
468
In related languages, cognates of meꞌe also serve as anchor noun for adjectival or verbal
predicates; see e.g. Lazard & Peltzer (2000:38) on Tahitian.
In the examples above, the property is an adjective. It may also be another type of
noun modifier: a verbal clause as in (51)–(52), or a modifying noun as in (53).
(51) Meꞌe taꞌe kai kōkoma moa māua.
thing NEG.CONS eat intestines chicken 1DU.EXC
“We (are people who) don’t eat chicken intestines.” (Ley-8-53.008)
(52) Tokoꞌa, a Manutara, meꞌe vara unu i te ꞌava.
also PROP Manutara thing usually drink ACC ART liquor
“Also, Manutara was (someone who was) given to drinking liquor.” (R309.055)
(53) ꞌE henua nei, henua maꞌuŋa rahi.
and land PROX land mountain many
“And this land is a land of many mountains.” (R348.004)
As (51)–(52) show, the modifying verb may be preceded by preverbal particles,

including the negator taꞌe.
As in other clause types, the subject of attributive clauses may be omitted:

(54) ꞌI nei te ꞌariki ana noho, kona rivariva. -
at PROX ART king IRR stay place good:RED

“Here the king would live, it was a good place.” (Mtx-2-01.031)
(55) Kai taꞌe piropiro, kai rivariva.
- -
food NEG.CONS rotten:RED food good:RED

“It is not rotten food, it is good food.” (R310.382)
Finally, Rapa Nui has a somewhat peculiar construction consisting of a bare noun
phrase headed by meꞌe or another generic noun, followed by a he-marked NP. This
construction is not very common, but entirely grammatical. It is especially used to
express general truths.
(56) Meꞌe mate he taŋata.
thing die person
PRED
“Man is mortal.” (R210.073)
(57) Meꞌe rakerake he
- taŋi ŋā matuꞌa.
thing bad:RED PRED cry PL parent
“It’s a bad thing, crying for one’s parents.” (Ley-9-55.073)
(58) Kona hī kahi paꞌi he hakanonoŋa.
place fish.V tuna in_fact PRED fishing_zone
“The hakanonoŋa (= certain zones of the sea) are places to fish for tuna.”
(R200.030)
The unusual feature of this construction is, that both noun phrases seem to be marked
as a nominal predicate. A more plausible analysis is also possible, however: the
construction may be a subjectless attributive clause, in which the predicate meꞌe X is
followed by an apposition introduced by he. (56) could be paraphrased as “It’s (a)
mortal (thing), man is.” This appositional analysis is suggested by the use of he (→
5.13.1 for the use of he in appositions), and by the fact that the he-marked NP always
occurs after the meꞌe phrase.
9.3. Existential clauses
Existential clauses state the existence of a person or thing. In Rapa Nui, they are either
constructed as a verbless clause or with the existential verb ai.469
9.3.1. Verbless and verbal existential clauses

Verbless existential clauses contain only one core consituent, which is introduced by
he; the use of he shows that this constituent is predicate rather than subject.470 This
means that existential clauses conform to the general rule that the predicate is the only
obligatory constituent.
(59) He taŋata ko Eŋo.
PRED man PROM Engo
“There was a man (called) Engo.” (Mtx-7-28.001)
(60) He repa e rua te ꞌīŋoa ko Makita ko Rokeꞌaua.
NTR young_man NUM two ART name PROM Makita PROM Roke’aua
“There were two young men, named Makita and Roke’aua.” (R243.001)
The noun phrase may contain a prenominal numeral; in that case, he is omitted, as
prenominal numerals do not co-occur with determiners (→ 5.5.1):
(61) E tahi poki te ꞌīŋoa ko Eva ka hoꞌe ꞌahuru matahiti.
NUM one child ART name PROM Eva CNTG one ten year
“There was a child called Eva, ten years old.” (R210.001)
Existential clauses can also be expressed with the verb ai “to exist”, with the theme or
“existee” as subject of the clause. This construction is rare in older texts, but in modern
Rapa Nui it is more common than the verbless construction.
Usually ai has continuous aspect marking e – ꞌā/ꞌana (→ 7.2.5.4), while the verb
phrase also has the emphatic particle rō. E ai rō ꞌā/ꞌana is such a common combination
that it almost seems to be a frozen expression.
469
In this respect, Rapa Nui shows characteristics of both EP languages (where existential clauses
are verbless, with a he-marked “existee” as in Rapa Nui), and non-EP languages (where
existential clauses are constructed with the verb ai/iai (Clark 1976:101; 1997).
470
According to Dryer (2007b:241), it is in many languages unclear whether the theme of an
existential clause should be considered a subject. In many languages, it is clear that the theme is
not subject, e.g. in European languages like Dutch (“Er is een hond in de tuin” rather than “Een
hond is in de tuin”) and French (“Il y a un chien dans le jardin”).
(62) E ai rō ꞌā e tahi poki nei te ꞌīŋoa ko Mariki.

IPFVexist EMPH CONT NUM one child PROX ART name PROM Mariki
“There was a child called Mariki.” (R380.001)
IPFV exist EMPH CONTfish of inside
ART
However, ai is used with other aspectuals as well, for example neutral he (64) and
exhortative e (65):
(64) ꞌI tōꞌona mahana he ai mai te aŋa he ꞌāua titi, ꞌo he rau kato...
at POSS.3SG.O day exist hither ART work PRED fence build or PRED leaf pick
NTR
“On some days there was work: building fences or picking leaves...” (R380.084)
(65) Mo oho e tahi taŋata ki tai, e ai te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa o te hī.
if go NUM one person to sea EXH exist ART thing all of ART fish.V
“If someone goes to the sea, he needs all the fishing gear (lit. there should be
all the things of fishing).” (R354.002)
9.3.2. Existential-locative clauses

Many existential clauses state not just the existence of something, but its existence in a
certain place: “There is water here”. These clauses can be labelled “existential-
locative”.471
Just like plain existential clauses, existential-locative clauses may be either verbless as
in (66)–(67) or verbal as in (68)–(69). In older texts, they are always verbless.
(66) He taote e tahi ꞌi muri i a ia.
PREDdoctor NUM one at near at PROP 3SG
“There was a doctor with her.” (R210.090)
(67) He taŋata to nei... Ŋata Vake te ꞌīŋoa.
PREDperson ART:of PROX Ngata Vake ART name
“There was a man here, called Ngata Vake.” (Ley-3-02.002)
IPFVexist EMPH CONT ART fish of inside
(69) ¡ꞌĀhani ꞌō e ai rō ꞌā te hare hāpī māꞌohi o nei!
if_only really IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART house school indigenous of PROX
“If only there were an indigenous school here!” (R242.061)
As the examples above show, the locative adjunct in these constructions is often
471
These are different from locative clauses, which predicate the location of a certain referent:
“The water is here.” Rapa Nui, like many other languages, employs different constructions for
these two clause types. See Dryer (2007b:241) for general discussion.
introduced by to (in older Rapa Nui) or o (in modern Rapa Nui).472 The possessive
preposition o, when used in a locative construction, often indicates that a referent
belongs to a certain place, i.e. comes from that place or is located there permanently.
It may, however, also indicate the location of a referent at a given moment, and
therefore be similar in sense to ꞌi (→ 6.3.1 sub 8).
9.3.3. Possessive clauses

Possessive clauses establish a relationship of possession between two entities:473 “John
has a book” expresses that “John” is the possessor of “a book”. In Rapa Nui, this
relation is expressed by an existential clause,474 in which the possessee noun phrase is
modified by a possessor; the construction can be paraphrased as “John’s book exists”
or “There is John’s book.”
In modern Rapa Nui, possessive clauses are constructed as verbal existential clauses,
in which the existential verb ai takes the possessee as subject. (70) is literally “His
house in Hanga Roa existed”, (71) is “Two their children existed”.
(70) E ai rō ꞌā tōꞌona hare ꞌi Haŋa Roa.
IPFVexist EMPH CONT POSS.3SG.O house at Hanga Roa
“He had a house in Hanga Roa.” (R250.249)
(71) He ai e rua rāua ŋā poki.
NTR exist NUM two 3PL PL child
“They had two children.” (R211.002)
(72) E ai rō ꞌā te kona ꞌoka mahute ꞌa Kekepuē ko tetu.
IPFVexist EMPH CONT ART place plant mulberry of.A Kekepue PROM huge
“Kekepue had a huge plantation of mulberries.” (Fel-1978.008)
As these examples show, the possessor is expressed in the subject noun phrase: it is
either a possessive pronoun as in (70)–(71), or a possessive noun phrase as in (72).
(For more details, see sec. 6.2.1 on possessives in the noun phrase, 6.3.1 on the
semantic range of possessive constructions, and 6.3.2 on the choice between o and ꞌa.)
The clause may be preceded by a noun phrase coreferential to the possessor; this
happens especially when the possessor is a full noun phrase. This noun phrase is left-
dislocated and is syntactically not a constituent of the clause that follows; the clause as
a whole is a topic-comment construction (→ 8.6.1.3). (73) can be translated literally as
“All the tribes, their leaders existed.”
(73) [Taꞌatoꞌa mata]i e ai rō ꞌana te rāuai taŋata pūꞌoko.
all tribe exist EMPH CONT ART 3PL
IPFV person head
“All the tribes had their leaders.” (R371.006)
472
to is a contraction of the article te + the genitive preposition o (→ 6.2.)
473
Possessive clauses (“John has a book”) are different from proprietary clauses (“The book is
John’s”, → 9.4.2). See Clark (1969).
474
This is common in many languages, see Dryer (2007b:244).
(74) [E tahi vaka ꞌāpī]i e ai takoꞌa tōꞌonai taura.

NUM one boat new EXH exist also POSS.3SG.O rope
“A new boat also needs its ropes.” (R200.083)
In these topic-comment constructions, the possessor is often not expressed again in the
subject NP. (75) is literally: “We, money exists”; (76) is “This woman, there were two
daughters.”
(75) [A mātou] e ai nei te moni.
PROP1PL.EXC IPFV exist PROX ART money
“We have money.” (R621.027)
(76) [Viꞌe nei] e ai rō ꞌā e rua poki vahine.
woman PROX IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM two child female
“This woman had two daughters.” (R491.008)
In older texts, possessive clauses may also be constructed as a verbless existential

clause. Instead of the verb ai with its subject, these have a he-marked nominal
predicate. The possessor is expressed as to + NP or a t-possessive pronoun.
(77) He ꞌoka nō to te hare.
PRED pole just ART:of ART house
“The house had only rafters (no supporting poles).” (Ley-2-12.007)
(78) He poki tāꞌana e tahi, poki tamāroa.
PRED child POSS.3SG.A NUM one child male
“He had a child, a boy.” (Ley-9-56.002)
In modern Rapa Nui, verbless possessive clauses only occur in the following
circumstances:
1. When the predicate noun phrase contains a numeral:
(79) E tahi ōꞌoku hoa repa ko Hoahine te ꞌīŋoa.
NUM one POSS.1SG.O friend friend PROM Hoahine ART name
“I have a friend whose name is Hoahine.” (R213.014)
2. When the clause is negated, using ꞌina (→ 10.5.1):

(80) ꞌIna paꞌi o māua kona mo noho.
NEG in_fact of 1DU.EXC place for stay
“For we do not have a place to live.” (R229.210)
As these examples show, in these cases the possessor is a Ø-possessive pronoun within
the predicate noun phrase. These clauses are different from the old constructions
illustrated in (77)–(78), where the possessor is a separate constituent.475
475
If the possessives in (77)–(78) were part of the predicate noun phrase, the possessor would be
marked with the preposition o in (77), and a Ø-possessive pronoun in (78).
9.4. Prepositional predicates
Various types of prepositional phrases may serve as predicate of a nonverbal clause.
9.4.1. Locative clauses

Locative clauses consist of a subject noun phrase and a prepositional phrase with
locative sense as predicate. Either phrase may come first. The locative phrase is often
introduced by ꞌi, marking stationary location, possibly followed by a locational as in
(81). Other prepositions may also be used, as (83) shows.
(81) A nua ꞌi roto i te hare.
Mum at inside at ART house
PROP
“Mum is in the house.” (R333.284)
(82) ꞌI ꞌAnakena te hare noho o Matakaroa...
at Anakena ART house stay of Matakaroa
“In Anakena was the house where Matakaroa lived...” (Mtx-3-09.003)
(83) —¿Mai hē rā koe? —Mai tai nei.
from CQ INTENS 2SG from sea PROX
“—Where are you (coming) from? —From the seaside.” (R245.084)
9.4.2. Proprietary clauses

Proprietary clauses (also known as “genitive predicates”, Dryer 2007b:248) consist of a
subject noun phrase and a predicate expressing a possessor. In Rapa Nui, the latter is
either a noun phrase marked with genitive o or ꞌa, or a Ø-possessive pronoun. (→ 6.3.1
on the semantic range of possessive constructions, 6.3.2 on the choice between o and
ꞌa.)
(84) Te hare nei, taꞌe ōꞌoku; o tāꞌaku māꞌaŋa ena ko Puakiva.
ARThouse PROX NEG.CONS POSS.1SG.O of POSS.1SG.A adopted_child MED PROM Puakiva
“This house is not mine; it belongs to my adopted child Puakiva.” (R229.268)
(85) A ꞌĀrahu o te mata era o te Tūpāhotu.
PROPArahu of ART tribe DIS of ART Tupahotu
“Arahu was of the Tupahotu tribe.” (R432.002)
(86) ꞌĀꞌana hoꞌi te uka era, ꞌa Métraux.
POSS.3SG.A indeed ART girl DIS
of.A Métraux
“That girl belongs to him, Métraux.” (R416.813)
(87) Ōꞌoku mau ꞌana te hape.
POSS.1SG.O really IDENT ART fault
“The fault is really mine.” (R236.095)
As these examples show, the predicate may come after the subject as in (84)–(85), or
before the subject as in (86)–(87).
Occasionally, proprietary clauses are constructed with the locative preposition i, which
may have a possessive sense (→ 4.7.2.3). i in proprietary clauses tends to indicate
possession in an abstract sense, e.g. possession of qualities or attributes; however, as
(89) shows, it is also used with concrete entities.
(88) I a tātou mau ꞌā te pūai mo haka maꞌitaki i te kāiŋa.
at PROP 1PL.INC really IDENT ART power for CAUS clean ACC ART homeland
“Ours is the power to clean the island.” (R535.240)
(89) I a mātou te kai ko piropiro- ꞌā.
at PROP 1PL.EXC ART food PRF rotten:RED CONT
“Ours is the rotten food.” (R310.263)
The proprietary clause construction also serves to form nominalised actor-emphatic

clauses (→ 8.6.3 sub 3).
9.4.3. Other prepositional predicates

Any prepositional phrase may serve as the predicate of a nominal clause. This results
in clauses that could be labelled “benefactive” (90), “instrumental” (91) or
“comparative” (92); however, these labels should not obscure the fact that these
clauses simply follow the general pattern of a NP PP clause.
(90) Te haŋa o te hānau ꞌeꞌepe mōꞌona te kāiŋa nei.
ART want of ART race corpulent BEN.3SG.O ART homeland PROX
“What the ‘corpulent race’ wanted was, that the island should be for them.”
(Ley-3-06.011)
(91) Tōꞌona oraraꞌa hai pura pere Tomatō.

POSS.3SG.O living INST only play toma_todo
“His living was (=he earned his living) merely by playing toma todo (a card
game).” (R250.145)
(92) A kōrua taꞌe mau ꞌana pē Kava.
PROP 2PL NEG.CONSreally IDENT like Kava
“You are not really like Kava.” (R229.488)
As with all types of nominal clauses, the constituent order is not fixed, though the
subject tends to come first, as (90)–(92) show.
9.5. Numerical clauses
In numerical clauses,476 the predicate is a numeral phrase, consisting of a numeral with

preceding particle (→ 4.3.2). The numeral predicate comes first; it is followed by the
subject noun phrase.
476
See Clark (1969:108) on this term.
(93) [E tahi] [te rāua poki vahine nehenehe]. -
NUM one ART 3PL child female beautiful

“They had one beautiful daughter (lit. one [was] their beautiful daughter).”
(R338.001)
In this example, the numeral phrase e tahi is predicated of the subject te rāua poki
vahine nehenehe. e tahi is not part of the noun phrase that follows, as is indicated by the
-
determiner introducing that noun phrase; numerals within a noun phrase are never
followed by a determiner (→ 5.5.1).
In the following example, the numeral is followed by a t-possessive pronoun, which
occupies the determiner position in the noun phrase (→ 6.2.1); again, this indicates
that the numeral is not part of the subject NP, but a separate constituent.
(94) He tuꞌu mai... e tahi paiheŋa, e rua tōꞌona pūꞌoko.
NTR arrive hither NUM one dog NUM two POSS.3SG.O head
“One day a dog came, which had two heads (lit. two its heads).” (R435.003)
The following sentence, which is superficially almost identical to (93), has a

fundamentally different structure.
(95) E tahi rāua poki vahine nehenehe. -
NUM one 3PL child female beautiful

“They had one beautiful daughter (lit. one their beautiful daughter).”
This is an existential clause, which consists of a single NP containing the numeral e

tahi; the absence of a determiner after tahi indicates that the numeral is part of the
noun phrase. This is confirmed by the fact that the noun phrase as a whole can be used
as constituent of a larger clause, for example as subject of an existential verb:
(96) E ai rō ꞌana [e tahi rāua poki vahine].
IPFV exist EMPH CONT NUM one 3PL child female
“They had one daughter (lit. there was one their daughter)” (R338.001 revised)
Numerical clauses are not very common. It is more common for a numeral to be
embedded within a noun phrase, as in (95) above. This is also illustrated in (60)–(62)
in sec. 9.3.1.
9.6. Copula verbs
Copula verbs serve to link a nominal subject to a nominal or otherwise non-verbal

predicate. While copula verbs may have all the morphosyntactic trappings of a verb,
they are semantically empty (Payne 1997:115) or nearly empty.
Copula verbs are unusual in Polynesian languages; the only example I am aware of
concerns the contact-induced development of verbs “have” and “be” in Mele-Fila and
Emae in Vanuatu (Clark 1986:337; 1994:119). (See however fn. 479 on p. 456 on
Hawaiian lilo.)477 In Rapa Nui, the existential verb ai is used as a copula verb in some
constructions. This use is absent in older texts; possibly it is developing under
influence of Spanish, where copular clauses have ser or estar “to be”. Another recent
introduction is riro “become”, which equally functions as a copula verb. In the
following sections, these verbs will be discussed in turn.
9.6.1. ai “to exist” as a copula verb

ai usually functions as an existential verb “to be, exist” (→ 9.3.1). Existential
constructions with ai can be analysed as intransitive verbal sentence with the “existee”
as subject. However, ai is also used in a construction involving both a subject and a
nonverbal predicate. This construction is uncommon, but it does occur. Examples in
the text corpus are scarce; more examples are found in the Bible translation, probably
due to the higher frequency of subordinate clause constructions in Biblical texts.
At first sight, the following two examples involve a copula verb construction. The verb
ai (preceded by the subordinators mo and ana, respectively) is followed by two noun
phrases: a subject and a he-marked noun phrase. In both cases, ai appears to be a
copula verb in a classifying clause.
(97) Mo ai koe he Kiritō...
if exist 2SG PRED Christ
“If you are the Christ...” (Mat. 26:63)
(98) ꞌIna te ꞌAtua he tapa atu ana ai koe he hūrio ꞌo taꞌe he hūrio.
NEG ART God PRED consider away IRR exist 2SG PRED Jew
or NEG.CONS PRED Jew
“God does not consider whether you are a Jew or not a Jew” (Col.intro)
However, on a closer look, ai may not be a copula verb here. As it turns out, ai in
subordinate clauses can be followed by a complete verbal clause; the latter is no
different in structure from a main clause. Below are two examples, again introduced by
mo and ana:
(99) Mo ai [kai oho ꞌā koe ki te kona roaroa...]
-
if exist NEG.PFV go CONT 2SG to ART place far:RED

“If you haven’t been to distant places (lit. if it is you haven’t gone)...”
(R615.519)
477
Harlow (2007a:154) mentions ai as a copula verb in older Maori; however, as this verb only
takes a single argument, it seems to be an existential verb like Rapa Nui ai in existential clauses,
rather than a copula. (The example Kia ai he moenga... is translated “Let there be a bed...”) As
Dixon (2010b:160) points out, “a defining feature for a copula verb is that it must be able to
occur in a construction with two core arguments.”
(100) ¡E uꞌi he raꞌe ana ai [e haŋa rō te taŋata]!

EXH look NTR first IRR exist IPFV want EMPH ART person
“First you must see whether the people want it (lit. whether it is the people
want).” (R647.248)
In (99)–(100) it is clear that ai is not the predicate of the clause between brackets.
Rather, ai is an (existential) verb followed by a complete (independent) clause.478 The
same analysis is possible for (97) above; in that case koe he Kiritō is a complete
(nominal) clause, in which ai does not play a role. The same is true for (98). If this
analysis is correct, ai in (97)–(98) is not a copula verb. A compelling reason to adopt
this analysis of (97) is, that the subject of a verb marked with mo is normally expressed
as a possessive (→ 11.5.1.2). The fact that the subject in (97) is nominative koe, makes
it an unlikely candidate for the subject position of the mo-clause.
In other cases, however, the analysis above is implausible. First, the subject after mo ai
may be expressed as a possessive, strongly suggesting that it is indeed the subject of
the mo-clause, hence an argument of ai. This suggests that ai in (101) is bivalent
(hence copular), taking two arguments just like the transitive verb ꞌui in (102).
(101) Mo ai [ōꞌou] [he Kiritō], ka kī mai.
if exist POSS.2SG.O PRED Christ IMP say hither
“If you are the Christ, say so.” (Luk. 22:67)
(102) he kona mo ꞌui [ōꞌou] [i taꞌa meꞌe taꞌe ꞌite]
PRED place for ask POSS.2SG.O ACC POSS.2SG.A thing NEG.CONS know
“a place for you to ask the things you don’t know” (R239.049)
Second, a copular analysis of ai is plausible when it occurs in a main clause. Although

(103) below could be interpreted as existential ai, this is not very plausible, as there
are no unambiguous examples of ai in main clauses followed by an independent clause
expressing the existee. A monovalent analysis is even less likely when the two noun
phrases occur on either side of the verb, as in (104).
(103) E ai [kōrua] [he nuꞌu ꞌina e tahi hape].
EXH exist 2PL people NEG NUM one fault
PRED
“You should be people without fault.” (Mat. 5:48)
(104) [Tuꞌu nuꞌu ena] he ai [he nuꞌu ōꞌoku].
POSS.2SG.O
people MED NTR exist PRED people POSS.1SG.O
“Your people will be my people.” (Ruth 1:16)
We may conclude that ai is occasionally used as a copula verb. Using ai enables a

speaker to embed nominal clauses into constructions which only allow verbal clauses,
for example subordinate clauses as in (101), and exhortations as in (103).
478
See further 11.5.1.1 (mo) 11.5.2.2 (ana) on the use of ai with subordinating markers.
While all examples so far concern classifying clauses, other types of verbless clauses
may have the copula as well. Here is an example of a locative clause. Again, the
subject is possessive, as the verb ai is nominalised.
(105) He koa tōꞌona matuꞌa ꞌo te ai hakaꞌou mai [ōꞌona]
PRED happy POSS.3SG.O parent because_of ART exist again hither POSS.3SG.O
[ꞌi nei].
at PROX
“Her parents were happy because she was here again.” (R441.018)
9.6.2. riro “to become”

riro “become” expresses the transformation of an entity into something else. It was
borrowed from Tahitian relatively recently: riro is not found in older texts, the oldest
occurrences are in the stories collected in the early 1970s by Felbermayer.
riro occurs in a few stories in which a person turns into an animal. In older versions of
these stories, the process of transformation is implicit and the new identity is expressed
by a non-verbal clause; in new versions, riro is used. The following examples are from
two versions of the same story, which tells about a child turning into a fish. In the old
version in (106), no verb is used to describe the transformation; the new version in
(107) employs the verb riro.
(106) He uru mai te eꞌa, he toꞌo i tau poki era. He ika tau poki era.
NTR enter hither ART wave NTR take ACC DEM child DIS fish DEM child DIS
PRED
“A wave came in and took the child. The child (became) a fish.” (Mtx-7-10.019)
(107) He riro rō atu ꞌai tū poki era he ika.
NTR become EMPH away SUBS DEM child DIS PRED fish
“The child became a fish.” (R338.006)
As (107) shows, the verb riro has two arguments: the subject tū poki era and a he-
marked noun phrase expressing the class to which the subject belongs after the
transformation. Apart from the verb, the clause has the same structure as the verbless
classifying clause in (106). This shows that riro is a true copula verb, linking two noun
phrases with an identity relation. Two more examples of the same construction:
(108) He riro te rima o Kāiŋa he toto.
NTR become ART hand of Kainga PRED blood
“Kainga’s hand became (all) blood(y).” (R243.074)
(109) I paꞌari era i pohe rō a ia mo riro he oromatuꞌa.
PFVadult DIS PFV desire EMPH PROP 3SG for become PRED priest
“When he was grown up, he desired to become a priest.” (R231.004)
While the form and meaning of riro were borrowed from Tahitian, its status as a
copula verb is unique to Rapa Nui.479 In Tahitian, the resulting entity after riro is
marked with the preposition ꞌei:480
(110) ꞌUa riro tō ꞌoe tuahine ꞌei pōtiꞌi purotu. (Tahitian)
PRF become ART:of 2SG sister to girl
pretty
“Your sister has become a beautiful girl.” (Acad.tah. 1986:272)
9.7. Conclusions
This chapter has dealt with various types of clauses, all of which do not have a lexical
verb as predicate. Many of these are verbless; others have either the existential verb ai
or – occasionally – a copula verb.
Regarding clauses with a noun phrase predicate, two types can be distinguished.
Classifying clauses contain a true predicate providing information about the subject by
including it in a certain class; identifying clauses express an identity relation between
two referents. In classifying clauses the predicate has the predicate marker he; in
identifying clauses, it has the prominence marker ko. The identifying construction is
only used if the predicate is already known to the hearer as an individual entity.
Rapa Nui has a cleft construction, which consists of an identifying or classifying
predicate followed by a subject noun phrase containing a relative clause. Unlike other
Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui requires the relative clause to contain a head noun,
resulting in the construction sometimes called “pseudo-cleft”.
Like clefts, attributive clauses (those with an adjectival predicate expressing an
inherent property) need a head noun in the predicate; in other words, rather than
“This tomato [is] yellow”, Rapa Nui has “This tomato [is] a yellow tomato”. This
makes attributive clauses very similar in structure to classifying clauses, but while the
predicate marker is obligatory in classifying clauses, in attributive clauses it is usually
omitted.
Existential clauses may be verbless (with the “existee” as nominal predicate) or verbal
(using the verb ai, with the existee as subject). They may be expanded with a possessor
to form possessive clauses; these are usually constructed with a verb: “His house
existed” = “He had a house”. Possession may also be expressed in a topic-comment
construction: “As for him, there was a house.”
In recent years, Rapa Nui has seen the emergence of two copula verbs: ai “to be” and
riro “to become”. This development becomes clear by comparing old and new versions
479
There is one possible exception: for Hawaiian, Cook (1999:63) gives an example from an old
text (1918) where he (which is a nominal predicate marker, as in Rapa Nui) marks the resulting
entity after the verb lilo, an argument normally marked with i (related to Tahitian ꞌei in (110)?).
Apparently, this construction, which corresponds exactly to the Rapa Nui construction riro he, is
unknown nowadays.
480
Tahitian ꞌei has various uses, all of which have to do with a state not yet realised; see
Acad.tah. (1986:364f).
of stories in which a person transforms into an animal: in old versions the

transformation is expressed in a nominal clause, in new versions riro is used. In copula
constructions, the nominal predicate is marked with he, just as in nonverbal clauses.
riro was borrowed from Tahitian, but only in Rapa Nui did it develop into a copula
verb.
10. Mood and negation
10.1. Introduction
Mood concerns the pragmatic status of a sentence, the speech act performed by
uttering the sentence: a sentence can either be a statement (declarative mood),
command (imperative mood) or question (interrogative mood) (Dixon 2010a:95; Payne
1997:294). A fourth (minor) speech act is the exclamative, in which the speaker gives
an affective response to a fact presumed to be known by the hearer (König & Siemund
2007:316).
This chapter deals with mood; sections 10.2–10.4 discuss imperative, interrogative and
exclamative constructions, respectively. Section 10.5 deals with negation.
10.2. Imperative mood
10.2.1. The imperative

Imperatives are expressed by two preverbal markers, which also have an aspectual
value: the contiguity marker ka (→ 7.2.6) and the imperfective marker e (→ 7.2.5). ka
is used for actions which are to be performed immediately; ka with imperative
function is glossed IMP(erative). e is used for actions which are to be performed in the
future or which are to be performed repeatedly or habitually, as well as for general
instructions; e with imperative function is glossed EXH(ortative). ka and e can be
characterised as marking direct and indirect injunctions, respectively. A few examples
of both markers:
(1) Ka eꞌa ki haho ka toꞌo mai hai vai māꞌaku mo unu.
IMPgo_out to outside IMP take hither INST water BEN.1SG.A for drink
“Go outside and bring water for me to drink.” (R229.231)
(2) Ka uru mai kōrua ki roto.
IMP enter hither 2PL to inside
“Come in (said to two people).” (R229.261)
(3) Ka ꞌara mai koe, e nua ē.
IMPwake_up hither 2SG VOC Mum VOC
“Wake up, Mum.” (R229.315)
(4) Ana tomo kōrua ki ꞌuta, e uꞌi atu kōrua ki te motu.
IRR go_ashore 2PL to inland EXH look away 2PL
to ART islet
“When you go ashore, watch towards the islet.” (Ley-2-02.005)
(5) E hāpaꞌo kōrua i a Puakiva.

EXH care_for 2PL Puakiva
ACC PROP
“Take care of Puakiva.” (R229.420f)
As these examples show, the subject can be either omitted (1) or expressed (2)–(5). If
expressed, it is a 2nd person pronoun placed after the verb. Unlike other subject
pronouns, it is not preceded by the proper article a (→ 5.14.2.1).
In a series of commands, only the first imperative tends to have an expressed subject:
(6) Ka ꞌara mai koe, ka kai tāꞌau o te kai.
IMP wake_up hither 2SG IMP eat POSS.2SG.A of ART food
“Wake up, eat some food (lit. your [part] of the food).” (R310.104)
As discussed in sec. 8.4.1, the direct object has the accusative marker i when the
subject is expressed (as in (5)); when the subject is not expressed, the accusative
marker is omitted.
There are clear functional similarities between the imperative use of the markers ka
and e and their aspectual uses.
• Imperative ka indicates immediate commands, which are temporally and
situationally close to the moment of speech; similarly, ka in non-imperative
clauses indicates temporal contiguity (→ 7.2.6). The main difference is that,
while ka in general expresses temporal contiguity to another event in the
discourse, imperative ka is linked to the extratextual context, i.e. the speech
situation.
• e in imperative clauses marks future and habitual events, something to be
expected of an imperfective marker (→ 7.2.5).481
While ka and e can be followed by any postverbal particle (depending on the function
of the clause), in imperatives the range of postverbal particles with both aspectuals is
limited. As the following example shows, the verb can be followed by evaluatives (nō
and rō) and directionals (mai and atu); postverbal demonstratives and the continuity
marker ꞌā/ꞌana are excluded.
(7) Ka haka noho nō atu koe i a au ꞌi nei.
IMP CAUS stay just away 2SG ACC PROP 1SG at PROX
“Let me just stay here.” (R229.013)
The imperative can be used with any verb. It is rarely used with adjectives, but this
may have pragmatic rather than syntactic reasons: there are simply not many
situations in which it is appropriate to order someone to have a certain property. For
an example of an imperative-marked adjective, see (91) on p. 102.
481
ka is used as an imperative marker in various EP languages. In most descriptions, all uses of
ka are subsumed under a single particle. Imperative or subjunctive e is found in e.g. Maori (Waite
1990:403; Bauer 1993:30), Tahitian (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:28) and Hawaiian (Elbert & Pukui
1979:61). R. Weber (2003) describes imperative ka and aspectual ka as distinctive particles; he
also distinguishes exhortative e from imperfective e.
Chapter 10: Mood and negation 461
As the examples above show, the imperative has a wide range of pragmatic usages,
including commands, requests, invitations and permissions. It is used between persons
of equal or of different status; it is not inappropriate to address a higher-status person
with an imperative. In the Bible translation, the imperative is commonly used in
prayer; in the following example from the corpus, a chief is addressed in the
imperative:
(8) E te ꞌariki ē, e Tuꞌu Kōihu ē, ka vaꞌai mai koe
VOC ART king VOC VOC Tu’u Koihu VOC IMP give hither 2SG
i to mātou mōai.
ACC ART:of 1PL.EXC statue
“O king Tu’u Koihu, give us a statue (lit. our statue).” (Mtx-4-01.048)
Very occasionally the imperative marker is omitted; this happens especially before the
causative marker haka, possibly for euphonic reasons, to prevent the sequence ka haka.
(9) Haka rito koe, e nua ē, mo kā i to tātou ꞌumu āpō.
CAUS ready 2SG VOC Mum VOC for kindle ACC ART:of 1PL.INC earth_oven tomorrow
“Get ready, Mum, to light our earth oven tomorrow.” (R352.041)
10.2.2. Third-person injunctions (jussives)

ka or e are also used to express instructions or advice to be carried out by a third-
person Agent. This happens for example in procedural texts, which describe how
something is done or should be done.
As the following examples show, the subject may occur either before or after the verb,
as in declarative clauses.
(10) Te taŋata taꞌatoꞌa ka oho tahi ka uruuru i te kahu ꞌuriꞌuri.
-
ART person all IMP go all

dress:RED ACC ART clothes black:RED
IMP
“All the people must go and put on black clothes.” (R210.164)
(11) Te meꞌe nei he ruku e ai te ŋā meꞌe nei: he pātia, he hiꞌo,
ART thing PROX PRED dive IPFV exist ART PL thing PROX PRED harpoon PRED glass
he raperape...
-
PRED swim_fin
“For underwater fishing, you need (lit. there should be) the following things: a
harpoon, glasses, fins...” (R360.001)
10.2.3. First-person injunctions (hortatives)

First-person injunctions (hortatives)482 are marked with ki, the marker also used in
certain purpose clauses (→ 11.5.3). As with imperatives, the subject is optional; if
expressed, it is a pronoun which occurs after the verb and which is not preceded by
the proper article a.
482
On the term ‘hortative’ see König & Siemund (2007:305, 313); Andrews (2007a:207).
(12) Ki noho tātou ki manaꞌu pē hē te huru o te vaikava.

HORT sit 1PL.INC HORT think
like CQ ART manner of ART sea
“Let’s sit down and think about what the sea is like.” (R334.173)
(13) Ki iri, e nua ē, ki ruŋa ki te vaka.
HORT go_up VOC Mum VOC to above to ART boat
“Let’s go out (to sea), Mum, by boat.” (R368.024)
(14) ¿Ki aŋa te ꞌāriŋa ora mo to mātou korohuꞌa?
HORT make ART face live for ART:of 1PL.EXC old_man
“Shall we make a memento (lit. living face) for our father?” (Ley-4-06.004)
As (14) shows, ki is also used to mark proposals in question form.
The hortative may be introduced by matu “come on, let’s do it”, an interjection which
also occurs in isolation. It can also be introduced by the directional mai. Note that this
is an atypical use of the directional, which normally occurs postverbally (→ 7.5).
(15) Matu, e koro ē, ki eꞌa ki haho.
come_on VOC Dad VOC HORT go_out to outside
“Come on, Dad, let’s go outside.” (R229.107)
(16) Mai ki turu rō tāua ki tai.
hither HORT go_down EMPH 1DU.INC to sea
“Come, let’s go to the seaside.” (R245.112)
10.3. Interrogatives
10.3.1. Polar questions

Polar questions (also known as yes/no questions) usually do not have a special marker,
though the particle hoki may be used (see below). Neither do they differ from
statements in word order. The only difference between polar questions and statements
is intonational: whereas in statements the final phrase of the sentence is normally
pronounced in a low tone, polar questions have a high rise on the final stressed
syllable (→ 2.4.2; cf. Du Feu 1995:27). Here are a few examples of polar questions:
(17) ¿Ko ꞌite ꞌā koe i te hī?
PRFknow CONT 2SG ACC ART fish.V
“Do you know how to fish?” (R245.101)
(18) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō koe he oho ki te hāpī?
NEG really 2SG NTR go
to ART learn
“Don’t you go to school?” (R245.086)
(19) ¿E tano rō hō te meꞌe manaꞌu era e Tuki mo aŋa?
IPFV correct EMPH DUB ART thing think DIS AG Tuki for do
“Is it correct what Tuki plans to do?” (R535.211)
(20) ¿Hai kai piro-piro ꞌō ana vaꞌai mai ki a māua?

INSTfood rotten:RED really IRR give hither to PROP 1DU.EXC
“Are you giving us rotten food?” (R310.260)
As these examples show, various particles can be added after the first constituent:
• ꞌō in (18) and (20) indicates counterexpectation (→ 4.5.4.5); it is used in
rhetorical questions to which a negative answer is expected, or in negative
rhetorical questions to which a positive answer is expected.
• hō in (19) indicates doubt (→ 4.5.4.6).
When a constituent within the clause is questioned, it is in focus position: it is fronted
as in (20).
Polar questions may be marked with hoki (glossed Y/N, “yes/no question”), which is
placed at the start of the sentence. hoki is less common in modern Rapa Nui than in
older texts, but it does occur. It is used especially when the speaker expects a certain
answer to the question, whether affirmative as in (21)–(22) or negative as in (23)–
(24). For example, in (22) the context makes clear that the speaker assumes that the
hearer has indeed heard the dream; on the other hand, in (23), the speaker does not
believe that the hearer has ever seen a devil.
(21) ¿Hoki e ai rō ꞌā te famiria?
Y/N exist EMPH CONT ART family
IPFV
“You have a family (don’t you)?” (R103.093)
(22) ¿Hoki ko ŋaroꞌa ꞌā e koe te vārua nei ꞌa Hina?
Y/N perceive CONT AG 2SG ART spirit PROX of.A Hina
PRF
“Did you hear Hina’s dream?” (R313.087)
(23) ¿Hoki ko tikeꞌa ꞌā e koe te tātane raꞌe?
Y/N PRF see 2SG ART devil first
CONT AG
“Have you ever seen a devil?” (R215.029)
(24) ¿Hoki e ketu rō koe i te hare o te taŋata ki raro?
Y/N IPFV raise EMPH 2SG ACC ART house of ART man to below
“(one wind to another:) Could you destroy someone’s house (lit. raise down a
house of a man)?!” (R314.121)
When a question contains a negation, it depends on the underlying presupposition

which answering strategy (“yes” or “no”) is appropriate. In the following examples, the
person asking the question presupposes that the underlying proposition is true; in (25)
for example, the speaker expects that the person pointed out is indeed Vivika. The
positive reply “yes” confirms this expectation. In (26), the asker expects the addressee
to want to have him as father; negative response “no” refutes this expectation.
(25) —¿Taꞌe ko Vivika? —ꞌĒē. Ko ia.
NEG.CONS PROM Vivika yes
3SG PROM
“—Isn’t that Vivika? —Yes, it’s her.” (R415.947)
(26) —¿Kai haŋa ꞌō koe ko au ꞌā tōꞌou matuꞌa?

NEG.PFV want really 2SG PROM 1SG IDENT POSS.2SG.O parent
—ꞌIna, tōꞌoku mau ꞌā.
NEG POSS.1SG.O really IDENT
“—Don’t you want me to be your father? —No, I want my own (father).” (Mtx-
7-26.036f)
On the other hand, when the speaker presupposes that the underlying proposition is
not true, this negative expectation can be confirmed with a positive answer:
(27) —¿ꞌIna he pepe? —ꞌĒē. E nohonoho nō ꞌā
- ꞌi raro.
NEG PRED chair yes IPFV sit:RED just CONT at below
“—There were no chairs? —Indeed. They sat on the floor.” (R413.635)
10.3.2. Content questions

Content questions are formed with one of the following question words: ai “who”, aha
“what”, hē “where, when, which”, or hia “how many, how much”. These are always
the nucleus of the first constituent of the clause.
Each question word belongs to a different word class, as can be seen from the elements
preceding them. For example, ai is a pronoun, while aha is best categorised as a
common noun. In the following sections, these question words will be discussed in
turn.
10.3.2.1. ai/ꞌai: who

The question word “who” has two forms: ai and ꞌai.483 ai occurs after prepositions and
after the proper article a, while ꞌai occurs in possessive and benefactive forms.
Syntactically, ai/ꞌai is a pronoun: like personal pronouns, it is preceded by the proper
article a after the prepositions ꞌi/i and ki (ki a ai); it follows immediately after other
prepositions (ko ai), and is never preceded by a determiner.
ai is always in focus. In nominal clauses, this means that ai is preposed and receives
the main clause stress. It is marked with ko, just like all pronouns used as identifying
predicate (→ 9.2.2). Two examples:
(28) ¿Ko ai koe?
PROM who 2SG
“Who are you?” (R304.097)
(29) ¿Ko ai te rūꞌau era o tuꞌa ꞌai?
PROM who ART old_womand DIS of back there
“Who is the old woman there in the back?” (R416.1092)
483
Reflexes of ai occurs in most or all Polynesian languages. In Tongic the form is hai, which
suggests that the PPN form was *hai. In some EP languages (Tahitian, Maori, Hawaiian), the
form is vai/wai. No other language has a form ꞌai except Rarotongan, where the glottal is the
regular reflex of PEP *h, *f or *s (→ 2.5.2).
In a verbal clause, when ai is a core argument (S, A or O), it is not only preposed and
stressed, but the clause takes a focus construction. Just as in declarative clauses, two
constructions are possible.
1. When ai is Agent, an actor-emphatic construction can be used (→ 8.6.3). In this
construction, the Agent is marked as possessive (if the clause is perfective) or
benefactive (if the clause is imperfective); this means that the interrogative is ꞌa ꞌai or
mā ꞌai, respectively. The object is often placed before the verb and tends to be
unmarked.
(30) ¿ꞌA ꞌai i aŋa te korone nei?
of.A who PFV make ART necklace PROX
“Who made this necklace?” (R208.263)
(31) ¿Mā ꞌai koe e hāpaꞌo?
for.A who 2SG IPFV care_for
“Who will take care of you?” (R438.011)
(32) ¿ꞌA ꞌai kōrua te tautoru atu hai moni...?
of.A who 2PL help
away INST money
ART
“Who helped you with money...?” (R621.024)
2. When ai is a core argument (regardless its semantic role), a cleft construction can be
used (→ 9.2.6).484 In this construction, ko ai is a nominal predicate, followed by a
subject containing a relative clause. The subject noun is usually the generic meꞌe,
though other nouns are also used. A few examples:
— S/A questioned:
(33) ¿Ko ai te meꞌe ŋau era i te kiko ꞌai?
PROM who ART thing bite DIS ACC ART meat there
“Who is the one biting the meat there?” (R416.1310)
(34) ¿Ko ai te nuꞌu raꞌe i tuꞌu ki ira...?
PROM who ART people first PFV arrive to PRO
“Who were the first people who arrived there...?” (R616.390)
484
Potsdam & Polinsky (2011) distinguish three questioning strategies in Polynesian:
displacement (= preposing the Wh-constituent), clefts, and pseudo-clefts (=clefts in which the
relative clause has a head noun; in Rapa Nui, this is the only cleft strategy possible, see sec. 9.2.6
and 8.6.2.1). They tentatively analyse Rapa Nui as using the displacement strategy, but admit
that data are scarce. One example is given of a construction as in (36), as well as a number of
oblique examples (which indeed have a displacement structure), and one example of he aha in
the sense “why” (which is also an oblique with displacement). However, in Rapa Nui texts,
pseudo-clefts abound in questions, both with ai “who” (such as in (33)–(35)) and with aha
“what” (such as (44) in the next section).
— O questioned:
(35) ¿Ko ai te meꞌe ena e kōrua ka haka tere ena?
PROM who ART thing MED AG 2PL CNTG CAUS run MED
“(If everybody wants to govern the island,) whom will you govern?”
(R647.370)
Only very occasionally is ko ai immediately followed by a verb; this happens especially

in older texts. It is impossible to tell whether this is a simple clause, or a cleft with
headless relative clause (a construction otherwise not attested → 8.6.2.1).
(36) ¿Ko ai i mate?
PROMwho PFV die
“Who died?” (MsE-046.009)
When a possessor is questioned, the form ꞌai is used, preceded by o or ꞌa: like all
singular pronouns, ꞌai is subject to the o/a distinction (→ 6.3.2). The clause is a
proprietary clause (→ 9.4.2) with fronted predicate. Two examples:
(37) ¿O ꞌai te hare nei?
of who ART house PROX
“Whose house is this (lit. whose is this house)?” (R208.194)
(38) ¿ꞌA ꞌai te viꞌe era e kī era ko Campana?
of.A who ART woman DIS IPFV say DIS PROM Campana
“Whose (wife) is the woman called Campana?” (R416.1164)
When ai questions an oblique constituent, this constituent is simply fronted.485

(39) ¿Ki a ai a Omoaŋa i māhani ai ꞌi ꞌŌroŋo?
to PROP who PROP Omoanga PFV accustomed PVP at Orongo
“Who did Omoanga get to know in Orongo?” (R616.017)
(40) ¿ꞌI muri i a ai a Eva ka noho era ꞌi a Tire?
at near at PROP who PROP Eva CNTG stay DIS at PROP Chile
“With whom would Eva stay in Chile?” (R615.660)
ai asks about persons, while aha “what” asks about things. To ask about names, ai is
used. This applies even when the name asked for is the name of an inanimate entity:
(41) ¿Ko ai te ꞌīŋoa o rā kona?
PROM who ART name of DIS place
“What is the name of that place?” (R124.014)
485
As (39)–(40) show, if the clause also has a subject, it is usually preverbal. This is usual after
most preverbal constituents (→ 8.6.1.1).
10.3.2.2. aha: what, why

Unlike ai “who”, aha “what”486 is a common noun: it is preceded by the predicate
marker he or the article te, never by the proper article a. Apart from this, it is also used
as noun modifier. Like ai, aha is in focus: it always occurs initially and is stressed.
As a nominal predicate, aha is preceded by he; the construction is a simple classifying
clause (→ 9.2.1).
(42) ¿He aha te meꞌe era pē he tiare ꞌā?
PRED what ART thing DIS like PRED flower IDENT
“What are those things (that look) like flowers?” (R210.195)
(43) ¿He aha kōrua?
PRED what 2PL
“What (kind of people) are you?” (Egt-02.137)
When questioning arguments in a verbal clause, a cleft construction is used: aha is

marked as nominal predicate, while the subject noun phrase consists of an anchor
noun (usually meꞌe) followed by a relative clause.
— Sometimes the S/A argument is questioned; as aha questions non-human entites,
this is not very common:
(44) ¿He aha te meꞌe i topa ki a koro?
PREDwho ART thing PFV happen to PROP Dad
“What happened to Dad?” (R615.594)
— More commonly, the O argument is questioned. As in all object relative clauses (→

11.4.2), the subject is either marked with e as in (45), or the possessive-relative
construction is used (→ 11.4.4) as in (46):
(45) ¿He aha te meꞌe i kī atu e Kihi?
PRED what ART thing PFV say away AG Kihi
“What did Kihi say?” (R615.738)
(46) ¿He aha te kōrua meꞌe i aŋa i ꞌApina?
PRED what ART 2PL thing PFV do at Apina
“What did you do in Apina?” (R301.197)
When aha has an oblique role, it is simply preposed as constituent of the verbal
clause. As with ai “who”, the subject is usually preverbal. After prepositions, aha is
preceded by the article te (like all common nouns), with the exception of the
instrumental preposition hai (which is never followed by a determiner) and
benefactive mo. mo aha is used to ask about the purpose of an event.
486
Cognates of aha (< PPN *hafa, going back to PAN) occur throughout Polynesian languages,
but especially in Eastern Polynesian (outside EP e.g. in Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro). Most
Tongic and Samoic languages have a reflex of PPN *haa instead (Pollex).
(47) ¿ꞌO te aha a Makoꞌi i oho mai ai ki a Paepae?

-
because_of ART what PROP Mako’i PFV go hither PVP to PROP Paepae
“Why did Mako’i go to Paepae?” (R615.699)
(48) ¿A ruŋa i te aha koe i oho mai ai?
by above at ART what 2SG PFV go hither PVP
“By/on what (means of transport) did you come?” (R245.178)
(49) ¿Hai aha a au ka rēkaro nei ki a Ravira?
INST what PROP 1SG CNTG gift PROX to PROP Ravira
“What (lit. with what) will I give as a present to Ravira?” (R175.002)
(50) E haŋu ē, ¿mo aha koe e ꞌui mai ena?
VOC dear_child VOC for what 2SG IPFV ask hither MED
“Dear child, for what (purpose) are you asking (this)?” (R250.114)
he aha is also used in the sense “why”. In this case it is an oblique, which is part of a
simple verbal clause with preverbal subject: he aha S V. The structure of the sentence is
thus different from he aha as subject or object, which have a cleft structure he aha [NP
Rel]; compare (51) with (45)–(46) above:
what 2SG IPFV cry MED
PRED
“Why are you crying?” (Ley-9-55.064)
aha is used as an adjective “what, which”, especially after time nouns. The noun
phrase containing aha is clause-initial:
(52) ¿Hora aha te manurere ka tuꞌu mai?
time what ART airplane arrive hither
CNTG
“What time does the plane arrive?” (R208.214)
(53) ¿Mahana aha a koe ka oho ki Santiago?
day what PROP 2SG CNTG go to Santiago
“What day are you going to Santiago?” (R208.226)
As these examples show, the noun is not preceded by a determiner. Cf. the use of hē as
an adjective (→ 10.3.2.3).
10.3.2.3. hē: where, when, how, which

hē is used to ask about places, times and situations.487 Because of its wide range of
functions, it is glossed “CQ” (content question). Syntactically, it is a locational (→ 3.6):
487
According to Pollex, hē is a reflex of PPN *fē “where”, which occurs in a number of Samoic
and Tongic languages. However, it is more plausible that hē reflects PNP *fea “where”, which is
widespread both in Samoic and EP languages (e.g. Tahitian, Hawaiian, Marquesan hea, Maori
whea, Rarotongan, Mangarevan ꞌea). Cf. 2.5.2 sub 7 on monophthongisation of particles.
it is immediately preceded by prepositions, without any determiner. Like all question

words, it is in focus and always occurs as the first constituent of the clause.
— When preceded by a locative preposition (ꞌi “at” ki “to”, mai “from”, a “by,
towards”) or o “of”, hē has a locative sense “where”. As the examples show, hē may be
the predicate of a verbless clause as in (54)–(55), or an oblique in a verbal clause as in
(56)–(58). In verbal clauses, the subject is usually preverbal.
(54) ¿ꞌI hē koe ꞌi te ŋā tiempo nei ꞌī aꞌa?
at CQ 2SG at ART PL time PROX IMM DEIC
“Where were you in these times?” (R415.349)
(55) ¿O hē te taŋata era?
of CQ ART man DIS
“Where is that man from?” (Ley-3-06.003)
(56) ¿ꞌI hē a koe e noho ena?
at CQ PROP 2SG IPFV stay MED
“Where do you live?” (R399.052)
(57) ¿A hē nei rā i ŋaro ai?
by CQ PROX INTENS PFV disappear PVP
“In what direction did (the fish) disappear?” (R301.179)
(58) ¿Ki hē kōrua ko te poki i iri mai ena?
to CQ 2PL child PFV ascend hither MED
PROM ART
“Where did you and the child go up to?” (R229.205)
In nominal clauses, hē is also used without a preceding preposition. Its sense is similar
to ꞌi hē “where”, but it is only used to ask about things that are situationally close;
often, the addressee is directly involved. Compare (59)–(60) with (54) and (56) above:
(59) ¿Hē koe, e vovo ē?
CQ 2SG VOC dear_girl VOC
“Where are you, my girl?” (R372.030)
(60) ¿Hē te kona mamae atu?
CQ ART place pain away
“Where is the place (=body part) that hurts?” (R481.100)
— pē hē “like what, how” asks about a situation; it is the interrogative counterpart of

pē ira “like that” (→ 4.6.5.2). It occurs for example in the common greeting Pē hē koe
“how are you”. As with other prepositions, in a verbal clause the subject is usually
preverbal.
(61) ¿Pē hē koe, e hoa ē?
like CQ 2SG VOC friend VOC
“How are you, my friend?” (R237.116)
(62) ¿Pē hē koe i ꞌite ai mo tarai i te mōai?

like CQ 2SG PFV know PVP for carve ACC ART statue
“How did you know how to carve statues?” (R647.063)
— To ask about time, hē is preceded by ꞌaŋa- (past) or a (future). ꞌaŋahē is written as

one word; a hē is written as two words and is homophonic to a hē “by what place” (see
(57) above). The particles ꞌaŋa- and a also occur with other roots (→ 3.6.4). As (64)
shows, ꞌaŋahe is preceded by locative prepositions.
(63) ¿A hē tātou ka iri hakaꞌou mai mo piroto?
FUT CQ 1PL.INC CNTG ascend again
hither for soccer
“When will we go up again to play soccer?” (R155.007)
(64) ¿Mai ꞌaŋahē ꞌā a Rapa Nui i topa rō ai ki te tire?
from when.PAST IDENT PROP Rapa Nui PFV happen EMPH PVP to ART Chile
“From when did Rapa Nui go over to the Chileans?” (R616.673)
— Finally, hē is used as an adjective “which”. As the examples below show, the

questioned noun is preceded by the appropriate preposition marking its semantic role,
but does not have a determiner. For example, the questioned NP in (65) is o huaꞌai hē,
not *o te huaꞌai hē, even though the preposition o must normally be followed by a
determiner (→ 5.3.3.3).
(65) ¿O huaꞌai hē te rūꞌau era ꞌai?
of family CQ ART old_woman DIS DEIC
“From which family is that woman over there?” (R413.305)
(66) —¿Ko poki hē rā poki hiko era i taꞌa meꞌe? —Poki tane.
PROM child CQ DIS child snatch DIS ACC POSS.2SG.A thing child male
“—Which child [was the child who] snatched your things? —A boy.”
(R172.012ff)
There is no sharp difference in meaning between hē and aha used as adjective (see
(52)–(53) above), except that the latter only occurs with time nouns, while hē occurs
with any type of noun. Possibly hē implies a choice from a closed range, though (66)
above appears to be a counterexample.
10.3.2.4. hia: how much, how many

hia “how much, how many” (< PPN *fiha, with reflexes throughout Polynesia) is a
numeral: it is always preceded by one of the numeral particles e, ka and hoko (→
4.3.2). hia may occur in a noun phrase as in (67)–(68), or as a separate constituent as
in (69)–(70). In either case, it is placed at the start of the sentence.
(67) ¿E hia māmari o roto te hakapupa?
NUM how_many egg of inside ART nest
“How many eggs are there inside the nest?” (R173.019)
(68) ¿Ka hia matahiti ōꞌou, e pāpātio ē?

CNTG how_many year POSS.2SG.O VOC uncle VOC
“How old are you (lit. how many years are yours), uncle?” (R416.843)
(69) ¿E hia tōꞌoku tārahu mōꞌou?
NUMhow_much POSS.1SG.O debt BEN.2SG.O
“How much do I owe you?” (R208.200)
(70) ¿Hoko hia kōrua i oho ai?
NUM.PERS how_many 2PL PVP go PVP
“(With) how many did you go?” (R124.008)
10.3.3. Dependent questions

Dependent questions, i.e. questions in subordinate clauses, occur mainly after speech
verbs and cognitive verbs.
Dependent polar questions can be unmarked as in (71) (where the question has a tag
ꞌo ꞌina) or introduced by hoki as in (72):
(71) Kai ꞌite mai au [e takeꞌa hakaꞌou rō mai koe ꞌo ꞌina].
NEG.PFV know hither 1SG IPFV see again
hither 2SG or NEG
EMPH
“I don’t know if you will see me again or not.” (R210.072)
(72) He kī ki te ꞌauario o tū kona era [hoki e puē rō
NTR say to ART guard of DEM place DIS Y/N IPFV can EMPH
mo tari rō ꞌai i tōꞌona meꞌe].
for carry EMPH SUBS ACC POSS.3SG.O thing
“She asked the guard of the place if he could carry her stuff.” (R210.205)
Alternatively, the question is marked with the irrealis marker ana (→ 11.5.2.2):
(73) ꞌO ira a au i ꞌui atu ena [ana haŋa koe mo turu mai
because_of PRO PROP 1SG PFV ask away MED IRR want 2SG for go_down hither
ki nei...]
to PROX
“Therefore I asked you if you wanted to come here...” (R315.269)
Dependent content questions are marked with one of the question words discussed in
the previous sections. Just as in main clause questions, the questioned constituent is
placed at the start of the clause.
(74) Kai ꞌite a au [ko ai a ia].
NEG.PFV know PROP 1SG PROM who PROP 3SG
“I don’t know who she is.” (R413.356)
(75) Ka uꞌi a Haŋa Roa [he aha e taꞌe tuꞌu mai nei].
IMPlook by Hanga Roa PRED what IPFV NEG.CONS arrive hither PROX
“Look towards Hanga Roa why he is not coming.” (R229.137)
(76) ...ꞌi te taꞌe ꞌite [ꞌi hē a ia ka noho era].

at ART NEG.CONS know at CQ PROP 3SG CNTG stay DIS
“(He was afraid) because he didn’t know where he would stay.” (R314.016)
10.4. Exclamatives
There are three constructions in Rapa Nui specifically used for exclamations. They are
marked with the aspectual ka, the preposition ko and the deictic particle ꞌai,
respectively. These constructions will be discussed in turn in the next subsections.
10.4.1. ka in exclamations
With certain adjectives the continguity marker ka (→ 7.2.6) is used in an emphatic
sense, often in exclamations. In this construction the quality expressed by the adjective
is emphasized. This construction is only used with a limited number of adjectives, all
of which express a positive evaluation: riva “good”, reka “pleasant”, tau “beautiful,
handsome”, in older texts also maꞌitaki “clean; beautiful”. A few examples:
(77) ¡Ka riva ꞌō!
CNTG good really
“Very good!” (R334.319)
(78) ¡Ka tau te mahana nei ꞌi te raꞌā!
CNTG pretty ART day at ART sun
PROX
“What a nice sunny day!” (Notes)
(79) ꞌAi te nuinui o te
- pūꞌoko ko tetu, ¡ka maꞌitaki te pūꞌoko!
there ART big:RED of ART head enormous CNTG handsome ART head
PROM
“The skull was this big, it was enormous, and how beautiful it was!” (Ley-2-
10.010)
This construction is similar in function to ꞌai te preceding an adjective (→ 10.4.3

below); in fact, in (79) above the two constructions are used side by side. The choice
between the two is lexically determined: while ka is only used with adjectives denoting
a positive evaluation, ꞌai te is used with adjectives of size.
The origin of this use of ka may lay in the tendency of ka to denote an extent, a use
which is for example seen in the construction ka – rō “until” (→ 11.6.2.5) and in the
use of ka with numerals (→ 4.3.2.2).
10.4.2. ko in exclamations
In modern Rapa Nui, ko te X is used in exclamations to convey a strong emotion about
something.488 This usage does not occur in older texts. Sometimes it involves a noun as
488
Moyse-Faurie (2011:149) points out, that prediate (i.e. ko-marked) noun phrases in Polynesian
languages often have an exclamative function.
in (80), but more commonly, exclamative ko te is followed by an adjective as in (81).

The speaker expresses his or her emotion about the quality expressed, implying that
the quality is true to a high degree: “How beautiful!”.
of ART pretty
“What an extremely pretty animal!” (R345.072)
(81) ¡Ko te tau!
PROM ART pretty
“How beautiful!” (R412.384)
The person or thing possessing the quality in question is marked with the preposition i
“corresponding to” (→ 4.7.2):
(82) ¡Ko te nene i te kiko, i te tātou kai!
PROM ARTsweet at ART meat at ART 1PL.INC food
“How tasty is the meat, our food!” (R333.543)
(83) ¡Ko te ꞌaroha i te rūꞌau era!
PROM ART pity
at ART old_woman DIS
“Poor old woman!” (R413.103)
A similar construction is Ko te aha “what”, followed by a noun phrase:

(84) ¡Ko te aha te pōhāhā! ¡Ko te aha te ꞌua!
PROM ART what ART dark what ART rain
PROM ART
“What a darkness! What a rain!” (R241.035f)
(85) ¡Ko te aha te haka ꞌāriŋa!
PROM ART what ART CAUS face
“What an insolence!” (R208.083)
10.4.3. ꞌai in exclamations

Adjectives of size, such as nuinui “big” and kumi “big; long”, occur in a nominal
-
construction in which they are preceded by the deictic particle ꞌai (→ 4.5.4.1.2).
(86) E ai rō ꞌā e rua hare toa, ꞌai te nuinui tetu.
-
IPFVexist EMPH CONT NUM two house store there ART big:RED enormous
“There were two stores, they were enormous.” (R239.072)
(87) ꞌI roto te hare manupātia. ¡ꞌAi te kumi!
at inside ART house wasp there ART big
“Inside was a wasps’ nest. It was so big!” (R133.004)
10.5. Negation
Rapa Nui has three clausal negators:
ꞌina neutral (discussed in 10.5.1–10.5.2)

kai perfective (10.5.3)
(e) ko imperfective (10.5.4–10.5.5)
The neutral character of ꞌina is shown by the fact that it occurs in a variety of contexts,
is always followed by the neutral aspectual he, and can be combined in a single clause
with one of the other negators.
While ꞌina is a phrase head, (e) ko and kai are preverbal particles which occur in the
same position as – and thus replace – the aspectual marker (→ 7.1). This means that
there are fewer aspectual distinctions in negative clauses than in positive ones (cf.
Dixon 2012:129).
Apart from the three clausal negators, Rapa Nui has a constituent negator taꞌe (10.5.6)
and an existential/noun negator kore (10.5.7).
The verb phrase particle hia/ia “not yet”, which occurs in combination with different
negators, is discussed in section 10.5.8.
10.5.1. The neutral negator ꞌina

ꞌina is the most neutral negator; of all the negators, it has the widest range of use.
1. ꞌina is a common negator in verbal clauses, as the following examples show:

(88) ꞌIna a Heru he uꞌi rō mai hai mata.
NEG PROP Heru NTR watch EMPH hither INST eye
“Heru did not watch (her) with his eyes.” (R313.165)
(89) ꞌIna a au he haꞌamā hakaꞌou ꞌi te hora nei.
NEG PROP 1SG NTR ashamed again
at ART time PROX
“Now I am not ashamed any more.” (R334.069)
(90) ꞌIna mau ꞌā koe he haŋa mai ki a au.
NEG really IDENT 2SG NTR love hither to PROP 1SG
“You really don’t love me.” (R229.468)
(91) ꞌIna, hoꞌi, he hoꞌo mau ena, te meꞌe nō, ko ai ꞌana mo kai.
NEG indeed NTR sellreally MED ART thing just PRF exist CONT for eat
“They did not sell (the fish); but it was there to eat.” (R539-1.365)
(92) He haꞌamata he riri, ꞌe ꞌina he hakaroŋo ki tū vānaŋa era
NTR begin NTR angry and NEG NTR listen to DEM word DIS
o tū hoa era ōꞌona.

of DEM friend DIS POSS.3SG.O
“He began to get angry, and did not listen to the words of his friend.”
(R237.152)
These examples illustrate a number of characteristics of ꞌina:

• ꞌina is almost always clause-initial.
• ꞌina is neutral with respect to aspect; the verb is always marked with the
neutral aspectual he. It occurs in narrative contexts and habitual clauses, and
it is used both for actions and states. However, it is used mostly in
imperfective contexts; negations of one-time events tend to be expressed with
other negators, though (92) shows that this is not a strict rule.
• The subject of the clause occurs immediately after ꞌina, before the verb; in
other words, the constituent order is SV/AVO.
Only occasionally is the subject in postverbal position. Usually a postverbal subject is

marked with the agentive marker e. In general, preverbal subjects are not e-marked,
which could be the reason why the e-marked subject is placed after the verb.
(93) ꞌIna he aŋiaŋi - e tū ŋā ꞌakuꞌaku era e aha ꞌā te ꞌariki.
NEG NTR certain:RED AG DEM PL spirit what CONT ART king
DIS IPFV
“Those spirits did not know what the king was doing.” (R532-06.018)
In (88)–(90) above, the subject is a proper noun or pronoun. When the subject is a
common noun and preverbal, it is usually not preceded by the article te, but by the
predicate marker he. This happens despite the fact that it refers to a definite entity,
while he normally marks nonreferential noun phrases (→ 5.4.1).
NEG PRED old_woman PROX NTR go_down hither to Hanga Roa
“This old women did not go down to Hanga Roa.” (R380.006)
(95) Te probrema hoꞌi, ꞌina he māmā o nā poki o nei.
ART problemindeed NEG PRED mother of MED child of PROX
“The problem is, the mother of the child is not here.” (R403.051)
(96) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō he mata o Hotu ꞌIti he taŋitaŋi ki te
- Tūpāhotu?
NEG really PRED tribe of Hotu Iti PRED cry:RED to ART Tupahotu
“The tribe of Hotu Iti doesn’t mourn for the Tupahotu, does it?” (R304.070)
ꞌina may be followed by the article or another t-deteminer, but this happens only
occasionally:
(97) Te ꞌati nō ꞌina te ŋā poki he haŋa mo ꞌite.
ART problem just NEG ART PL child NTR want for know
“The problem is that the children don’t want to know.” (R647.094)
In (94)–(96) above, the construction ꞌina he N VP is a verbal clause in which he N is the

preverbal subject. However, the same sequence of elements may also be an existential
clause, in which the verb phrase is part of a relative clause (→ (107)–(109) below on
the negation of existential clauses).
(98) ꞌIna he tētahi kona o te hakari [i ꞌati].

NEG PRED other place of ART body PFV problem
“(There is) no other part of the body (which) is in trouble.” (R481.091)
(99) ꞌIna he huaꞌai rahi [vānaŋa ki te ŋā poki i te reꞌo henua].
NEG PRED family many speak to ART PL child ACC ART voice land
“(There are) not many families (who) speak the language of the island to the
children.” (R533.006)
Constructions like (98)–(99) are quite distinct from (94)–(96) above. Firstly, the noun
phrase does not refer to a specific entity, but predicates the existence of the category
as a whole: “there is not...” In the second place, the verb is marked in ways typical of
relative clauses. While the verb in (94)–(96) has the neutral marker he, verbs in
relative clauses are typically marked with the aspectuals i or e or with zero marking,
but not by he (→ 11.4.3; 11.4.5).489
A third difference between verbal ꞌina clauses and existential constructions is, that in
the latter the noun phrase after ꞌina is not always the S/A argument of the verb. This is
illustrated in (100)–(101), where the noun phrase following ꞌina is the Patient. As
(101) shows, the Agent may be expressed as a possessive, a construction common in
relative clauses (→ 11.4.4).
(100) ꞌIna he meꞌe i rovā o tū pō era.
NEG PRED thing PFV obtain of ART night DIS
“They did not catch anything (lit. there was no thing obtained) that night.”
(R359.005)
(101) ¿ꞌIna ꞌō he ꞌaꞌamu ꞌāꞌau i maꞌu mai mai Haŋa Roa?

NEG really PRED story POSS.2SG.A PFV carry hither from Hanga Roa
“Haven’t you brought any news (lit. are there no stories you brought) from
Hanga Roa?” (R380.039)
Constructions as in (98)–(101) are relatively unusual. More commonly, the noun

phrase in negative existential constructions is preceded by the numeral e tahi “one”.
ꞌina e tahi N has become the usual way to express “not one, no one, nobody”:
(102) I oti era te ꞌāꞌati, ꞌina e tahi kope i ꞌite
PFV finish DIS ART contest NEG NUM one person PFV know
ko ai te meꞌe i rē.
PROM who ART thing PFV won
“When the contest was finished, no one (lit. not one person) knew who had
won.” (R448.018)
489
That these two constructions are distinct is confirmed by the fact that i, e and zero marking
never occur after ꞌina + proper noun or pronoun; they are limited to constructions with a
common noun, which are open to an existential analysis.
(103) ꞌIna e tahi taŋata tere o ira; hoko rua mau nō.
NEG NUM one person run of PRO NUM.PERS two really just
“Nobody was sailing there; just the two (of us).” (R230.410)
All examples so far involve ꞌina as sole negator in the clause. However, more often
than not, ꞌina as verbal clause negator co-occurs with a second clausal negator, either
perfective kai or imperfective (e) ko. The table below gives the number of occurrences
of ꞌina in verbal clauses in the text corpus with and without a second negator:
Table 62: Frequencies of single and double negators
ꞌina ... kai V 29.5% (366)

ꞌina ... e ko V 19.5% (242)
ꞌina ... ko V 21.4% (265)
total with other negators: 70.5% (873)
no other negator: ꞌina ... he V 29.5% (366)
A few examples of double negation:

(104) ꞌIna a au kai maruaki.
NEG PROP 1SG NEG.PFV hungry
“I am not hungry.” (R208.250)
(105) ¡ꞌIna mātou e ko hoa i a koe!
NEG 1PL.EXC IPFV NEG.IPFV abandon at PROP 2SG
“We will not leave you alone!” (MsE-028.012)
(106) ꞌIna e ko kai i te kahi o tōꞌona vaka.
NEG IPFV NEG.IPFV eat ACC ART tuna of POSS.3SG.O boat
“(The fisherman) would not eat the tuna (caught with) his boat.” (Ley-5-
27.013)
ꞌina – e ko and ꞌina – kai are multiple markings of a single negation. The effect of
multiple marking may be a slight reinforcement or emphasis; notice however that
multiple marking is so common, that it cannot be a highly marked form.490 As the
examples illustrate, the subject is usually preverbal, just like constructions where ꞌina
is the only negator in the clause.
In one situation the use of the double negation is almost exceptionless: the imperative.
This is discussed in section 10.5.5.
2. ꞌina also negates several types of nonverbal clauses.
490
See Dixon (2012:91) on multiple marking. According to Payne (1985:224), there is a strong
crosslinguistic tendency for negatives to be reinforced by other elements in the clause.
Existential clauses (→ 9.3) are negated by placing ꞌina in front of the nominal
predicate as in (107). The same is true for subtypes of existential clauses: existential-
locative clauses as in (108), possessive clauses as in (109).
(107) Matahiti nei ꞌina he taŋata mo hāpī i te ŋā aŋa nei.
year PROX NEG PRED person for teach ACC ART PL work PROX
“This year there is no one (lit. there is no man) to teach these matters.”
(R640.016)
(108) He tikeꞌa mātou e tahi kāiŋa ꞌitiꞌiti,

- ꞌina he taŋata o ruŋa.
NTR see
1PL.EXC NUM one homeland small:RED NEG PRED person of above
“We saw a small island, there was nobody there.” (Egt-02.409)
(109) ꞌIna paꞌi o māua kona mo noho.
NEG in_fact of 1DU.EXC place for stay
“For we do not have a place to live.” (R229.210)
Notice that positive existential clauses are nowadays usually constructed with the
existential verb ai (→ 9.3.1); negative clauses, however, are constructed without a
verb, as these examples show.
Locative clauses (→ 9.4.1) can be negated with ꞌina in front of the subject. As in
verbal clauses, the subject has the predicate marker he, even when it has definite
reference (→ (94)–(96) above).
(110) ꞌIna he māmā o nā poki o nei.
NEG PRED mother of MED child of PROX
“The mother of that boy is not here.” (R403.051)
Alternatively, the locative phrase is negated by the constituent negator taꞌe (→ (143)
on p. 485).
3. Finally: besides negating verbal and nominal clauses, ꞌina also functions as
independent polarity item “no”:
(111) —E Reŋa, ka eꞌa mai ki haka hopu atu. —ꞌIna, ko hopu ꞌā au.
VOC Renga IMP go_out hither to CAUS wash away wash CONT 1SG
NEG PRF
“—Renga, come out so I can wash you.” —No, I have washed (already).” (Mtx-
7-15.046)
(112) —I eke rō koe ꞌi ruŋa i te pahī era? —ꞌIna.

go_up EMPH 2SG at above at ART ship DIS
PFV NEG
“—Did you go on board that ship? —No.” (R413.811)
10.5.2. Status and origin of ꞌina

In many Polynesian languages, some negators are verbs, or at least have important
characteristics in common with verbs: they occur in the position of the predicate and
they are preceded and/or followed by VP elements such as aspectuals (see Payne
1985:209ff; Broschart 1999 on Tongan). The rest of the sentence may be constructed
as a subordinate clause, as evidenced by the constituent order (subject raising) and by

the fact that the choice of aspectuals on the main verb is limited in the same way as in
other subordinate clauses. The latter happens for example in Tahitian (Lazard &
Peltzer 1999; 2000:49) and Maori (Hohepa 1969b; Bauer 1993:139ff).
The question is whether Rapa Nui ꞌina can be analysed as a matrix verb followed by a
subordinate clause.491 N.Weber (2003:57) assumes a biclausal structure, when she
analyses subject placement in ꞌina constructions by a raising rule, in which the subject
is moved to the subject position of the higher clause. Stenson (1981:159ff) gives
several arguments to treat ꞌina as a matrix verb: it may be separated from the negated
verb by the subject (while the otherwise common VSO order is marginal in ꞌina-
clauses); it may co-occur with the negators kai and e ko, and unlike the latter, it co-
occurs with an aspect marker. It should be noted, however, that the last two points
only show that ꞌina has a different status from kai and e ko, without demonstrating its
verbal character. After all, the aspect marker does not occur in front of ꞌina itself, but
in front of the following verb.
Another possible indication for the verbal character of ꞌina is, that it can be followed
by a wide range of verb phrase particles: certain adverbs (mau “really”, takoꞌa “also”),
the emphatic marker rō, the directional atu, postverbal demonstratives and the identity
marker ꞌā. This is illustrated in (90) above and in the following example:
(113) ꞌIna rō atu he noho i a au.
NEG EMPH away NTR stay at PROP 1SG
“I couldn’t keep (my fishing line) steady (lit. It didn’t stay at all to me).”
(R230.162)
Despite these arguments, there are good reasons not to analyse ꞌina as a verb followed
by a subordinate clause.
1. The most obvious difference between ꞌina and verbs is, that ꞌina is never preceded
by an aspectual. Verbs are always preceded by aspectuals (with a few well-defined
exceptions → 7.2.2).
2. In Maori and Tahitian, one argument for a biclausal analysis of negative
constructions is, that the choice of aspectuals with the main verb is limited to precisely
those aspectuals occurring in subordinate clauses. In Rapa Nui however, the reverse is
true: the main verb after ꞌina is obligatorily marked with neutral he, while those
markers typical of subordinate clauses (i, e and Ø) do not occur.
3. As shown above, ꞌina can be combined with the negators kai and e ko. Both of these
are main clause negators; subordinate clauses are mostly negated with the constituent
negator taꞌe. ꞌina is never combined with the negator taꞌe, which suggests that the
clause following ꞌina is a main clause.
491
Note that ꞌina is not related to verb-like negators in other Polynesian languages (but see the
discussion on Mangarevan inau below). The latter either do not have a cognate in Rapa Nui or a
cognate with different status. For example, the negative verb ꞌikai in Tongan is related to the
negative particle kai in Rapa Nui.
4. The fact that ꞌina is almost invariably clause-initial can also be considered as an
argument against its verbal status. No verb is as consistently initial as ꞌina; even
auxiliary verbs like haꞌamata “begin” may be preceded by subjects and other
constituents. Rather, its obligatory initial position places ꞌina on a par with focus
elements like interrogatives (→ 10.3.2) and deictic particles (→ 4.5.4.1).
The main argument for analysing ꞌina as a matrix verb in a biclausal construction, is
that it attracts the subject: after ꞌina, the subject is usually preverbal. In this respect,
ꞌina constructions are similar to constructions with auxiliary verbs such as haꞌamata
“begin” (→ 11.3.2.1), and it may be tempting to analyse both along the same lines.
However, auxiliary verbs in Rapa Nui are not the only elements that trigger preverbal
subject placement. Subjects tend to be preverbal after a wide range of initial elements,
including adjuncts and deictic particles (→ 8.6.1.1; cf. fn. 418 on p. 387).
We may conclude that ꞌina is not a verb and that ꞌina constructions are monoclausal.
Even so, it should be noted that ꞌina is significantly different from other negators: ꞌina
is a phrase nucleus, while other negators are prenuclear particles. ꞌina forms a
constituent on its own, which may contain various postnuclear particles. This is
confirmed by the fact that second-position particles (which are placed after the first
constituent) occur immediately after ꞌina. Here is an example with paꞌi (→ 4.5.4.2):
(114) ꞌIna, paꞌi, a mātou kai māuiui ꞌi te
- rōviro.
NEG in_fact PROP 1PL.EXC NEG.PFV sick at ART smallpox
“In fact, we were not sick with smallpox.” (R539-1.680)
The fact that ꞌina is consistently initial, conforms to a general crosslinguistic tendency
for negative particles to come first (Dixon 2012:95). It may also be explained by the
possible origin of ꞌina. Unlike other negators in Rapa Nui, ꞌina is not widely found in
other Polynesian languages. The only plausible cognate I have found is Mangareven
inau.492 The latter is used both as independent negator “no” and as verb “to deny a
proposition; refuse” (Tregear 2009:24; Rensch 1991:83).
If ꞌina is indeed related to Mangarevan inau, this suggests that it originated as an
independent polarity item.493 This would confirm Clark’s (1976:104) suggestion that
ꞌina started out as reinforcement of another negator (“no, we will not go”). This
analysis would provide a historical explanation for the fact that ꞌina is always clause-
initial, and the fact that it is often accompanied by another negator.
492
inau may in turn be related to kinau, found in some languages in West-Polynesia in the sense
“to persist against something” (Pollex). In East-Futunan and East-Uvean, this verb has “to deny”
as one of its senses.
493
The verbal use in Mangarevan may be a secondary development, one which is not unexpected
given the great freedom of cross-categorial use in Polynesian languages.
10.5.3. The perfective negator kai

kai negates clauses in the perfective aspect.494 It precedes the verb and occurs in the
same position as aspectuals. As discussed in 10.5.1 above, it is often combined with
ꞌina, in which case the subject usually precedes the verb.
kai is used to negate events in narrative as in (115)–(116), and any past events as in
(117)–(119).495 If these clauses were positive, the former would be marked with he, the
latter with perfective i or – if the speaker wishes to emphasize their present relevance –
perfect ko – ꞌā.
(115) He hoki mai ki ꞌuta, kai iri ki te hakanonoŋa.
NTR return hither to inland NEG.PFV ascend to ART fishing_zone
“They returned inland, they did not go out to the hakanononga fishing zones.”
(Ley-6-43.031)
(116) Kai pāhono e Hotu i tū vānaŋa era ꞌa Tahoŋa.

NEG.PFV answer AG Hotu ACC DEM word of.A Tahonga
DIS
“Hotu did not reply to those words of Tahonga.” (R301.273)
(117) ¿He aha rā ia ꞌina hoꞌi koe kai kī mai?
what INTENS then NEG indeed 2SG NEG.PFV say hither
PRED
“Why then didn’t you tell me?” (R372.050)
(118) ¿ꞌIna koe kai ꞌāꞌati i te ꞌāꞌati era?
NEG 2SG NEG.PFV compete ACC ART contest DIS
“(talking about an event in the past:) Didn’t you compete in that contest?”
(R415.738)
(119) E nua, kai kī mai hoꞌi koe pē hē te tunu haŋa o te kai era
VOCMum NEG.PFV say hither indeed 2SG like CQ ART cook NMLZ of ART food DIS
“Mum, you didn’t tell me how to cook that food.” (R236.091)
kai is also used to negate stative verbs. In positive clauses, these verbs are commonly
marked with perfect aspect ko – ꞌā (→ 7.2.7.2).
(120) ꞌIna a au kai maruaki.
NEG PROP 1SG NEG.PFV hungry
“I am not hungry.” (R208.250)
494
The negator kai occurs in a few other Polynesian languages (Maori, Pukapuka, Tikopian) but
only as a negative imperative marker and/or in the sense “lest” (Pollex). More widespread are
reflexes of PPN *ꞌikai, which has various negative senses in all branches of Polynesian.
495
The latter point is illustrated somewhat more extensively, to show that kai does indeed negate
past tense clauses, the positive counterpart of which would have perfective i. In this respect my
analysis is different from Englert (1978:79), who claims that i-clauses are negated by taꞌe (an
analysis followed by Chapin (1978:158) and Stenson (1981:157)). In fact, taꞌe is not the default
negator of i, but is used to negate certain constructions with i and e (→ 10.5.6 below).
(121) ¡Ko haŋa ꞌā a au mo topa atu! ¡Kai haŋa a au mo oho!

PRFwant CONT PROP 1SG for descend away NEG.PFV want PROP 1SG for go
“I want to get off (the ship)! I don’t want to go!” (R210.106f)
(122) ꞌIna a au kai haŋa mo iri atu.
NEG PROP 1SG NEG.PFV want for ascend hither
“I don’t want to go up (to the hospital).” (R162.023)
In (117), (120) and (122), kai co-occurs with the neutral negator ꞌina. There is little or
no semantic or pragmatic difference between clauses with and without ꞌina, though he
examples with ꞌina may be slightly more emphatic than constructions with kai alone.
Just like any verb phrase, a verb phrase marked with kai may contain various kinds of
postverbal particles, such as directionals (mai in (117) and (119) above). When the
clause has perfect aspect, the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana may be added. This marker is
obligatory with the perfect marker ko and indicates continuity of a state (→ 7.2.5.5);
in combination with kai it indicates that the negative state still continues, i.e. that a
positive action has not yet taken place, or that a positive state has not yet been
reached.
(123) E ꞌitiꞌiti
- nō ꞌā a koe; kai ꞌite ꞌana e tahi meꞌe
IPFV small:RED just CONT PROP 2SG NEG.PFV know CONT NUM one thing
o te via taŋata.
of ART life person
“You are (still) little; you don’t know anything about human life (yet).”
(R210.052)
(124) ¿Kai ꞌara ꞌana ꞌō a nua era ko Kava,

NEG.PFV wake_up CONT really PROP Mum DIS PROM Kava
e taꞌe tuꞌu mai nei?
IPFV NEG.CONS arrive hither PROX
“Hasn’t mother Kava not woken up (yet), that she doesn’t come?” (R229.359)
10.5.4. The imperfective negator (e) ko

(e) ko496 is the imperfective negator. Like kai, it replaces the aspectual in front of the
verb. The first element e (tentatively glossed as imperfective) is almost always
496
The origin of ko is unclear. Pollex mentions a negative imperative form *kaua in Fijian and
Polynesian, which could have assimilated > *kō > ko. The semantic correspondence is tempting,
but the evidence for *kaua is not very strong; more common is ꞌaua, which occurs throughout
Polynesian and which could be at the root of Rapa Nui ꞌo “lest” (→ 11.5.4). Alternatively, ko
could be a shortening of kore, which is the main negator in verbal clauses in Central-Eastern
Polynesian languages (Clark 1976:100). This would explain the fact that e is a fixed part of the
negation in most contexts: in CE languages, kore fused with preceding aspectuals (esp. ka and e).
NB kore itself also occurs in Rapa Nui as a lexical negator (→ 10.5.7).
included, except in the imperative. Like kai, e ko it can be reinforced with ꞌina, which
triggers preverbal verb placement; compare (126) and (127) below.
e ko has the same range of use as imperfective e. Is is used in sentences expressing a
future event or intention:
(125) A koe, e Vai Ora ē, e ko ai taꞌa rua poki.
PROP2SG VOC Vai Ora VOC IPFV NEG.IPFV exist POSS.2SG.A two child
“You, Vai Ora, won’t have another child.” (R301.077)
(126) E ko ꞌavai e au e tahi taŋata i tāꞌaku poki.
IPFV NEG.IPFVgive AG 1SG NUM one person ACC POSS.1SG.A child
“I won’t give my child to anybody.” (R229.069)
(127) ꞌIna a au e ko ꞌavai atu ki a koe i a Puakiva.
NEG PROP 1SG IPFV NEG.IPFV give away to PROP 2SG ACC PROP Puakiva
“I won’t give Puakiva to you.” (R229.010)
It also negates habitual actions and general facts.

(128) ꞌIna a ꞌOrohe e ko hoa i tōꞌona taina ꞌitiꞌiti. -
NEG PROP Orohe IPFV NEG.IPFV abandon ACC POSS.3SG.O sibling small:RED
“(When they walk to school,) Orohe does not leave his little sister alone.”
(R166.005)
(129) Mo taꞌe eꞌa o te nuꞌu hī ika, e ko ai te ika mo kai.

if NEG.CONS go_out of ART people fish.V fish IPFV NEG.IPFV exist ART fish for eat
“If the fishermen don’t go out, there is no fish to eat.” (R334.261)
Finally, e ko negates stative verbs. This includes auxiliaries like puē, as in (132).
(130) E ko rivariva te
- kāiŋa, e ko nahonaho
- te noho oŋa.
IPFV NEG.IPFV
good:RED ART homeland IPFV NEG.IPFV comfortable ART stay NMLZ
“The land wasn’t good, life was not comfortable (up until now).” (R368.103)
(131) ¿E ko haŋa ꞌō koe mo ꞌori o tāua?
IPFV NEG.IPFV want really 2SG for dance of 1DU.INC
“Don’t you want to dance with me (lit. us to dance)?” (R315.115)
(132) E ko puē hoꞌi tāua mo hī ꞌi te kona nei.
IPFV NEG.IPFV
can indeed 1DU.INC for fish.V at ART place PROX
“We cannot fish in this place.” (R237.149)
10.5.5. Negation of the imperative

Negative commands are marked by the imperfective negator (e) ko, usually in
combination with ꞌina. While e is obligatory in other uses of the imperfective negator,
in imperatives it is often left out, as in (133) and (135) below. However, when ꞌina is
not included, as in (136), e is obligatory.
As with other uses of ꞌina, the subject – if expressed at all – tends to be placed before
the verb.
The following examples show, that (ꞌina) (e) ko negates both immediate commands
(marked with ka when positive → 10.2.1) and non-immediate commands (marked
with e when positive).
(133) Ka mou, ꞌina koe ko taŋi hakaꞌou.
IMP quiet NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV cry again
“Be quiet, don’t cry anymore.” (R229.343)
(134) E hāpaꞌo kōrua i a Puakiva. ꞌIna kōrua e ko tiŋaꞌi i a ia.
EXH care_for 2PL ACC PROP Puakiva NEG 2PL IPFV NEG.IPFV
strike ACC PROP 3SG
“You two take care of Puakiva. Don’t beat him.” (R229.420)
(135) ꞌIna ko pōŋeha ko makenu rahi takoꞌa.
NEG NEG.IPFV noise NEG.IPFV move much also
“Don’t make noise or move a lot.” (R210.171)
(136) E ko oho koe ki te rua hare.
IPFV NEG.IPFV go
2SG to ART other house
“Don’t go to another house.” (R310.016)
First and third person injunctions are negated in the same way. Notice that in (138)
below, the subject remains in postverbal position.
(137) ꞌIna a tātou ko eke ꞌi ruŋa i te tumu era.
NEG PROP 1PL.INC NEG.IPFV go_up at above at ART tree DIS
“Let’s not climb that tree.” (R481.044)
(138) ꞌIna ko tuꞌu hakaꞌou ꞌi te hora era e tahi taŋata.
NEG NEG.IPFV arrive again at ART time DIS NUM one person
“(When he was in mourning), at that time nobody could go to his house
anymore.” (R310.160)
10.5.6. The constituent negator taꞌe

taꞌe has a wide range of uses, all of which can be characterised as constituent negation:
taꞌe is used whenever something other than a main clause is negated, i.e. a subordinate
clause or a constituent of a clause.497 Besides, taꞌe is used to negate the predicate of
certain types of nonverbal clauses.
497
Cognates of taꞌe are widespread; they occur in most Samoic-Outlier languages, as well as in
Tongan and a number of CE languages (Maori, Marquesan, Mangarevan). The glottal only occurs
in those languages that preserved the PPN glottal, such as Tongan and Rapa Nui. The initial
vowel was assimilated to e in all languages except Tongan and Rapa Nui, and in most Samoic-
Outlier the initial consonant changed to s- (or a reflex of *s-) or l-. As a result, the current form is
see, hee or lee in most SO languages, and tee in CE languages. Clark (1976:85ff) argues for *taꞌe as
the PPN form. This had probably assimilated to *teꞌe in PNP (see also Hamp 1977); the question
remains whether Rapa Nui taꞌe should be explained as subsequent dissimilation, or whether *taꞌe
survived alongside *teꞌe in PNP (Clark 1976:87).
In SO languages, reflexes of *taꞌe are the unmarked negator. In Mangarevan as well, tē seems to
be a main clause negator (Janeau 1908:78; examples are found in Pupu-takao 1908, e.g. Mark
1. taꞌe negates noun phrases which are the predicate of a nonverbal clause. This may
be a classifying clause with a he-marked predicate (→ 9.2.1) as in (139),498 or an
identifying clause with a ko-marked predicate (→ 9.2.2) as in (140).
(139) Taꞌe he mōrore te poki nei, ꞌāꞌau mau te poki nei.
NEG.CONS PRED bastard ART child PROX POSS.2SG.A really ART child PROX
“This child is not a bastard, the child is your own.” (Ley-2-07.027)
(140) Taꞌe ko Reŋa Roiti taꞌa meꞌe ena.
NEG.CONS PROM Renga Roiti POSS.2SG.A thing MED
“That one (lit. “your thing”) is not Renga Roiti.” (Ley-9-56.092)
taꞌe does not negate nouns as such: nouns are negated with kore (→ 10.5.7).
2. taꞌe negates other phrases: prepositional phrases serving as arguments in a verbal

clause as in (141)–(142) (in the latter, the preposition is the accusative marker i),
prepositional predicates as in (143), possessive predicates as in (144):
(141) ¡Taꞌe hoꞌi ki a koe a au i vānaŋa atu ai!
NEG.CONS indeed to PROP 2S 1SG PFV talk
PROP away PVP
“It wasn’t to you I was talking!” (R315.135)
(142) ...mahana vaꞌai era i te mauku, taꞌe i te henua
day give DIS ACC ART grass NEG.CONS ACC ART land
“the day when (king Atamu Tekena) gave the vegetation (to the Chileans),
(but) not the land” (R649.172)
(143) Tōꞌoku hare taꞌe a te ara ko Tuꞌu Kōihu.
POSS.1SG.O
house NEG.CONS by ART road PROM Tu’u Koihu
“My house is not by the road Tu’u Koihu.” (Notes)
(144) Te hare nei, taꞌe ōꞌoku.
ART house PROX NEG.CONS POSS.1SG.O
“This house is not mine.” (R229.268)
3. taꞌe negates nominalised verbs:

(145) Kai puē takoꞌa a ia mo hāpī ꞌo te taꞌe rava
NEG.PFV can also PROP 3SG for learn because_of ART NEG.CONS sufficient
4:40 Tē kereto ana noti ra kotou? “Do you still not believe?”). In Marquesan, on the other hand, tē
is a preverbal modifier (Mutu & Teìkitutoua 2002:52).
498
There is a difference between:
(i) Taꞌe he taŋata “It is not a man” (classifying)
(ii) ꞌIna he taŋata “There is no man” (existential → (102) in 10.5.1)
o te moni.
of ART money
“He could not study as well (like his brother), because there was not enough
money (lit. because of the not sufficient of the money).” (R231.006)
(146) ¿Ko takeꞌa ꞌā e koe tuꞌu taꞌe hakaroŋo ena?
PRF see CONT AG 2SG POSS.2SG.O NEG.CONS listen MED
“Do you see how disobedient you were (lit. your not listening)?” (R481.117)
4. taꞌe negates subconstituents, such as adjectives (147) and quantifiers (148) in the
noun phrase.
(147) A Hiero poki taꞌe porio ni taꞌe pāpaku.
PROP Hiero child NEG.CONS fatnor NEG.CONS thin
“Hiero was neither a fat nor a skinny child.” (R315.020)
(148) Hora nei taꞌe taꞌatoꞌa taŋata ꞌite o ruŋa.
time PROX NEG.CONS all person know of above
“Nowadays, not all people know about it.” (R647.206)
5. taꞌe also occurs in the verb phrase. It negates subordinate clauses introduced by a
subordinating marker. These markers are in the same position as aspectuals (→ 11.5);
taꞌe occurs between the marker and the verb. Below are examples with mo “to, in order
to” and ana “irrealis”:
(149) ꞌE ꞌina he puē mo taꞌe uꞌi atu.
and NEG NTR can for NEG.CONS look away
“And I’m not able not to look at you.” (R308.023)
(150) Ana taꞌe hāꞌaki mai koe, he tiŋaꞌi mātou i a koe.
IRR NEG.CONS
inform hither 2SG NTR kill 1PL.EXC ACC PROP 2SG
“If you don’t tell us, we will kill you.” (Mtx-7-21.030)
6. taꞌe also negates subordinate clauses without subordinating marker. In these cases,
taꞌe co-occurs with an aspect marker, usually i or e. As in the examples above, taꞌe
occurs between the marker and the verb. Below are examples of relative clauses (151)–
(152) (the second without aspectual), a temporal clause (153), and the conjunction
ꞌāhani (154).
(151) Te vānaŋa rapa nui taꞌe he meꞌe [e taꞌe haŋa rō ꞌā e au].
ART word
Rapa Nui NEG.CONS PRED thing IPFV NEG.CONS like EMPH CONT AG 1SG
“The Rapa Nui language is not something I don’t like.” (R648.251)
(152) A Julio taŋata [taꞌe ꞌite i te haka tere i te vaka].
PROP Julio person NEG.CONS know ACC ART CAUS run ACC ART boat
“Julio is a man who does not know how to navigate a boat.” (R303.151)
(153) I taꞌe kore era tuꞌu tokerau era he manaꞌu mo haka tītika -
PFV NEG.CONS lack DIS POSS.2SG.O wind DIS NTR think for CAUS straight
i te vaka ki Tahiti.
ACC ART boat to Tahiti
“When the wind did not die down, they decided to steer the boat to Tahiti.”
(R303.064)
(154) ꞌĀhani ꞌō tōꞌoku nua era i taꞌe mate, ꞌī au

if_only really POSS.1SG.O Mum DIS PFV NEG.CONS die IMM 1SG
ꞌi muri i a ia ꞌi te hora nei.
at near in PROP 3SG in ART time PROX
“If my mother had not died, I would be near her at this time.” (R245.007)
7. Interestingly, taꞌe also occurs in the verb phrase in main clauses, mainly with i and
e. This happens when the verb phrase is preceded by an oblique constituent. As
suggested in fn. 418 on p. 387, this preposed constituent acts somewhat like a
subordinating predicate.
(155) [Hai ꞌarero], paꞌi, e taꞌe ŋaro ena te haka tere iŋa
INST tongue in_fact IPFV NEG.CONS lost MED ART CAUS run NMLZ
o te motu nei.
of ART island PROX
“By means of the language, the culture of this island will not be lost.”
(R647.155)
(156) [ꞌO ira] paꞌi i taꞌe maꞌu ai hai meꞌe mo kai.

because_of PRO in_fact PFV NEG.CONS carry PVP INST thing for eat
“Therefore they didn’t take anything to eat.” (R303.053)
(157) [Mai rā mahana] i taꞌe aŋa hakaꞌou ai.
from DIS day PFV NEG.CONS work again PVP
“From that day on, she did not work any more.” (R441.005)
(158) ¿[He aha] e taꞌe aŋa rivariva ena i
- te rāua aŋa?
PRED what IPFV NEG.CONS do good MED ACC ART 3PL work
“Why don’t they do their work well?” (R648.249)
However, in such cases, main clause negators are also used. This is illustrated in (117)
above and in the following example:
(159) ꞌO ira, ꞌina e ko ŋaro te kaikai.
-
because_of PRO NEG IPFV NEG.IPFV lost ART string_figure

“Therefore, the (art of making) string figures will not be lost.” (R648.133)
8. Finally, taꞌe is used in combination with the other negators to express double
negation; taꞌe and the other negator cancel each other out, resulting in a strong
affirmation. The other negator may be kai or e ko; as (161) shows, it may be reinforced
by ꞌina.
(160) Kai taꞌe haka ꞌite ko ai a ia hai meꞌe rivariva aŋa.

-
NEG.PFV NEG.CONS CAUS know PROM who PROP 3SG INST thing good:RED do
“(God) did not fail to make known who he is, by the good things he did.” (Acts
14:17)
(161) ...ꞌina e ko taꞌe ravaꞌa te ika.

NEG IPFV NEG.IPFV NEG.CONS obtain ART fish
“(If the mother does not eat the fish caught by her firstborn son,) he will not
fail to catch fish.” (Ley-5-27.008)
10.5.7. The negator kore

kore499 is a verb, meaning “to lack, be absent, be gone”:
(162) E ko kore te ꞌura era mā nīrā.
IPFV NEG.IPFV lack ART lobster DIS for today.FUT
“The lobster won’t be lacking (=we will have plenty of lobster) for today.”
(R230.033)
(163) He uꞌi, ku kore ꞌā te taŋi.

NTR look PRF lack CONT ART cry
“He looked (at his wife); the crying was over.” (Ley-9-55.076)
Besides, kore is used to negate nouns, indicating that the entity expressed by the noun
does not exist in the given context; as a noun negator it immediately follows the noun
in adjective position. When the noun is a modifier as in (164), kore can be translated as
“without N”; in other cases as in (165)–(166), it can be translated as “lack of N”:
(164) Te ŋā poki matuꞌa kore era o koā Eugenio te hāpaꞌo.
ART PL child parent lack DIS of COLL Eugenio ART care_for
“Children without parents, Eugenio and the others took care of them.”
(R231.308)
(165) Te ꞌati he matariki kore mo oro o rā hora.

ART problem PRED file lack for grate of DIS time
“The problem was the lack of files to sharpen (the fishhooks) at the time.”
(R539-1.335)
(166) Ko pakiroki ꞌā te taŋata ꞌi te kai kore.

PRF thin CONT ART person at ART food lack
“The people were skinny from lack of food.” (R372.025)
499
kore is common in EP languages; in all languages but Rapa Nui, it is either an existential
negation (“there is not”), or negates certain types of verbal clauses. In Rapa Nui, existential
clauses are negated with ꞌina (→ 10.5.1). kore has the more specific sense “to be lacking”. It does
not occur in non-EP languages; outside Polynesian, Clark (1976:98) mentions a verb ore in Saꞌa
(Solomon Islands) “to remain behind” and Lau (Fiji) “to fail, lack”. This may suggest that kore
originated as a verb meaning “to lack” and developed into something more like a negator in PCE
(Clark 1976:101f).
10.5.8. hia/ia “not yet”

hia (etymology unknown) is used after negated verbs; the sense of the negator + hia is
“not yet”. hia occurs immediately after the verb, before directionals:
(167) ¡Kai topa hia atu ꞌō tāꞌaku vānaŋa koe i pāhono rō mai ai!
NEG.PFV descend yet away really POSS.1SG.A word
2SG PFV answer EMPH hither PVP
“I hadn’t finished speaking yet when you answered!” (R314.139)
hia may occur with any negator: kai as in (167) above, e ko (168) or taꞌe (169):
(168) E ko ꞌoꞌoa hia te moa ka kī ena e koe e toru kī iŋa
IPFV NEG.IPFV crow yet ART chicken CNTG say MED AG 2SG NUM three say NMLZ
kai ꞌite koe ko ai a au.
NEG.PFV know 2SG PROM who PROP 1SG
“Before the rooster crows, you will say three times that you don’t know who I
am.” (Jhn. 13:38)
(169) He ꞌaꞌamu, mata taꞌe ꞌite hia pē nei ē: he tahutahu.
-
NTR tell while NEG.CONS know yet like PROX thus PRED witch
“She told it, without knowing yet that (the other person) was a witch.” (R532-
07.044)
As (167)–(168) show, hia is often used when an action or event is interrupted by

another event. In these cases, the function of the negator + hia is similar to a temporal
marker “before”.
Sometimes the variant ia is found. This should not be confused with the sentential
particle ia “then” (→ 4.5.4.1): while the latter occurs after the verb phrase, ia “yet”
occurs before other postverbal particles:
(170) Kai tomo ia mai ꞌā ꞌi te ahiahi
- i ꞌite tahi rō ai
NEG.PFV go_ashore yet hither CONT at ART afternoon PFV know all EMPH PVP
te ꞌuta i tū parau ꞌāpī era.

ART inland ACC DEM word new DIS
“They had not arrived yet in the afternoon when all people ashore knew the
news.” (R345.015)
10.6. Conclusions
In this chapter, non-declarative moods have been discussed, as well as negation.

Two aspect markers serve to mark imperatives: the contiguity marker ka is used for
direct commands, imperfective e for indirect commands. Though imperatives usually
occur in the second person (often with explicit subject), they may occur in the third
person as well. For first-person injunctions (e.g. exhortations), the purpose marker ki is
used.
Polar questions usually do not have any special marking. Sometimes they are marked
with the question marker hoki; in addition, the particles ꞌō and hō may be used to add
a note of counterexpectation or doubt, respectively.
Content questions are marked by four question words, each of which belongs to a
different word class:
• ai “who” is a proper noun; it is often used in an identifying cleft construction,
preceded by the default preposition ko;
• aha “what” is a common noun; it is often used in a classifying cleft
construction, preceded by the predicate marker he;
• hē “where, when, how, which” is a locational; it is preceded by a preposition,
without a determiner;
• hia “how many” is a numeral; it is preceded by a numeral particle.
Rapa Nui has three main clause negators: neutral ꞌina, perfective kai and imperfective
(e) ko. ꞌina is a phrase head; it may seem to have some properties of a predicate (e.g.
triggering subject raising), but the same is true for a number of other clause-initial
elements, such as deictic particles, while ꞌina lacks crucial features of a predicate.
The other two negators are preverbal markers; they are often combined with ꞌina.
All units other than main clauses are negated by taꞌe: noun phrases, nominalised verbs,
subconstituents and subordinate clauses. taꞌe is also used to negate certain types of
main clauses: those which have an e- or i-marked verb, preceded by an initial oblique
constituent. This suggests that these clauses have some features of subordinate clauses:
the initial oblique functions as a kind of matrix predicate (→ fn. 418 on p. 387).
11. Combining clauses
11.1. Introduction
Clauses can be combined in several ways. Two or more main clauses can be linked by
juxtaposition or by using a coordinating conjunction (11.2). Alternatively, one clause
may contain another as subordinate clause: various categories of verbs take a clausal
complement (11.3); nouns may be modified by a relative clause (11.4); adverbial
clauses serve as an adjunct in a main clause (11.6).
In Rapa Nui, different strategies are used to combine clauses, depending on the type of
clause. Some constructions have a conjunction, others have a preverbal subordinating
marker, others yet are unmarked.500 Conjunctions only occur in certain types of
adverbial clauses and will be discussed in the appropriate subsections of 11.6.
Preverbal markers cut through the distinction between types of subordinate clauses,
therefore they are discussed separately in 11.5.
11.2. Coordination
11.2.1. Asyndetic and syndetic coordination

Old Rapa Nui did not have a coordinating conjunction. Both phrases and clauses were
linked by simple juxtaposition (i.e. asyndetic coordination, see Haspelmath 2007:7).
(1) shows juxtaposed clauses, while (2) contains a string of juxtaposed noun phrases.
(1) He oho a te ara, he tikeꞌa te kohe; he rei hai vaꞌe, he hati te kohe...
NTR go by ART road NTR see ART kohe NTR step INST foot NTR break ART kohe
“He went along the road, he saw a kohe plant; he stepped on it, the kohe
broke...” (Ley-2-01.018)
(2) He māmate te
- taŋata, te viꞌe, te poki, te korohuꞌa.
NTR PL:die ART man woman ART child ART old_man
ART
“Men, women, children, old people died.” (Ley-2-01.010)
Sometimes the adverbs takoꞌa and hoki “also” (→ 4.5.3.2–4.5.3.3) are used to link
clauses or phrases. In (3), two clauses with similar information about different
participants are linked with takoꞌa. In (4), the last item in a list of noun phrases is
marked with hoki. The latter happens only in older texts.
(3) He toꞌo Hereveri i tōꞌona o te tītaꞌa henua, he toꞌo takoꞌa
NTR take Hereveri ACC POSS.3SG.O of ART terrain land NTR take also
500
The latter can be recognised as subordinate clauses by the use of the negator taꞌe (→ (210) on
p. 535).
Te Roŋo i tōꞌona o te tītaꞌa.

Te Rongo ACC POSS.3SG.O of ART terrain
“Hereveri took his piece of land; Te Rongo took his piece of land as well.” (Egt-
02.045)
(4) ꞌI te tapa te matuꞌa, a koro, a nua, te uka riva,

at ART side ART parents PROP Dad PROP Mum PROP girl good
te repa riva hoki.
PROP young_man good also
“To the side are the parents, the fathers, the mothers, the pretty girls, also the
handsome boys.” (Ley-5-24.013)
In modern Rapa Nui, the conjunction ꞌe “and” (probably a Tahitian borrowing501) is

used to link clauses and phrases; it occurs in clause- and phrase-initial position.
In old texts ꞌe is found a few times in Mtx, but not in other corpora (Ley and MsE); this
suggests that ꞌe was emerging in the 1930s. In newer texts, it occurs over 3,000 times;
this can no doubt be (partially) explained by changing speaking and writing styles
under the influence of Spanish and other foreign languages.
Even though ꞌe is very common nowadays, the most common strategy for linking
clauses is still juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is especially used to link clauses referring
to successive events in discourse. For example, in narrative, sequences such as the
following are common:
(5) He tahuti a Eva ki haho, he oŋa ki te vaka, he takeꞌa tōꞌona koro.
NTR run PROP Eva to outside NTR look to ART boatsee POSS.3SG.O Dad
NTR
“Eva ran outside, stared at the boat, saw her Dad.” (R210.095)
In other situations, the conjunction ꞌe tends to be used. ꞌe is common in the following

situations (the list is not exhaustive, and neither are these categories mutually
exclusive):
— To mark the final event in a series of three or more events:
(6) Ka oho nō koe ka kai ꞌe ka haꞌuru.
IMP gojust 2SG IMP eat and IMP sleep
“Just go, eat and sleep.” (R304.013)
(7) He eꞌa hakaꞌou a Manutara mai tou hare era he oho ꞌe he tuꞌu
NTR go_out again PROP Manutara from DEM house DIS NTR go and NTR arrive
501
Concerning the origin of ꞌe in Tahitian: although it is phonologically identical to French “et”,
the fact that ꞌe is already common in the Tahitian Bible translation (Te Bibilia 1996 [1838])
indicates that it predates French influence. A similar conjunction (spelled e, ꞌe or ē) occurs in
Paꞌumotu, Rarotongan and Mangarevan, but not in Marquesan and Maori.
Chapter 11: Combining clauses 493
ki te hare o tōꞌona rua taina ko ꞌAntonio.

to ART house of POSS.3SG.O two brother PROM Antonio
“Manutara went out again from the house, he went and arrived at the house of
his other brother Antonio.” (R309.083)
— To link a pair of clauses not referring to successive events; these clauses are often
parallel in some way and may involve a contrast between two items:
(8) Te ꞌāriŋa he taŋata mau ena, ꞌe te hakari he kavakava. -
ART face PRED person really MED and ART body NTR rib
“Their faces were like (normal) people, but their bodies were ribs.” (R233.021)
hour four and hour seven 1PL.INC CNTG arrive just_then
PROX
“It is now four o’clock, and seven o’clock we will arrive.” (R210.198)
— To link subordinate clauses:

(10) He hoki koe mo haka mao i tuꞌu hāpī ꞌe mo haka tītika
-
NTR return 1SG for CAUS finish ACC POSS.2SG.O learn and for CAUS straight
te aŋa o te misione.
ART work of ART mission
“You will return to finish your studies and to direct the mission work.”
(R231.244)
— To indicate a larger break in a sentence. This often involves a shift to a different

type of information (indicated by a different aspect marker) or a shift in subject:
(11) E maꞌu mai ꞌā a mātou i te rēkaro nei māꞌau,
IPFV carry hither CONT PROP 1PL.EXC ACC ART present PROX BEN.2SG.A
ꞌe ꞌi te hora nei he oho tātou he koa.
and at ART time PROX NTR go 1PL.INC NTR happy
“We (excl.) bring this present for you, and now we (incl.) will go and have
fun.” (R210.127)
(12) He noho rō ꞌai a nua he uꞌi i te ŋā poki,
NTR stay EMPH SUBS PROP Mum NTR look ACC ART PL child
ꞌe hoko tahi nō a koro e iri era ki ꞌuta.
and NUM.PERS one just PROP Dad IPFV ascend hither to inland
“Mum stayed and looked after the children, and Dad went up to the field on
his own.” (R235.080)
When two clauses are both under the scope of a single initial constituent, they are
usually juxtaposed without conjunction and without repetition of the initial
constituent. Examples are ꞌo ira “therefore” in (13) and the interrogative phrase in
(14). As (14) also shows, verb phrase particles – both the aspectual and the negator
taꞌe – are repeated in the second clause.
(13) ꞌE ꞌo ira a mātou i tuꞌu mai nei i ꞌauario nei
and because_of PRO PROP 1PL.EXC PFV arrive hither PROX PFV guard PROX
i te mōai nei.
ACC ART statue PROX
“And therefore we have come and put this statue under guard.” (R650.034)
(14) ¿He aha rā ia kōrua i taꞌe oho mai ai
PRED what INTENS then 2PL PFV NEG.CONS go hither PVP
i taꞌe hāꞌaki mai ai...?
PFV NEG.CONS inform hither PVP
“Why didn’t you come and tell me...?” (R313.106)
When two noun phrases are coordinated in modern Rapa Nui, they are usually linked
with ꞌe. When the list is longer than two as in (16), ꞌe occurs only before the last item;
the other items are juxtaposed:
(15) ꞌE takoꞌa e ai rō ꞌana te tenito ꞌe te europeo noho ꞌi Tahiti.
and also exist EMPH CONT ART Chinese and ART European stay at Tahiti
IPFV
“And there are also Chinese and Europeans living on Tahiti.” (R348.011)
(16) He marere he oho rō ꞌai te pipihoreko, te manavai
NTR scatter NTR go EMPH SUBS ART cairn ART rock_garden
ꞌe te hare moa.
and ART house chicken
“The rock piles, the rock gardens and the chicken houses gradually fell apart.”
(R621.018)
When noun phrases marked with prepositions are coordinated, the preposition is
repeated, including the accusative marker i; the last item may be preceded by ꞌe as in
(17)–(18), but juxtaposition is also common, as in (19)–(20):
(17) ꞌI roto i te piha nei a kōrua ka hāpī ena i te taiꞌo
at inside at ART room PROX PROP 2PL CNTG learn MED ACC ART read
ꞌe i te pāpaꞌi.
and ACC ART write
“In this (class)room you will learn to read and to write.” (R334.043)
(18) ꞌI roto i te māhatu o tāꞌana viꞌe ꞌe o tāꞌana ŋā poki...
at inside at ART heart of POSS.3SG.A woman and of POSS.3SG.A PL child
“In the heart of his wife and of his children...” (R649.087)
(19) Kā ŋā poki he maꞌu i te keke, i te haraoa, i te meꞌe.
every PL child NTR carry ACC ART cake ACC ART bread thing ACC ART
“All the children carried cakes, bread and (other) things.” (R165.001)
(20) He hiro i te hau mo hī o te kahi o te ika.
NTR braid ACC ART line for fish.V of ART tuna of ART fish
“He braided lines for fishing tuna (and) (other) fish.” (R310.020)
In modern Rapa Nui, Spanish pero “but” is often used as adversative conjunction:
(21) He maꞌu mai he tunu i te māmoe pero kai mākona tū nuꞌu era.
NTR carry hither NTR cook ACC ART sheep but NEG.PFV satiated DEM people DIS
“He carried the sheep and cooked it, but the people were not satiated.”
(R183.033)
Despite its frequent use, pero is perceived as an intrusion, as witnessed by the fact that
it is little used in the written texts in the corpus. In the Bible translation, it is not used
at all. As (8) above shows, ꞌe is also used in situations where other languages would
have an adversative conjunction.
11.2.2. Disjunction
In old texts, disjunction is expressed by juxtaposition:
(22) He tia i te nua hai ivi manu, ivi moa, ivi taŋata.
NTR sew ACC ART cape with bone bird bone chicken bone man
“(The women of old) sewed capes with (needles made of) bird bones, chicken
bones (or) human bones.” (Ley-5-04.013)
In modern Rapa Nui, disjunction is expressed by ꞌo “or”,502 a conjunction borrowed

from Spanish “o”. ꞌo may connect clauses as in (23)–(24) or phrases as in (25):
(23) Te ŋā kai ꞌāpī raꞌe era ana momore, ana paꞌo, ꞌo ana keri, e
- maꞌu
NTR PL food new first DIS IRR RED:cut IRR chop or IRR dig IPFV carry
to te hare pure ꞌi raꞌe.
ART:of ART house pray at first
“The first new food which would be picked, cut or dug up, had to be taken to
the church first.” (R539-3.150)
(24) ...he oho ꞌo he hāpī ꞌo he eꞌa he haꞌere ꞌo he oho ki kampō.
NTR go or NTR learn or NTR go_out NTR walk or NTR go to countryside
“(When his work was finished,) he would go or study or go out for a walk or
go to the countryside.” (R302.051)
(25) He ꞌaiua i te aŋa ki a nua ꞌo ki a koro.
NTR help ACC ART work to PROP Mum or to PROP Dad
“They help Mum or Dad with the work.” (R157.001)
Unlike ꞌe “and”, ꞌo may also connect nouns; in that case, the parts on either side of ꞌo
are not complete noun phrases. In the following examples, ꞌo is directly followed by
the second noun; prenominal elements, such as determiners and the plural marker ŋā
in (26), precede the first noun, while the postnominal demonstrative era follows the
second noun:
502
This particle should not be confused with preverbal ꞌo “lest” (→ 11.5.4), or with the
preposition ꞌo “because of” (→ 4.7.2.2).
(26) ...ꞌi [te ŋā tāpati ꞌo ꞌāvaꞌe era] e noho era ꞌi tahatai.

at ART PL week or month DIS stay
at coast
IPFV DIS
“...in the weeks or months they stay on the coast.” (R200.047)
(27) E maꞌu takoꞌa koe i [te meꞌe pūtē ꞌo ꞌavahata] mo haꞌaꞌī
EXH carry also 2SG ACC ART thing bag or box for fill
o taꞌa siera.
of POSS.2SG.A sawfish
“Also bring a bag or box to put your sawfish in.” (R364.031)
11.3. Clausal arguments
This section deals with verbs which take a clausal argument, i.e. an argument
containing a predicate. This includes a number of different types of verbs: perception
verbs such as tikeꞌa “to see”; aspectual verbs such as haꞌamata “to begin”; cognitive
verbs such as ꞌite “to know”; speech verbs such as kī “to say”, attitude verbs such as
haŋa “to want”; modal verbs such as puē “can”. These verbs occur in a variety of
multiclausal constructions:
1. complement clauses introduced by a subordinating marker (usually mo):
(28) He oho ia a Kihi [mo taŋi].
NTR gothen PROP Kihi for cry
“Kihi was about to cry.” (R215.024)
2. nominalised complement clauses, in which the verb is introduced by the article te; it
may be preceded by the DO marker i, as in the following example:
(29) ꞌO ira i taꞌe hōrou ai [i te varaꞌa i te taŋata o ruŋa].
because_of PRO PFV NEG.CONS quick PVP ACC ART obtain ACC ART person of above
“Therefore, they didn’t catch the people on top (of the islet) quickly.”
(R304.048)
3. asyndetic coordination:
(30) He haꞌamata te pereteꞌi [he hīmene].
NTR begin ART cricket NTR sing
“The cricket started to sing.” (R212.052)
4. independent clauses:
(31) He uꞌi atu, [ka pū te manu taiko].
Which strategy is used, depends on the type of matrix verb. Only 1 and 2 involve a
proper complement, that is, a constituent which is syntactically an argument of the
matrix verb. For lack of a better term, constructions of types 3 and 4 will sometimes be
referred to as “complement” or “complement clause” in the following sections, but one
should bear in mind that this does not imply that they are syntactically a complement
of the verb.
Types 3 and 4 are quite similar; in fact, 3 is a subset of 4, with the following two
restrictions:
• Asyndetically coordinated clauses generally have identical aspect marking; in
strategy 4, the aspect marking of the complement clause is independent from
that of the main clause.
• While independent clauses may be separated from the matrix clause by
markers such as pē nei ē “like this, as follows” (see e.g. (65) below), this is not
possible in asyndetically coordinated clauses.
Despite their similarities, types 3 and 4 should be distinguished, as they occur with
different (categories of) verbs.
In addition to these four strategies, the same matrix verbs may also have a involve
monoclausal constructions: nominal arguments and serial verbs. An example of a serial
verb construction is the following:
(32) ꞌO ira i hōrou i oho mai era ꞌi tū mahana era.
because_of PRO PFV quick PFV go hither DIS at DEM day DIS
“Therefore he went quickly that day.” (R105.108)
In the following subsections, the different categories of verbs mentioned abode will be
discussed in turn. In section 11.3.7, the use of these different strategies will be
summarised.
11.3.1. Perception verbs

Perception verbs like uꞌi “to see, watch”, hakaroŋo “to listen” and ŋaroꞌa “to hear” can
be followed by a nominal complement (→ 8.6.4.2 sub 1), or by a clause which is
syntactically independent of the perception verb (strategy 5). The latter will be
discussed in the following subsections.
11.3.1.1. Use of aspectuals

When a perception verb is followed by a clause describing the perceived event, the
range of aspect markers in this clause is limited: ka, ko – ꞌā and e are used, while i and
he do not occur. The absence of perfective i is not surprising: events which are over
and done with, are usually not the object of perception. The absence of neutral he is
not unexpected either: he is not able to provide the necessary temporal/aspectual link
between the two clauses.
When the clause expresses an activity or event which is perceived while it is

happening, it is often marked with the contiguity marker ka. ka (→ 7.2.6) expresses
simultaneity between the event of perception and the event which is perceived: both
take place at the same time.
(33) He uꞌi atu, ka pū te manu taiko.

(34) He hakaroŋo mai Kaiŋa, ka ꞌui Vaha: ‘¿Ko ai koe?’
NTR listen hither Kainga CNTG ask Vaha
who 2SG PROM
“Kainga heard Vaha asking: ‘Who are you?’” (Mtx-3-01.127)
When the clause expresses a state of affairs which is perceived, it is marked with the
perfect aspect ko – ꞌā (→ 7.2.7). This state of affairs may be the result of an event
which has taken place before; what is seen is not the event itself but a situation from
which the event can be inferred.
The ko-marked complement is often a stative verb or a time noun like pō “night”; the
perfect aspect expresses that this state has come about in some way, without specifying
how. In (35) it is night because it has become night, and the ship is far from Rapa Nui
because it has been moving further and further away.
(35) He uꞌi atu ko pō ꞌā, ꞌe ko roaroa- ꞌana te pahī mai Rapa Nui.
NTR look away PRF night CONT and PRF distant:RED CONT ART ship from Rapa Nui
“She saw that it was night, and that the ship was far from Rapa Nui.”
(R210.116)
The third aspectual used after verbs of perception is imperfective e, usually followed
by the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana. While ko – ꞌā indicates a state which has come about,
e – ꞌā underlines the continuous nature of a situation, without implying the process by
which it has come about (→ 7.2.5.4 on e – ꞌā).
(36) ꞌĪ ka uꞌi atu ena ko te repa ꞌi roto e moe rō ꞌā.
IMM CNTG look away MED PROM ART young_man at inside IPFV lie EMPH CONT
“Right then she saw a young man inside, lying down.” (R310.045)
(37) He uꞌi atu e huri rō ꞌā te ꞌāriŋa o Heru a ruŋa.
NTR look away IPFV turn EMPH CONT ART face of Heru by above
“They saw that Heru was lying face up.” (R313.043)
11.3.1.2. NP + clause
Often a perception verb is followed first by an object NP expressing the person or thing
which is perceived, then a clause specifying what happens to this referent (cf. English
“he saw someone coming”). The object NP in this construction may be marked in
several ways: with the accusative marker i as in (38)–(39), but also with the topic
marker ko as in (40)–(41) (→ 8.6.4.5 sub 3). The verb in the complement clause is
often marked with ka.
(38) He uꞌi i tū kahu era ōꞌona ko momore tahi ꞌā.
-
NTR look ACC DEM clothes DIS POSS.3SG.O PRF RED:cut all CONT
“He saw that those clothes of his were all torn.” (R250.017)

NTR see Hoto Vari CNTG approach hither
ACC PROP
“He saw Hoto Vari approaching.” (R304.004)
(40) E haꞌuru nō ꞌā a Eva he hakaroŋo atu ko te reꞌo ka raŋi...
IPFV sleep just CONT PROP Eva NTR listen
away PROM ART voice CNTG call
“When Eva was sleeping, she heard a voice calling...” (R210.180)
(41) ꞌĪ ka uꞌi mai nei ko te kioꞌe e rua ka oꞌo ka oho atu.
IMM CNTG see hither PROX PROM ART rat two CNTG enter CNTG go away
NUM
“There he sees two rats making their way in (lit. entering going).” (R310.459)
How should these constructions be analysed? At first sight, the complement clause in
(38)–(41) can be considered as a relative clause to the object. One argument against
this is the function of the aspect marker: whereas relative clauses marked with ka
usually express an event posterior to that in the surrounding clause(s) (→ 11.4.3), in
these examples the ka-marked clauses express an event simultaneous to the perception
event of the matrix clause. Moreover, as (39) shows, the clause may follow a proper
noun, even though proper nouns normally do not take relative clauses.
A second possibility would be to regard the object NP and the complement clause as
two complements of the perception verb. This would mean that perception verbs,
which normally take one complement, take two complements in this construction.
Such an analysis would only be plausible if these arguments fulfilled different semantic
roles. However, the noun phrase and the clause do not express different semantic roles
connected to the action; neither do they express two instances of the same semantic
role (*“I saw him and coming”); rather, they are two aspects of a single semantic role:
the nominal complement refers to the perceived referent, while the clause expresses an
action which is not only performed by that entity, but also part of the same perceived
situation.
Therefore it seems more plausible to consider the nominal complement and the
complement clause as a single constituent. The fact that the noun phrase can be
marked with ko (which is the default case marker in the absence of other markers) is
an argument for this analysis. Constructions (38)–(39) suggest that this noun phrase
can be raised to the object position of the matrix verb.
11.3.2. Aspectual and manner verbs

11.3.2.1. haꞌamata “begin”
haꞌamata “begin” is usually followed by a clause expressing the event which begins. In
most cases this clause is juxtaposed, with the same verb marking as haꞌamata. Thus,
both verbs may be marked with neutral he as in (42), perfective i as in (43), or perfect
ko – ꞌā as in (44):
(42) He haꞌamata te pereteꞌi he hīmene.
NTR begin ART cricket NTR sing
“The cricket started to sing.” (R212.052)
(43) Pē ira i haꞌamata ai te tūrita i tuꞌu mai ai ki nei.

like PRO PFV begin tourist PFV arrive hither PVP to PROX
PVP ART
“In that way, the tourists started to arrive here.” (R376.076)
(44) ꞌI tū hora era ko haꞌamata atu ꞌana tū ꞌua era ko hoa ꞌā.
at DEM time DIS PRF begin away CONT DEM rain DIS PRF throw CONT
“At that time the rain had started to fall.” (R536.042)
This identical marking is not limited to aspect markers. In (45), both verbs are marked
with the negator kai. In (46), haꞌamata is the verb of a bare relative clause (→ 11.4.5),
which is characterised by the absence of an aspect marker; the complement verb tuꞌu is
likewise unmarked.
(45) Kai haꞌamata a au kai paꞌo ꞌā e tahi miro.
NEG.PFV begin 1SG NEG.PFV chop CONT NUM one tree
PROP
“I haven’t yet started to chop down a tree.” (R363.091)
(46) Hora haꞌamata tuꞌu mai era o te pereꞌoa ꞌi nei ꞌana...
time begin arrive hither DIS of ART car at PROX IDENT
“When cars started to arrive here...” (R539-2.145)
As (42)–(45) show, the S/A of the second verb is often placed in the subject position of
the matrix clause. However, it may also be placed after the complement verb:
(47) He haꞌamata he taŋi a Puakiva ki a Vaha.
NTR begin cry PROP Puakiva to PROP Vaha
NTR
“Puakiva began to cry for Vaha.” (R229.149)
A second construction is that in which the complement is expressed as a nominalised

verb (i.e. preceded by the determiner te). This complement may have the accusative
marker i as in (48), but usually this marker is omitted, as in (49):
(48) ...i haꞌamata ai i te amo i te māꞌea era o te kona ena.
PFV begin clean ACC ART stone DIS of ART place MED
PVP ACC ART
“...they started to clear away the stones in that place.” (R539-2.213)
(49) He haꞌamata a Kava te māuiui.
-
NTR begin Kava ART sick

PROP
“Kava started to get ill.” (R229.224)
Despite the nominalised character of the complement, it is still a verbal clause: its
Patient (i te māꞌea era in (48)) is marked with i.
11.3.2.2. oti “finish”

The verb oti has several senses: “to be finished, done, over” (e.g. a story), “to run out”,
“to be the only one”. One common use is “to finish doing something”, where oti is
followed by a complement clause.
The complement verb is nominalised, i.e. marked with the article te. Sometimes it is
preceded by the accusative marker i, in other cases i is omitted.503 As the examples
show, the subject of the second verb may be placed in the subject position of oti as in
(50) and (52), or follow the complement verb as in (51) and (53).
(50) I oti era tū taŋata era i te vānaŋa...
PFVfinish DIS DEM person DIS ACC ART speak
“When the man had finished speaking...” (R315.377)
(51) Ko oti ꞌā i te hopu Kaiŋa i tōꞌona rima.
PRFfinish CONT ACC ART wash Kainga ACC POSS.3SG.O hand
“Kainga had finished washing his hands.” (R243.078)
(52) ...ꞌo ira kai hini i oti tahi rō ai tū hare era te vera.
because_of PRO NEG.PFV delay PFV finish all EMPH PVP DEM house DIS ART burn
“...therefore it wasn’t long before the house was completely burned.”
(R250.120)
(53) I oti era te kī au, he turu ko au ko te viꞌe.

PFV finish DIS ART say 1SG NTR go_down PROM 1SG PROM ART woman
“When I had finished saying this, I went down (to the coast) with my wife.”
(Egt-02.066)
When the complement verb is transitive, the Patient may be raised to the subject
position of oti, showing that the complement clause is passivised:
(54) Ki oti te kōrua parau te tuhaꞌa ꞌi te pōꞌā...
when finish ART 2PL document ART distribute at ART morning
“When your certificates have been handed out in the morning...” (R315.368)
oti as a matrix verb with a complement may also be expressed in a serial verb
construction. Examples are given in sec. 7.7.3 sub 1.
11.3.2.3. hōrou “hurry”

hōrou “to hurry, (be) quick” is used as an adjective or adverb, but more commonly it is
a main verb taking a clausal argument. This argument can be expressed in a variety of
ways:
— in juxtaposition as in (55), with identical marking of both verbs;
— as a serial verb as in (56), with repetition of the aspect marker, but nothing else
between the two verbs (→ 7.7 on serial verbs);
— as a nominalised verb, either with accusative marker as in (57), or without as in
(58).
503
In Maori, the complement verb never has the accusative marker; Hooper (1984a) argues that
the complement verb is the subject of oti.
(55) E hōrou koe e turu.

EXH hurry 2SG EXH go_down
“Go down quickly.” (R231.143)
(56) ꞌO ira i hōrou i oho mai era ꞌi tū mahana era.
because_of PRO PFV quick PFV go hither DIS at DEM day DIS
“Therefore he went quickly that day.” (R105.108)
(57) ꞌO ira i taꞌe hōrou ai i te varaꞌa i te taŋata o ruŋa.
because_of PRO PFV NEG.CONS quick PVP ACC ART obtain ACC ART person of above
“Therefore, they didn’t catch the people on top (of the islet) quickly.”
(R304.048)
(58) E ko hōrou te ika te pū mo pātia hai pātia ku hape ꞌā

IPFV NEG.IPFV quick ART fish ART approach for spear INST spear PRF fault CONT
te hahaꞌu iŋa.
ART tie NMLZ
“The fish would not come quickly to be speared with a harpoon that had not
been tied properly.” (R360.019)
As (58) shows, the subject of the second verb may be raised to the subject position of
hōrou (in this case, the Patient is raised, showing that the complement clause is
passivised).
11.3.2.4. oho “go, about to”

oho “go” usually refers to physical movement; in this sense, it is the most unmarked
motion verb. oho is also used as an aspectual verb, indicating that an event is about to
happen (possibly under influence of Spanish “ir”, cf. Fischer 2007:392). In this sense,
oho is followed by a complement clause introduced by mo.
(59) He oho ia a Kihi mo taŋi.
NTR gothen PROP Kihi for cry
“Kihi was about to cry.” (R215.024)
(60) I oho era a Kekoa mo rere mai... he ꞌaka he hoki a tuꞌa.
PFV go Kekoa for jump hither NTR hesitate NTR return by back
DIS PROP
“When Kekoa was about to jump... he hesitated and turned back.” (R108.010)
11.3.3. Cognitive verbs

Cognitive verbs include ꞌite “to know”,504 aŋiaŋi “to know, be certain”, manaꞌu “to
-
think” and the obsolete maꞌa “know”. They may take a nominal object, which –
depending on the verb – is marked with i or ki (→ 8.6.4.2 sub 3).
The content of knowledge or thought may also be an event. This is expressed by an
independent clause, which can be nominal as in (61) or verbal as in (62)–(63). As (64)
504
For ꞌite expressing possibility or ability, see sec. 11.3.6 below.
shows, the clause may also be a dependent question. In each example, the bracketed
part could function as a clause by itself.
(61) Ko ꞌite ꞌana hoꞌi kōrua [te vārua meꞌe mana].
PRF know CONT indeed 2PL ART spirit thing power
“You know that spirits are powerful.” (R310.023)
(62) He aŋiaŋi - e Ataraŋa [e ko hoki hakaꞌou tū viꞌe era ꞌāꞌana].
NTR certain:RED AG Ataranga IPFV NEG.IPFV return again women DIS POSS.3SG.A
DEM
“Ataranga knew for sure that his wife would not return.” (R532-01.019)
(63) He manaꞌu rō ꞌai te taŋata o nei [ko māmate ꞌā - a koā Taparahi].
NTR think EMPH SUBS ART person of PROX PRF PL:die CONT PROP COLL Taparahi
“The people here thought that Taparahi and the others had died.” (R250.243)
(64) Ko ꞌite ꞌana hoꞌi kōrua [ꞌi hē a ia].
PRF know CONT indeed 2PL at CQ PROP 3SG
“For you know where she is.” (R229.277)
The content clause may be introduced by the phrase pē nei ē “like this” (→ 4.6.5.1).
(65) Ko ꞌite rivariva ꞌā
- e koe pē nei ē: ko haŋa ꞌā a ia
PRF know good:RED CONT AG 2SG like PROX thus PRF want CONT PROP 3SG
mo oho mo hāpī.
for go for study
“You know very well that she wants to go and study.” (R210.066)
11.3.4. Speech verbs

As discussed in sec. 8.6.4.2 sub 4, there are two types of speech verbs in Rapa Nui,
“say”-type and “talk”-type verbs. Only the former, which include e.g. kī “say” and
ꞌaꞌamu “tell”, can be followed by a clause (or longer discourse) expressing the content
of speech. This can be a direct speech, which usually follows without a specific marker:
(66) He kī: ‘¡Ka moe ki raro!’
NTR say IMP lie
to below
“He said: ‘Lie down!’” (Ley-5-28a.003)
When the speech verb is followed by an indirect speech, it is often introduced by pē nei
(ē) “like this” (→ 4.6.5.1):
(67) Kai kī atu e te nuꞌu hāpaꞌo i a koe pē nei ē:
NEG.PFV say away AG ART people care_for ACC PROP 2SG like PROX thus
a koe he poki ꞌa Hakahonu.
PROP 2SG NTR child of.A Hakahonu
“The people who took care of you haven’t told you that you are the child of
Hakahonu.” (R427.016)
kī “say” may also be followed by a complement clause introduced by the purpose

marker mo (→ 11.5.1); usually with a different subject, in the sense “tell/ask someone
to...”, occasionally with the same subject, in the sense “to tell one’s intention”. The
identity of the subject can only be known from the context.
(68) He kī hakaꞌou e rā poki [mo haka hoki i tāꞌana kōreha].
NTR say again child for CAUS return ACC POSS.3SG.A eel
AG DIS
“The child told/asked (them) again to give his eel back.” (R532-10.014)
(69) He uru atu he kī [mo ꞌaruke i tōꞌona kutu].
NTR enter away NTR say for delouse ACC POSS.3SG.O louse
“They entered and told (him) they would delouse him.” (R310.030)
11.3.5. Attitude verbs

Under this heading a varied group of verbs is included which involve emotion, mental
state, volition and desire. These include haŋa “to want”, pohe “to desire”, riꞌariꞌa “to -
fear”, haꞌamā “to be ashamed”, manaꞌu “to consider, intend, decide” (for manaꞌu as
cognitive verb, see 11.3.3).
These verbs may take a nominal complement introduced by i or ki (→ 8.6.4.2 sub 2).
They may also take a clausal complement introduced by mo (→ 11.5.1):
(70) E haŋa rō ꞌā a au [mo kī atu e tahi vānaŋa].
IPFVwant EMPH CONT PROP 1SG for say away NUM one thing
“I want to say one thing.” (R447.025)
(71) He haꞌamā a Tiare [mo uru ki roto i te piha hāpī].
NTR ashamed PROP Tiare for enter to inside at ART room learn
“Tiare was ashamed to enter the classroom.” (R334.032)
(72) He manaꞌu ia a ia [mo oho ki te kona hare o tōꞌona
NTR think then PROP 3SG for go to ART place house of POSS.3SG.O
māmātia era ko Keke].
aunt DIS PROM Keke
“She decided to go to the house of her aunt Keke.” (R345.090)
As these examples show, the complement clause usually has the same subject as the
matrix clause and is unexpressed. A different subject is possible, though; this subject is
expressed in the same way as in all mo-clauses (→ 11.5.1.2): usually as possessive, but
sometimes with the agent marker e:
(73) ꞌIna kai haŋa [mo oho ōꞌou ki te kona roaroa]. -
NEG NEG.PFV want for go POSS.2SG.O

to ART place distant:RED
“I don’t want you to go to a distant place.” (R210.018)
(74) Ko haŋa ꞌā a au [mo haka hopu mai e koe i a au
PRF want CONT PROP 1SG for CAUS bathe hither AG 2SG ACC PROP 1SG
paurō te mahana].
every ART day
“I want you to wash me every day.” (R313.178)
Negative complements can be introduced by ꞌo “lest” (→ 11.5.4), which expresses an

adverse effect to be avoided.
(75) ꞌAi a Vai Ora ka riꞌariꞌa nō [ꞌo māuiui rō
- - ꞌi te rari].
then PROP Vai Ora CNTG afraid just lest sick EMPH at ART wet
“Then Vai Ora was afraid (her child) would get ill from being wet.” (R301.151)
(76) Ana haŋa koe [ꞌo manaꞌu rahi koe ki te poki], mo tāua ꞌana
IRR want 2SG lest think much 2SG to ART child for 1DU.INC IDENT
e hāpaꞌo i a rāua ko Kava.
IPFV care_for ACC PROP 3PL PROM Kava
“If you don’t want to worry (lit. if you want lest you think much) about the
boy, we will care for him and Kava.” (R229.028)
11.3.6. Modal verbs

Various verbs can be used to express modal concepts such as ability, possibility and
obligation. These verbs are followed by a complement clause, which is in most cases
introduced by mo. Most of these verbs are also used in other constructions, e.g. with a
nominal complement. If the subject is expressed, it occurs in the main clause (except
with tiene que, see below).
— riva and rivariva “good”, followed by mo V, express ability, possibility or

-
permission:
(77) ꞌIna paꞌi a ia e ko rivariva mo hāpaꞌo i
- a Puakiva.
NEG in_fact PROP 3SG IPFV NEG.IPFV good:RED for care_for ACC PROP Puakiva
“She was not able to take care of Puakiva.” (R229.003)
(78) —¿Te ŋā poki e ko riva mo oꞌo ki te kona aŋa vaka?
ART PL child IPFV NEG.IPFV good for enter to ART place make canoe
—E riva nō.
IPFV good just
“—Can’t the children enter the canoe building site? —They can.” (R363.137f)
— When ꞌite “to know” is followed by i te V (i.e. a nominalised verb marked as direct
object), it often expresses ability, often a particular skill. Alternatively, it may express
a habit or inclination, as in (80).
(79) Ko ꞌite ꞌā i te pāpaꞌi, i te taiꞌo, i te vānaŋa i tētahi ꞌarero...
PRF know CONT ACC ART write read ACC ART speak ACC other tongue
ACC ART
“He could write, read, speak other languages...” (R539-1.052)
(80) ꞌIna a au kai ꞌite i te kai i te ꞌate.
NEG PROP 1SG NEG.PFV know ACC ART eat ACC ART liver
“I don’t eat liver, I’m not used to eating liver.” (R245.238)
— rovaꞌa/ravaꞌa “to obtain”, followed by mo V, is used in the sense “to be able, to

succeed”:
(81) Kai ravaꞌa e roto mo haka raꞌu mai i te kūpeŋa.
NEG.PFV obtain AG inside for CAUS hook hither ACC ART net
“Those inside (the net) did not succeed to hook the net.” (R304.128)
— Possibility is often expressed by puē. This word is borrowed from Spanish puede, the
third person sg. present tense of poder “can, be able”,505 but is used in all persons and
numbers. It is followed by mo V.
(82) ꞌIna e ko puē mātou mo hoꞌo atu i te puka pē ira.
NEG IPFV NEG.IPFVcan 1PL.EXC for trade away ACC ART book like PRO
“We cannot sell the books like that.” (R206.021)
(83) I puē iho ai ananake mo eꞌa mo aŋa i te rāua aŋa misione.
PFV can just_then PVP together for go_out for do ACC ART 3PL work mission
“From then on they could go out together to do their mission work.”
(R231.281)
(84) ꞌI te hora nei ka puē iho nei au mo hāpī rivariva i - te pure

at ART time PROX CNTG can just_now PROX 1SG for teach good:RED ACC ART pray
ki te taŋata.
to ART person
“Now I can teach the people well how to pray.” (R231.195)
— tiene que, which expresses both obligation (“have to”) and necessity (“must”), is
borrowed from Spanish tiene, the third person sg. present from tener. Just like puē, it is
used for all persons and numbers. The complementiser que was borrowed along with
the verb;506 que is followed by a clausal complement, as in Spanish.507
The subject usually comes after the main verb as in (86); in this respect tiene que is
different from other modal verbs, where the subject follows the modal verb
immediately. However, (87) shows that the subject can be raised to the subject
position of tiene.
505
It is not uncommon for Spanish words to be borrowed in the 3rd person sg. present (Makihara
2001a:197).
The weak pronunciation of intervocalic d in Chilean Spanish facilitates its elision (→ 2.5.3.1); the
resulting VV sequence coalesces into a single long vowel.
506
In this respect tiene is less integrated into the language than puē, which takes the Rapa Nui
complementiser mo. puē is much more common in the text corpus (176x puē, 20x tiene). The
difference in complementiser can also be explained from Spanish itself: the auxiliary poder (3sg.
puede) is followed by a bare verb, a construction which would be highly unusual in Rapa Nui,
hence the insertion of mo.
507
See Makihara (2001a:207–210) for more examples and discussion.
(85) Tiene_que ai te hare pure tuai era.

must be ART house pray old DIS
“This must be the old church.” (R416.060)
(86) Tiene_que vānaŋa tāua i te vānaŋa rapa nui.
must speak 1DU.INC ACC ART talk Rapa Nui
“We must speak the Rapa Nui language.” (Makihara 2001a:208)
(87) Tiene tātou que manaꞌu hai forma positiva pē muꞌa.
must 1PL.INC – think INST form
positive toward front
“From now on, we must think positively.” (Makihara 2001a:208)
11.3.7. Summary
As stated in the introduction to this section, while certain verbs are followed by a
complement clause marked with a subordinating marker, other verbs are followed by a
juxtaposed clause which is interpreted as semantic complement; yet others are
followed by an independent clause. The following table summarises the use of these
strategies for different types of verbs.
Table 63: Complementation strategies
subord. serial nomin. juxta- indep.

marker verb verb position clause ref.
perception verbs x 11.3.1
haꞌamata “begin” x 11.3.2.1
oti “finish” x x 11.3.2.2
hōrou “hurry” x x x 11.3.2.3
oho “go” mo 11.3.2.4
cognitive verbs x 11.3.3
speech verbs mo x 11.3.4
attitude verbs mo, ꞌo 11.3.5
riva(riva) “able” mo
ꞌite “know how to” x
rovaꞌa “able” mo 11.3.6
puē “can” mo
tiene que “must” (que)
11.4. Relative clauses
Relative clauses modify the head noun in a noun phrase. In Rapa Nui, as in most
languages, the head noun is external to the relative clause itself; it is a constituent of a
higher clause. As this noun has a semantic role both in the higher clause and in the
matrix clause, Dixon (2010b:317) uses the term “common argument” (CA).
In Rapa Nui, relative clauses are not marked by special markers or relative pronouns.
They have the following syntactic features:
• They follow the head noun and usually occur at the end of the noun phrase.
• They are almost always predicate-initial.
• Most types of relative clauses exhibit a gapping strategy: the common
argument is not expressed in the relative clause.
• The aspectual he is rare; the most common aspectuals are e and i.
• The aspectual is often left out.
• The S/A argument of the relative clause may be expressed by a pre- or
postnominal possessor modifying the head noun.
• When the common argument is direct object in the relative clause, the subject
is often e-marked.
• The verb in the relative clause may be raised to a position adjacent to the
head noun.
All these features will be discussed and illustrated below. First a number of
preliminary remarks.
— Relative clauses always modify a head noun. Headless relative clauses do not occur
in Rapa Nui.
— Relative clauses are always restrictive, i.e. they restrict the reference of the noun
phrase. Rapa Nui does not have nonrestrictive relative clauses, clauses which add
information without limiting the reference. If such a clause is called for, a generic
noun is placed in apposition to the head noun to serve as an anchor for the relative
clause (→ (167)–(168) on p. 260).
— Relative clauses are used in cleft constructions, which serve to put a noun in focus
(→ 9.2.6). Clefts are also used to construct a verbal clause after the interrogatives ai
“who” (→ 10.3.2.1) and aha “what” (→ 10.3.2.2).
11.4.2. Relativised constituents

In many languages, there are restrictions on the types of constituents that can be
relativised. Keenan & Comrie (1977, 1979) account for this by proposing a “noun
phrase accessibility hierarchy”:
subject > direct object > indirect object > oblique > possessor
All languages allow subject relativisation; not all languages allow relativisation of
other constituents. A language may have one or more relativisation strategies;
according to Keenan & Comrie, a given strategy will always apply to a continuous
segment of this hierarchy.
This principle holds in many languages, though exceptions have turned up; in
Polynesian, the hierarchy does not hold in Maori (see Harlow 2007a).
In this section, relativisation of different constituents in Rapa Nui will be discussed and
illustrated. At the end of the section, the issue of the noun phrase hierarchy will be
revisited.
1. Subject relativisation is common. The subject is not expressed in the relative clause.
(88) A Taparahi he poki e tahi [i poreko ai ꞌi ꞌuta].
PROP Taparahi NTR child NUM one PFV born PVP at inland
“Taparahi was a child who was born in the countryside.” (R250.001)
(89) He ꞌaroha mai ki te nuꞌu varavara [tuꞌu ki te
- kona hoa pahī nei].
NTR greet hither to ART people scarce arrive to ART place throw ship PROX
“They greeted the few people who had come to the place where the ship was
launched.” (R250.235)
(90) Ka rahi atu te nuꞌu [e ꞌaroha mai era hai tāvana teatea].-
CNTG many away ART people IPFV greet hither DIS INST sheet white:RED
“Numerous were the people who greeted them with white bedsheets.”
(R210.087)
2. When the object is relativised, it is not expressed in the relative clause. In object
relative clauses, the subject is often e-marked. This conforms to a general pattern: e-
marking of the subject is the rule in transitive clauses without an expressed object (→
8.3.1.1 sub 3).
(91) Meꞌe rahi te meꞌe rivariva [i
- aŋa e te ꞌariki nei ko Hotu Matuꞌa
NTR many ART thing good:RED PFV do AG ART king PROX PROM Hotu Matu’a
mo tōꞌona nuꞌu].
for POSS.3SG.O people
“Many were the good things king Hotu Matu’a did for his people.” (R369.024)
(92) He takeꞌa i tū aŋa era [e aŋa mai era e Huri ꞌa Vai].
NTR see ACC DEM work DIS IPFV do
hither DIS AG Huri a Vai
“He saw the thing which Huri a Vai did.” (R304.004)
Interestingly, the e-marked subject may precede the verb if it is pronominal, even
though preverbal subjects in general are not e-marked (→ 8.3.1.1 sub 1), and even
though preverbal constituents in relative clauses are rare.
(93) He vaꞌai tahi e ꞌOho Takatore i tū ŋā meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa era
NTR give all AG Oho Takatore ACC DEM PL thing all DIS
[e ia i maꞌu era].
AG 3SG PFV carry DIS
“Oho Takatore gave (him) all the things he had brought.” (R304.115)
Pronominal subjects are not always e-marked; in the following example, the subject
pronoun is marked with the proper article a:
(94) Ka hakaroŋo rivariva mai

- tāꞌaku vānaŋa nei [a au
IMP listen good:RED hither POSS.1SG.A word PROX PROP 1SG
ka kī atu nei ki a koe].
CNTG say away PROX to PROP 2SG
“Listen well to my words I am going to say to you.” (R229.243)
3. When oblique arguments508 are relativised, the common argument is expressed

pronominally in the relative clause.509 As examples in native texts are scarce, two
example from the Bible translation are given.
(95) ...nuꞌu [ki a rāua a au i vaꞌai ai i te māramarama-
people to PROP 3PL PROP 1SG PFV give PVP ACC ART intelligent
mo te rāua aŋa]
for ART 3PL work
“people to whom I have given intelligence for their task” (Exo. 28:3)
(96) A au he ꞌAtua, kope [ki a ia e haꞌamuri ena e te kōrua tupuna].
PROP 1SG PRED God
person to PROP 3SG IPFV worship MED AG ART 2PL ancestor
“I am God, the one whom your ancestors worshipped.” (Mat. 22:32)
4. Adjuncts are relativised without being expressed in the relative clause. These
usually express place as in (97) or time as in (98), but other adjuncts are possible as in
(99).
(97) Ki te kona taꞌatoꞌa [e oho era a Hēmi]...
to ART place all IPFV go DIS PROP Hemi
“To all the places (where) Hemi went...” (R476.004)
(98) ꞌi te hora era [e paka rō ꞌā te kōpū]
at ART time DIS IPFV conspicuous EMPH CONT ART belly
“at the time (when) the belly was showing (=in a late stage of pregnancy)”
(R301.004)
(99) ¿Ko ꞌite ꞌana hoꞌi e koe he aha te haꞌaauraꞌa

PRF know CONT indeed AG 2SG PRED what ART meaning
[au i taꞌe pāhono ai]?
1SG PFV NEG.CONS answer PVP
“Do you know what the reason was (why) I didn’t answer?” (R363.109)
In two situations a relativised locative constituent is represented by the pro-form ira

(→ 4.6.5.2):
— when the relative clause is a locative clause, i.e. the relativised phrase is predicate:
508
This includes “indirect objects” (→ 8.8.1).
509
Silva-Corvalán (1978:1) gives an example of an oblique argument relativised with gapping,
but I have not found any example in the text corpus or the Bible translation.
(100) He tuꞌu ki te kona [ꞌi ira te honu].

NTR arrive to ART place at PRO ART turtle
“They arrived at the place where the turtle was.” (R532-03.008)
— when a preposition is needed to specify the nature of the locative relationship, for
example, when a movement is involved from (mai) the referent:
(101) ...mo oho ōꞌona ki Hiva ki te henua era [mai ira tōꞌona
for go POSS.3SG.O to Hiva to ART land DIS from PRO POSS.3SG.O
nuꞌu matuꞌa era i oho mai ai].
people parent DIS PFV go hither PVP
“...to go to Hiva, the country from which his parents had come.” (R370.002)
As these examples show, the ira constituent is in clause-initial position in the relative
clause.
5. Relative clauses with possessor relativisation are rare, but they do occur. The
possessor is expressed pronominally in the relative clause, in the same position where
it would be in a main clause. In the following example, te rāua is coreferential to the
head noun nuꞌu.
(102) ...tētahi atu nuꞌu tuꞌu atu, [haru takoꞌa i te rāua henua
other away people arrive away grab also ACC ART 3PL land
e te fiko].
AG ART government
“...other people who had arrived, whose land the government had also
grabbed.” (R649.055)
6. Identifying predicates (→ 9.2.2) may also be relativised. In this case, the predicate
is expressed in the relative clause as a pronoun preceded by ko.510
(103) te kope era [ko ia te pūꞌoko haka tere o te intitucione]
ART person DIS PROM 3SG ART head run of ART institute
CAUS
“the person who is the head of the institute” (R647.143)
(104) He ꞌui mātou ki te nuꞌu [ko rāua te meꞌe i aŋiaŋi
-
NTR ask 1PL.EXC to ART people PROM 3PL ART thing PFV certain:RED
o ruŋa i te aŋa nei].
of above at ART work PROX
“We’ll ask the people who are the ones who know about this work.” (R535.193)
7. To relativise existential clauses, the verb ai “to exist” is used. As discussed in sec.
9.3, there are two subtypes of existential clauses: existential-locative (“there is a house
in the field” → 9.3.2) and possessive (“there is his house” = “he has a house” →
9.3.3). An example of a relativised existential-locative is the following:
510
See sec. 9.2.2 for arguments to consider the ko-marked pronoun as predicate.
(105) Kona [ai o te miro o rā hora] ko te hare pure.

place exist of ART tree of DIS time PROM ART house prayer
“The place where there were trees at the time, was the church.” (R539-1.524)
In this example the location (kona) is relativised, while the “existee”, the entity that
exists in a given place, is expressed in the relative clause, marked with the genitive
preposition o.
The existee can also be relativised, with the location expressed in the relative clause:
(106) ...he aha te meꞌe [i ai ꞌi Rapa Nui]
PRED what ART thing PFV exist at Rapa Nui
“(they want to know) what are the things that exist on Rapa Nui” (R470.006)
In possessive clauses, the possessor can be relativised as in (107); in this case the
possessee is expressed in the relative clause. The possessee can also be relativised as in
(108)–(109), in which case the possessor is expressed in the relative clause.
(107) Ko ꞌata rahi ꞌana te ŋā poki [ai o te veka].
PRF more many CONT ART PL child exist of ART scholarship
“The number of children who have a scholarship has increased.” (R648.213)
(108) ¿He aha te ꞌati [ai o te viꞌe nei o ruŋa i te ꞌaꞌamu nei]?
PRED what ART problem exist of ART woman PROX of above at ART story PROX
“What was the problem that the woman in this story had (lit. that existed of
this woman)?” (R616.603)
(109) He haŋu pūai [taꞌe ai i te taꞌatoꞌa taŋata].
PRED strength strong NEG.CONS exist at ART all
person
“(Mana) was a strong force that not everyone had.” (R634.002)
As these examples show, possessees in the relative clause are marked with genitive o as
in (107); possessors are marked either with o as in (108) or the general-purpose
preposition i as in (109).
Summarizing: there are two relativising strategies in Rapa Nui, one involving a gap
(non-expressed constituent), one involving a resumptive pro-form. Which strategy is
used, depends on the role of the relativised constituent, as the following table shows.511
511
Existential clauses are not included separately in this table. When the existee/possessee is
relativised, it is the subject of the clause; when the possessor or location is relativised, it can be
considered as an adjunct.
Table 64: Relativisation strategies
gapping pronoun
subject x
direct object x
oblique argument x
adjunct x (x)
possessor x
identifying predicate x
Turning back now to the noun phrase hierarchy mentioned on p. 508 above: whether
or not the situation in Rapa Nui conforms to Keenan & Comrie’s generalisation that
every relativising strategy involves a continuous segment of the hierarchy, depends on
how the syntactic categories of Rapa Nui are mapped to this hierarchy. If oblique
arguments (a category including arguments such as Recipients) are taken as a rough
equivalent of their category of “indirect object”, the gapping strategy in Rapa Nui does
not apply to a continuous segment of the hierarchy: it applies to subjects, direct objects
and adjuncts (with the latter, the pronoun strategy also occurs, but marginally), but
not to “indirect objects”.
11.4.3. Aspect marking in relative clauses

The most common aspect markers in relative clauses are perfective i and imperfective
e. ka and ko are not unusual either, but he is rare. All of these will be briefly discussed
in turn.
Perfective i is the most general aspectual in relative clauses. It may mark events
performed at the same time as the events in the main clause as in (110), or completed
prior to the events in the main clause as in (111); it may also mark states as in (112).
The verb may be followed by a postverbal demonstrative (including ai), but this is
optional.
(110) ꞌI tū hora era [Eva i ŋaroꞌa era i tū vānaŋa era ꞌa koro],
at DEM time DIS Eva PFV perceive DIS ACC DEM word DIS of.A Dad
he hakaroŋo atu...
NTR feel away
“At the moment Eva heard those words Dad (spoke), she felt...” (R210.075)
(111) He taŋi ki tū poki era ꞌāꞌana [i toꞌo era e Kava].
NTR cry to DEM child DIS POSS.3SG.A PFV take DIS AG Kava
“She cried for her child, which had been taken by Kava.” (R229.095)
(112) He oti mau ꞌā te taŋata [i taꞌe māuiui o te
- kona hare era].
NTR finish really CONT ART person PFV NEG.CONS sick
of ART place house DIS
“He was the only person in the house who wasn’t sick.” (R250.091)
Imperfective e in relative clauses often refers to events which are going on at the time
of reference, as in (113); alternatively, it may indicate events which happen repeatedly
or habitually, as in (114). The verb is usually followed by a postverbal demonstrative
(→ 7.2.5.4).
(113) ...ꞌi te reka o te rāua ara [e oho era].
at ART entertaining of ART 3PL way IPFV go DIS
“(Eva stopped crying,) because of the enjoyment of the trip they were
making.” (R210.137)
(114) Te aŋa ꞌa Puakiva [e ꞌavai era e Pipi], he apaapa hukahuka...
- -
ART work of.A Puakiva IPFV give DIS AG Pipi firewood:RED PRED gather
“The work Puakiva got assigned by Pipi, was gathering firewood...” (R229.396)
Perfect ko/ku – ꞌā indicates a state which has come about in some way: with event
verbs as in (115), the state is the result of the event described by the verb; with
statives as in (116), the situation has resulted from some unspecified process.
(115) ...ꞌe he mataroa repahoa o koro [ko maꞌu mai ꞌā ka rahi atu
and PRED sailor friend of Dad PRF carry hither CONT CNTG many away
te pahu peti].
ART can peach
“...and some sailors, friends of Dad, who had brought many cans of peaches.”
(R210.125)
(116) Taꞌe he tiare; he henua [ko hāhine ꞌā a tātou mo tuꞌu].

NEG.CONS PRED flower PRED land PRF near CONT PROP 1PL.INC for arrive
“These are not flowers; it is the land which we are close to arriving at.”
(R210.197)
When the contiguity marker ka is used in a relative clause, the clause expresses an
event posterior to the events in the context. In direct speech this means the clause
refers to the future, as in (117); in narrative texts the ka-marked relative clause is
posterior with respect to the time of the main action, as in (118). The verb is always
followed by a postverbal demonstrative.
(117) Te ꞌīŋoa o te kai era [ka maꞌu mai era ki a koe] he ioioraŋi.
-
ARTname of ART food DIS CNTG carry hither DIS to PROP 2SG PRED ioioraŋi
“The name of the food they will bring you is ioioraŋi.” (R310.060) -
(118) He turu ia te taŋata taꞌe ko ꞌiti ki tū kona era o te pahī

NTR go_down then ART man NEG.CONS PROM little to DEM place DIS of ART ship
[ka hoa era ki haho i te tai].
CNTG throw DIS to outside at ART sea
“Many (lit. not a few) people went down to the place where the ship would be
Neutral he is rarely used in relative clauses. In the few examples I found, its function
seems to be similar to ka:
(119) ꞌI te mahana era [he oho], ko ꞌara ꞌā a Eva ꞌi te hora ono
at ART day DIS NTR go PRF wake_up CONT PROP Eva at ART time six
o te pōꞌā.
of ART morning
“On the day she was going to leave, Eva woke up at six in the morning.”
(R210.028)
Finally, relative clauses may be marked with the purpose marker mo (→ 11.5.1), in
which case they express an event destined to happen:
(120) He haka takeꞌa e Kava i te kona [mo aŋa o te hare].
NTR CAUS see Kava ACC ART place for make of ART house
AG
“Kava showed (him) the place to build the house.” (R229.217)
(121) E tupa nō ꞌana hai taŋata i te uka era [mo hāipoipo]
-
IPFV carry just CONT INST person ACC ART girl DIS for marry
ꞌi ruŋa i tū pahī era.
at above at DEM ship DIS
“With (several) people, they carried the girl who was to be married in the
boat.” (R539-3.034)
11.4.4. Possessive-relative constructions

In possessive-relative constructions, the head noun is preceded or followed by a
possessor, which is coreferential to the subject of the relative clause; the latter is not
expressed in the relative clause itself. These constructions occur in Rapa Nui as well as
in various other Polynesian languages. Possessive-relative constructions only occur
when a constituent other than the subject is relativised; they are found with both
object and adjunct relativisation. An example is the following:
(122) ¿He aha te kōrua meꞌe [i aŋa ꞌi ꞌApina]?
NTR what ART 2PL thing PFV do at Apina
“What did you do (lit. what [is] your thing did) in Apina?” (R301.197)
Syntactically, te kōrua is a possessive pronoun modifying meꞌe “thing”; it is

coreferential to the implied subject of the relative clause.
When the possessor is pronominal, it may either precede the noun as in (123)–(124),
or follow it as in (125) (→ 6.2.1):
(123) ...mo haka oho ki tāꞌana kona era [i pohe].
for CAUS go to POSS.3SG.A place DIS PFV desire
“...to make (the horse) go to the place he wanted (it to go).” (R345.087)
(124) ¿Pē hē te vai i kōnā ai ꞌi tōꞌoku hora [rere mai nei]?

like CQ ART water PFV splash PVP in POSS.1SG.O time jump hither PROX
“How did the water splash at the time when I jumped?” (R108.125)512
(125) Te aŋa raꞌe ꞌāꞌana [i aŋa] he hāpaꞌo māmoe.
ART work first POSS.3SG.A PFV do care_for sheep
PRED
“The first work he did, was looking after sheep.” (R487.015)
When the possessor is a full noun phrase, it must occur after the noun:
(126) ꞌI tū hora era o Kekoa [e rere mai era]...
at DEM time DIS of Kekoa IPFV jump hither DIS
“At the moment when Kekoa jumped...” (R408.024)
(127) Te kenu ꞌa Hetuꞌu [i rovaꞌa ai], kenu rivariva.
-
ART spouse of.A Hetu’u PFV obtain PVP husband good:RED

“The husband which Hetu’u obtained, was a good husband.” (R441.021)513
Possessive-relative constructions occur in other Polynesian languages as well. There

has been some discussion on the question whether the possessor is raised from the
subject position of the relative clause (e.g. Harlow 2000:367; 2007a:185), or whether
it is a genuine noun phrase possessor which happens to be coreferential to the relative
clause subject (Clark 1976:116). In Rapa Nui the second option is more plausible. First,
the possessor can be in the same positions as in any other noun phrase, which suggests
that it is no different from other possessors in the noun phrase. Second, as the
examples above show, the form of the possessive construction varies between a- and o-
possession: a-possession in (123), (125) and (127), o-possession in (124) and (126). As
a- and o-possession express different semantic relationships between possessor and
possessee (→ 6.3.2), this suggests that there is a direct relation between the possessor
and the head noun, even though the primary function of the possessor seems to be the
expression of the relative clause subject.514 And indeed, in most of these cases the
choice between ꞌa and o is governed by the same principles guiding this choice in
possessive constructions in general. In (127), where the relation between possessor and
512
That this is a relative clause, not just a modifying verb, is shown by the verb phrase particle
mai.
513
Examples such as (127) are potentially ambiguous. As discussed above, in object relative
clauses the subject is sometimes preceded by the proper article a (→ (94) in 11.4.2 above). Now
the proper article a is homophonous to the possessive preposition ꞌa, and both may be followed
by proper nouns; therefore, in examples such as (127), the subject could also be analysed as aa
nominative subject marked with the proper article a. However, an analysis as genitive (i.e. ꞌa
rather than a) is most plausible, as only pronouns occur unambiguously as preverbal subjects in
the relative clause; noun phrase subjects in relative clauses are always postverbal (see e.g. (91)–
(92) above).
514
Herd et al. (2011) make a similar observation for other Polynesian languages. They propose a
structure where there is a relation between the possessor and the relative construction as a
whole. This involves a control relation (not raising) between possessor and relative clause
subject.
head noun is one between husband and wife, ꞌa is used (→ 6.3.3.1.1 sub 2). In (125),
the use of ꞌa is possibly motivated by the active relationship of the possessee to the
head noun “work” (→ 6.3.3.2 sub 2). In (126), o is used with a time noun, again
conforming to a general pattern (→ 6.3.3.3 sub 11). In fact, given the wide range of
relationships expressed by possessive constructions in Rapa Nui, all possessive-relatives
seem to exhibit some kind of possessive relationship also attested in simple possessive
constructions.
If this analysis is correct, the possessor is not the result of raising, but is a “normal”
noun phrase possessor which happens to be coreferential to the relative clause subject.
Under coreferentiality, the latter is left unexpressed.
This analysis is confirmed by the fact that there are also possessive-relative
constructions where the possessor is not the subject of the relative clause, but an
oblique/embedded constituent as in (128):
(128) He pura mata te kōrua meꞌe [takeꞌa mai].
PRED only eye ART 2PL thing see hither
“Your eyes are the only thing that can be seen (lit. mere eyes are your thing
seen).” (R245.217)
11.4.5. Bare relative clauses; verb raising

Bare relative clauses are relative clauses in which the verb is not preceded by an
aspectual. In Rapa Nui in general, the aspectual is obligatory, except in a few well-
defined contexts (→ 7.2.2), one of which is when the verb is adjectival (i.e. functions
as noun modifier). Even so, in sec. 5.8.2.3 I argued that bare relatives are different
from adjectival modifiers: unlike the latter, they are truly verbal in that they indicate
an event taking place at a specific time; moreover, they can be followed by verb phrase
particles and verb arguments.
Here are a number of examples of bare relative clauses.
(129) He ꞌaroha mai ki te nuꞌu varavara [tuꞌu ki te
- kona hoa pahī nei].
NTR greet hither to ART people scarce arrive to ART place throw ship PROX
“They greeted the few people who had come to the place where the ship was
(130) ꞌIna he vece [haka hoki mai i te tarake].
NEG PRED time CAUS return hither ACC ART corn
“At no time (lit. there was not a time) (the buyers) refused the corn (which he
offered for sale).” (R250.080)
(131) Ko mātou nō te meꞌe [noho o nei].
PROM 1PL.EXC just ART thing stay of PROX
“We are the only ones living here.” (R404.050)
(132) Te meꞌe nei he hī siera, meꞌe [ai mai muꞌa ꞌana
ART thing PROX PRED fish.V sawfish thing exist from before IDENT
ꞌātā ki te hora nei].

until to ART time PROX
“This thing, fishing for sawfish, is something that has existed from the past
until now.” (R364.001)
These examples show that bare relative clauses are not limited to one single aspect. In
most cases they express a one-time event which has been completed as in (129), i.e.
the clause has perfective aspect; however, they may also be habitual as in (130),
durative as in (131), or stative as in (132).
As these examples also show, the verb tends to come straight after the head noun. Only
in (129) are noun and verb separated by the adjective varavara. Other elements
-
occasionally occurring between noun and verb are quantifiers as in (133) and
postnominal demonstratives as in (134):
(133) He turu tahi tū nuꞌu taꞌatoꞌa haꞌaau era.
NTR go_down all DEM people all agree DIS
“All the people who had agreed (on the plan) went down (to the coast).”
(R250.233)
(134) ...mo haꞌateitei i

- te nuꞌu era oho era ki Tahiti.
for honour ACC ART people DIS go DIS to Tahiti
“...to honour the people who went to Tahiti.” (R202.003)
Even though noun and verb can be separated by these noun phrase elements, there is a
strong tendency to place the verb adjacent to the noun. Often the verb is raised to a
position straight after the noun, before other noun phrase elements. In (135), the verb
hatu is raised to a position before the quantifier taꞌatoꞌa, while the subject of the
relative clause is stranded after taꞌatoꞌa. (The status of era is discussed below.)
(135) He oho tū poki era pē tū meꞌe [hatu] taꞌatoꞌa era [e tū rūꞌau era].
NTR go DEM child DIS like DEM thing advise all DIS AG DEM old_woman DIS
“The boy went (and did) like all the things advised by the old woman.”
(R310.105)
Similarly, in (136), the verb tuꞌu is raised over the postnominal possessor ꞌāꞌana. Notice
that even though the relative clause only consists of a verb, it is still a true relative
clause, not an “adjectival” verb: tuꞌu refers to a specific event, it is not a time-stable
property of the child (→ 5.8.2.3).
(136) He vānaŋa ararua ko tū poki [tuꞌu] era ꞌāꞌana.
NTR talk the_two PROM DEM child arrive DIS POSS.3SG.A
“She spoke with her child who had arrived.” (R532-01.007)
In (137) the verb hiŋa is raised both over the particle ꞌā and the possessor o te poki.515
The same happens in (138), where the possessor “of the morning” modifies the head
noun, while the next phrase “to school” is the part of the relative clause left stranded.
(137) ...ꞌi te mahana [hiŋa] era ꞌā o te poki?
at ART day fall DIS IDENT of ART child
“(Why didn’t you come and tell me) on the same day the child fell?”
(R313.106)
(138) ...mai te hora [turu] era ꞌā o te pōꞌā [ki te hāpī] ki tū hora era
from ART time go_down DIS IDENT of ART morning to ART learn to DEM time DIS
“...from the morning time, when he went down to school, until then”
(R245.009)
Examples (135)–(138) all involve a demonstrative era. Now this demonstrative (as well
as nei and ena) is common both in the noun phrase and in the verb phrase, so a priori it
may be either a postnominal particle over which the verb has been raised, or a verb
phrase particle belonging to the relative clause. The position of era in the examples
suggest that the former is the case, as indicated by the brackets. era occurs after the
quantifier in (135), but before the possessor in (136) and before the particle ꞌā in
(137)–(138); in other words, era occurs in its usual noun phrase position (see the chart
in sec. 5.1). If era were a verb phrase particle, it would be unclear why it is raised with
the verb in (136)–(138), but left stranded in (135).
Another reason to consider era as postnominal rather than postverbal, is that it co-
occurs with the demonstrative tū, which is always accompanied by a postnominal
demonstrative (→ 4.6.2.2). When tū co-occurs with era after the verb, this suggests
that the verb has been raised.516 This is illustrated in (135) above; the same analysis
can be extended to examples such as the following:
(139) He kī ki a Kava i tū vānaŋa [kī] era [e Pea e tāꞌana kenu].
NTR say to PROP Kava ACC DEM word say DIS AG Pea AG POSS.3SG.A spouse
“She told Kava the words spoken by her husband Pea.” (R229.075)
(140) E uꞌi mai era a tū kona [kī] era [e nua].
IPFVlook hither DIS by DEM place say DIS AG Mum
“She looked towards the place Mum had told.” (R210.083)
In other words, even though kī era e nua in (140) seems to be a relative clause, the
presence of tū suggests that era is not part of the relative clause, but is a noun phrase
particle which has been leapfrogged over by the verb.
515
ꞌā occurs both in the noun phrase (expressing identity) and in the verb phrase (expressing
continuity); here it is a noun phrase particle, modifying the noun: “the very same day”.
516
Relative clause verbs may have a postverbal demonstrative, even when the head noun also has
a demonstrative; see nuꞌu era [oho era] in (134). Nevertheless, raised verbs never have a
demonstrative of their own: two consecutive demonstratives never occur (*nuꞌu [oho] era [era]).
This can be accounted for by a rule deleting one of two consecutive demonstratives.
Examples such as (139)–(140) are quite common. In fact, the tendency to leave out the
aspectual and (if needed) to raise the verb is strongest with definitive/anaphoric noun
phrases like the ones illustrated here. Leaving out the aspectual has the effect of
downplaying the action/event character of the relative clause: what the relative clause
denotes is not so much an event but rather a fact; this fact is part of the referential
description in the noun phrase.
11.5. Subordinating markers
The preverbal markers mo, ana, ki, ꞌo and mai are used to mark certain types of
clauses. As these markers occur in the same position as aspectuals (→ 7.1), they do not
co-occur with the latter, which means that a clause containing one of these particles is
not marked for aspect.
In subordinate clauses, these markers are always clause-initial; no constituents are
placed before the verb phrase. ana, ki and – somewhat marginally – mo also occur in
main clauses. As their functions in main and subordinate clauses are clearly similar, all
their uses will be discussed together in the following sections, with two exceptions:
• The hortative use of ki is treated in the section on imperatives (→ 10.2.3).
• The use of mo in complement clauses is discussed in the section on
complement clauses (→ 11.3).
11.5.1. The purpose/conditional marker mo

mo is by far the most common subordinating marker.517 It is used to mark complements
of cognitive verbs (→ 11.3.3), speech verbs (→ 11.3.4), attitude verbs (→ 11.3.5) and
modal verbs (→ 11.3.6). In addition, it marks both purpose clauses and conditional
clauses; these will be discussed in sec. 11.5.1.1. Sec. 11.5.1.2 discusses the expression
of arguments in mo-clauses. Occasionally mo occurs in main clauses; this is discussed in
sec. 11.5.1.3.
11.5.1.1. mo in adverbial clauses

1. mo marks purpose clauses.
(141) He tahuti a Eva mo eke ki ruŋa i te vaka.
NTR run PROP Eva for go_up to above at ART boat
“Eva ran to get on the boat.” (R210.060)
517
Preverbal mo probably developed from (or is an extended use of) the benefactive preposition
(→ 4.7.7). To my knowledge, Rapa Nui is the only language in which mo developed into a
preverbal marker. The fact that the subject is often expressed as a possessor (→ 11.5.1.2) may be
a trace of the prepositional character of mo.
(142) He haka ꞌara i a Tahoŋa mo haka unu hai rāꞌau.

NTR CAUSwake_up ACC PROP Tahonga for CAUS drink INST medicine
“She woke Tahonga up to give her medicine to drink.” (R301.159)
(143) He moko tētahi taŋata he rutu mo ꞌaꞌaru mai; ꞌina kai ravaꞌa.
NTR rush some man NTR gather for grab
hither NEG NEG.PFV obtain
“Some people rushed together to grab (her); they did not catch her.” (Ley-9-
55.149)
As these examples show, the mo-clause usually follows the main clause.
2. mo also marks conditional clauses.

(144) Mo mate tāꞌue, ꞌo mo ŋaro, he rahi tuꞌu māuiui ꞌi te
- ꞌaroha.
if die perchance or if lost NTR much POSS.2SG.O sick at ART pity
“If (the bird) dies perchance, or if it gets lost, you would suffer much from
feeling sorry.” (R213.027)
(145) Meꞌe ihu piꞌipiꞌi; - mo vānaŋa mai, meꞌe reꞌo huru kē.
thing nose crushed:RED if talk
hither thing voice manner different
“They are snub-nosed; if they talk, they have a strange voice.” (R310.252)
Conditional clauses usually precede the main clause as in these examples, though this
is not a rigid rule.
As mo is a preverbal marker, it is always immediately followed by a verb. This means

that mo constructions would be impossible with nominal clauses, or in contexts where
a different preverbal marker is called for (e.g. the negation kai). In such cases, the
existential verb ai can be employed as an auxiliary verb. ai in turn is followed by a
clause which is structured as a main clause (this construction is further discussed in
sec. 9.6.1).
(146) ꞌE mo ai he tire koe, bueno ka manaꞌu pa he tire.
and if exist NTR Chilean 2SG good think
like PRED Chilean
IMP
“And if you are a Chilean, OK, think like a Chilean.” (R625.098)
(147) Mo ai kai ꞌite i nei hīmene, ka ꞌui hakaꞌou ia koe.
if exist NEG.PFV know ACC PROX song ask again then 2SG
IMP
“If you don’t know this song, then ask again.” (R615.139)
11.5.1.2. Arguments in the mo-clause

The S or A argument of the mo-clause is often coreferential to the subject of the main
clause, in which case it is usually not expressed. See e.g. (142) above.
When the S/A argument is expressed, it is either as a possessive (with preposition o or
a possessive pronoun of the o-class) as in (148)–(150), or with the agent marker e as in
(151)–(154). The latter is applied more or less in the same contexts as in main clauses
(→ 8.3.1): in transitive VS-clauses without explicit object as in (151); in VOS-clauses
as in (152); with verbs like ŋaroꞌa as in (153); when it is contrasted with other
referents as in (154).
(148) He oho tātou ki ꞌAnakena [mo mātaꞌitaꞌi ōꞌou].
-
NTR go 1PL.INC to Anakena for observe POSS.2SG.O

“We’ll go to Anakena for you to watch.” (R301.259)
(149) [Mo haŋa ōꞌou mo ꞌite a hē a au e ŋaro nei...]
if want POSS.2SG.O for know by CQ PROP 1SG IPFV disappear PROX
“If you want to know where I disappear (then come with me).” (R212.010)
(150) Ka hoa hai haraoa, [mo oho mai o te ika ena mo kai].
IPFV throw INST bread for go
hither of ART fish MED for eat
“Throw bread, so that fish will come to eat.” (R301.215)
(151) ꞌO ira i ꞌavai ai i a Puakiva [mo hāpaꞌo e te viꞌe nei
because_of PRO PFV give PVP ACC PROP Puakiva for care_for AG ART woman PROX
ko Kava].
PROM Kava
“Therefore they gave Puakiva to this woman Kava to take care of. (lit. gave
Puakiva to take care by this woman Kava).” (R229.006)
(152) Ka haka noho nō atu koe i a au ꞌi nei [mo takeꞌa nō mai
IMP CAUS stay just away 2SG ACC PROP 2SG at PROX for see just hither
o Puakiva e au].
of Puakiva AG 1SG
“Let me stay here, so I can see Puakiva.” (R229.013)
(153) ¡ꞌĪ a au ka oho rō hai kona [mo ŋaroꞌa e au te ora]!
IMM PROP 1SG CNTG go EMPH INST place
for perceive AG 1SG ART life
“Now I will go to a place to find (lit. feel) rest!” (R214.042)
(154) Ko haŋa ꞌā a au [mo haka hopu mai e koe i a au
PRF want CONT PROP 1SG for CAUS bathe hither AG 2SG ACC PROP 1SG
paurō te mahana].
every ART day
“I want you (not mother) to wash me every day.” (R313.178)
The fact that the S/A argument is often expressed as a possessive, does not mean that
the mo-clause is nominal. Apart from the possessive constituent, the clause is wholly
verbal: the verb is not preceded by a determiner, it may be followed by VP particles
such as mai in (154), and as the same example also shows, the object may have the
accusative marker i.
The O argument of a mo-clause is either expressed as a direct object – preceded by the

accusative marker i – or as a possessive. (154) above and (155) below show i-marked
direct objects; in (156)–(157), the O is expressed as a possessive.
(155) ¡Ka haka hāhine mai koe mo uꞌi atu i tuꞌu tau ena
IMP CAUS near hither 2SG for look away ACC POSS.2SG.O pretty MED
pē he raꞌā ꞌā!
like PRED sun IDENT
“Come near, so I can see your beauty like the sun!” (R301.212)
(156) Ka oho mai koe, mo uꞌi ꞌitiꞌiti
- o te poki ꞌī e haꞌuru ꞌana.
IMPcome hither 2SG for look little:RED of ART child IMM IPFV sleep CONT
“Come, to have a look at the child that is sleeping.” (R235.047)
(157) ...he vahivahi - mo tatau o te puaꞌa, mo hāŋai o te oru
NTR divide:RED for milk.V of ART cow for feed of ART pig
ꞌe mo puru o te hoi.
and for close of ART horse
“...he divided (the piece of land) to milk cows, to raise pigs and to enclose
horses.” (R250.047)
I have not noticed any difference between the two constructions. There may be a
distinction in prominence, with less significant objects marked as possessive. However
this may be, object marking in mo-clauses is significantly different from object marking
in main clauses: contexts where the object is possessive are not the same contexts
where the object would be zero-marked in main clauses.
11.5.1.3. mo in main clauses

Occasionally preverbal mo is used in main clauses. In these clauses, the subject is
always expressed; the constituent order is almost always SV(O). When the subject is a
pronoun or proper noun, it is marked with ko. This structure reminds of clauses with
ko-marked topicalised subjects (→ 8.6.2.1).
The general sense is that of a subject being “destined” in some way to perform the
action described by the verb. Depending on the context, the clause may express a plan
or intention as in (158), an instruction as in (159), or permission as in (160).
(158) Ko au mo noho mo tiaki i te tātou hare.
PROM 1SG for stay for guard ACC ART 1PL.INC house
“(If you like, you go there.) I will stay and guard our house.” (R399.130)
(159) Ko Teke mo teki atu ki ruŋa ki toꞌu miro ena... Ko au mo oho
PROM Teke for jump away to above to POSS.2SG.O ship MED PROM 1SG for go
a te rara mataꞌu.
by ART side right
“Teke is to jump onto your ship... I will go (with my ship) by the righthand
side.” (MsE-077.010)
(160) Nuꞌu era ka tuꞌu raꞌe era ko rāua mo oꞌo raꞌe.
people DIS CNTG arrive first DIS PROM 3PL for enter first
“The people who arrived first, they could enter first.” (R250.071)
With a negation, mo-clauses may express a prohibition or dissuasion. Several negative

constructions occur. The constituent negator taꞌe can be used to negate the subject as
in (161) or the predicate as in (162). A construction with the clause negator ꞌina is also
possible, as in (163).
(161) Taꞌe māua mo moto hakaꞌou.
NEG.CONS 1DU.EXC for fight again
“We should not fight any more.” (R211.014)
(162) ...mo ꞌite rō ꞌai e te taꞌatoꞌa taꞌe mo hopu e tahi ꞌi ira.
for know EMPH CONT AG ART all NEG.CONS for bathe NUM one at PRO
“(Malo put up the stick) so all would know that nobody (lit. not one) could
swim there.” (R108.030)
(163) ꞌIna e tahi taŋata mo tuꞌu hakaꞌou ki tū kona era.
NEG NUM one person for arrive again
to DEM place DIS
“Nobody could enter that place any more.” (R310.158)
More work is needed to find out the exact function of mo in main clauses, and the
syntactic constraints that apply in this construction.
11.5.2. The irrealis marker ana

ana is an irrealis marker.518 The irrealis mode, as defined by Payne (1997:244), does
not assert that the event has happened or will happen. Neither does it assert that the
event did not happen or will not happen: the irrealis refrains from any claim about the
truth of the proposition expressed by the clause.
ana is mostly used to mark events which may or may not happen, for example
intentions, possibilities and obligations; this will be amply illustrated in the following
subsections.
In some cases the event has actually happened; this is not inconsistent with the irrealis
as defined above. In the following example, the speaker refers back to a question her
interlocutor has just asked:
(164) ¿Mo aha ꞌana koe ana ꞌui rō mai?
for what IDENT 2SG IRR ask EMPH hither
“Why would you ask this?” (R315.028)
Even though the asking is a real event, the speaker refers to it as something
“unrealised”, perhaps conceived as a more general truth (“why would anybody ask
something like this?”), or as something which is inherently improbable.
518
This particle does not occur in any other language, with the exception of Maori ana “if and
when” (Biggs 1973:130), which corresponds to the use of Rapa Nui ana in conditional/temporal
clauses.
ana occurs in the same structural position as aspect markers; ana and aspect markers
are mutually exclusive. Clauses marked by ana are therefore not differentiated for
aspect (but see (184) below).
As (164) shows, ana can be followed by evaluative markers (rō) and directionals (mai).
It cannot be followed by postverbal demonstratives or the VP-final particles ꞌā and ꞌai.
The following subsections will deal with uses of ana in main clauses (11.5.2.1) and
subordinate clauses (11.5.2.2), respectively.
11.5.2.1. ana in main clauses

1. ana is used to express intentions. While the outcome of the intended event is
inherently uncertain, the intention itself may be quite firm: (165) occurs in a context
where two parents have just agreed to call their baby Tahonga; in the quoted sentence,
this decision is confirmed.
(165) Ko Tahoŋa te ꞌīŋoa o te tāua poki ana nape.
PROM Tahonga ART name of DEM 1DU.INC child IRR call
“Tahonga is the name we will call our child.” (R301.146)
(166) Āpō nō tāua ana vānaŋa.
tomorrow just 1DU.INC IRR speak
“Tomorrow we will talk.” (R304.014)
2. ana may express potential events, events which may or may not happen.
(167) A ꞌuta hō a Vaha ana oho rō.
by inland DUB PROP Vaha IRR go EMPH
“Vaha might go by the inland way.” (Mtx-3-01.142)
Whether the event will happen or not, may depend on a condition which is stated
explicitly. Thus, ana may occur in the apodosis, the clause expressing the consequence
of a conditional or temporal clause.
(168) Ki hāhine nō tāua mo tuꞌu ana maꞌu iho e au te kai.
when close just 1DU.INC for arrive IRR carry just_then AG 1SG ART food
“When we are close to arrival, then I will take the food.” (R215.026)
Even without a conditional clause construction, the occurrence of the event marked by
ana may be contingent on another event: it is the result of, or at least follows upon, an
event expressed in an earlier clause: “X, only then Y”. In this case – as in (93) above –
the verb is usually followed by iho “just then”.
(169) He meꞌe ꞌo kai vave, e hoki au, ana kai iho.
PRED thing lest eat yet IPFVreturn 1SG IRR eat just_then
“Don’t519 eat yet; I will return, then you can eat.” (Mtx-3-01.194)
519
he meꞌe ꞌo is a now obsolete construction expressing prohibitions.
(170) A mātou e iri ki te rano ꞌo ki Roꞌiho ana rovaꞌa iho te vai.

PROP 1PL.EXC IPFV ascend to ART crater or to Ro’iho IRR obtain just_then ART water
“We will go up to the crater or to Ro’iho, where we (will/may) find water.”
(R487.035)
As a marker of potentiality, ana is also used in content questions. The question may be
a real one to which an answer is expected as in (171), or a rhetorical one as in (172):
(171) ¿ꞌI hē māua ana aŋa i nā kai?
at CQ 1DU.EXC IRR make ACC MED food
“Where will we prepare the meal?” (Luke 22:9)
(172) ¿A hē ana tētere te
- hānau ꞌeꞌepe ꞌi te ura o te ahi,
by CQ IRR PL:run ART race corpulent at ART flame of ART fire
ꞌina he ara mo tētere? -
NEG PRED way for PL:run

“Where could the ‘corpulent race’ flee from the flame of fire, as there was
nowhere to flee?” (Mtx-3-02.034)
3. ana also has a deontic use: it is used to express instructions, obligations or norms,
as well as permission.
(173) Ana tuꞌu kōrua ki ira hora pae o te popohaŋa.
IRR arrive 1p to PRO hour five of ART dawn
“You must arrive there five o’clock in the morning.” (R310.272)
(174) E tahi nō ika mata rāua ko te ꞌāuke ana kai ꞌi te mahana.
NUM one just fish raw 3PLseaweed IRR eat at ART day
PROM ART
“He was allowed to eat just one raw fish with seaweed per day.” (Fel-40.11)
In the second person, deontic ana is similar in function to imperative ka and

exhortative e. While the latter two are only used with clause-initial verbs, ana is
especially used when the verb phrase is non-initial. In (176), initial e alternates with
non-initial ana:
(175) Ki tāꞌaku vānaŋa ana hakaroŋo mai.
to POSS.1SG.A word IRR listen hither
“You must listen to my words.” (R229.280)
(176) E haꞌamuri koe ki a Iehoha ki tuꞌu ꞌAtua
EXH worship 2SG to PROP Jehovah to POSS.2SG.O God
ꞌe ki a ia mau nō koe ana tāvini.
and to PROP 3SG really just 2SG IRR serve
“Worship Jehovah your God, and serve only him.” (Mat. 4:10)
4. ana may also mark clauses which express a general practice, something which is
normally/usually done in a given situation. This use is found especially in procedural
contexts, where the speaker describes how certain things are normally done or should
be done. In Rapa Nui, procedures are generally expressed by strings of he-clauses, with
occasional imperatives (→ (5) on p. 303). But ana may be used as well, especially
when the verb is non-initial.
(177) ꞌI te pō nō te ika nei ana hī.
at ART night just ART fish PROX IRR fish.V
“This (type of) fish is only fished at night.” (R364.007)
(178) Hai meꞌe he raŋaria ana tari mai i te māꞌea.
INST thing PRED sled IRR transport hither ACC ART stone
“(This is what I saw in my youth:) With a sled they would transport the
stones.” (R107.044)
Examples like (177) could be considered as deontic, prescribing how something should
be done. However, (178) shows that ana is used even when the procedure is not an
instruction to the present-day hearer, but a description of how something was done in
the past. Such contexts can be considered irrealis, as they do not describe events which
happened at a specific occasion.520
11.5.2.2. ana in subordinate clauses

1. In subordinate clauses, ana is used to express a condition: the event may or may
not happen, but only if it happens will the event in the main clause take place. The
conditional clause tends to precede the main clause.
(179) Ana haŋa koe ꞌo manaꞌu rahi koe ki te poki, mo tāua ꞌana
IRR want 2SG lest think much 2SG to ART child for 1DU.INC IDENT
e hāpaꞌo i a rāua ko Kava.
IPFV care_for ACC PROP 3PL PROM Kava
“If you don’t want to worry about the child, we will take care of her and
Kava.” (R229.028)
(180) E uꞌi atu te mata ki a au; ana noho mai au, ana raraŋa mai
EXH look away ART eye to PROP 1SG IRR sit hither 1SG IRR weave hither
au i te kete, ku haꞌuru ꞌā te hānau ꞌeꞌepe.
1SG ACC ART basket PRF sleep CONT ART race corpulent
“Look at me; if I sit down, if I am weaving a basket, (that means that) the
‘corpulent race’ are asleep.” (Ley-3-06.025)
As these examples show, the apodosis is usually marked with an aspectual, i.e. in the
realis mood. Alternatively, the apodosis may also be marked with ana (cf. (168)
above). This can lead to a situation in which both the conditional clause and the
apodosis are marked with ana:
520
Payne (1997:245) points out that habitual aspect is less realis than perfective aspect.
(181) Ana haŋa mo hakarere nō ꞌi Orohie, ꞌi rā ꞌana ana hakarere...

IRR want for leave just at Orohie at DIS IDENT IRR leave
“If they want to leave (the statue) in Orohie, there they leave it...” (Ley-4-
06.015)
In other cases, the question is not whether the event in the subordinate clause happens,
but when: the event is expected to happen or has already happened, and the same is
true for the main clause event dependent on it. However, ana signals that the clause is
still irrealis in some way. It may indicate an event which takes or took place habitually
(see the discussion about (178) above), or an event which is expected (with more or
less certainty) to take place in the future. ana is not used with events which have taken
place at a definite moment in the past.
(182) Ana mate te taŋata, te matuꞌa, he hohora te moeŋa...
IRR die ART man ART parent NTR spread ART mat
“When a man – a father – dies, they spread out a mat...” (Ley-4-08.001)
(183) Ana pō, he tutu hai ahi.
IRR night NTR kindle INST fire
“When it is dark, we will light a fire.” (R210.085)
2. ana also occurs in dependent polar questions (“whether”):

(184) ꞌĪ ꞌō a au he oho he uꞌi ana ai ko ꞌara ꞌana.
IMM really PROP 1SG NTR go look IRR exist PRF wake_up CONT
NTR
“I’m going straightaway and look whether she has woken up.” (R229.366)
While ana is usually followed by the main verb of the clause, sometimes it is followed
by the existential verb ai “exist” (just like mo → (146) on p. 521); the rest of the clause
follows as a complement to this verb. This allows the speaker to use ana with a
nonverbal clause as in (185), or to express aspect in addition to irrealis, as in (184)
above, where the main verb is marked with perfect aspect ko.
(185) He ꞌui e Aio ki tū korohuꞌa era ana ai [pē ira mau te parautiꞌa].
NTR ask AG Aio to DEM old_man DIS IRR exist like PRO really ART truth
“Aio asked the old man if those things were true (lit. if it was: like that [was]
the truth).” (R532-14.016)
11.5.3. The purpose/temporal marker ki

The preverbal marker ki is used in subordinate clauses expressing time (“when”) and
purpose (“in order to, so that”). In main clauses it marks hortatives, i.e. first-person
injunctions. In this section, its use in subordinate clauses is discussed; hortatives are
discussed in section 10.2.3.
Even though ki is homophonous to the preposition ki, the two are probably
etymologically distinct. The verbal marker ki is probably derived from PPN *kia, which
occurs in many languages with an optative and/or purposive sense.521 If this is correct,
the preposition and the verbal marker ki were distinct lexemes in the protolanguage.
However, because of the goal-oriented character of preverbal ki, it is glossed “to”, just
like the preposition.
1. For purpose clauses, the default marker is mo (→ 11.5.1.1 sub 1). ki is used
especially in the following circumstances:
a. After an imperative or hortative.
(186) Ka uru mai koe ki roto ki ꞌavai atu a au i tāꞌau o te kai.
IMP entr hither 2SG to inside to give away PROP 1SG ACC POSS.2SG.A of ART food
“Come inside, so I will/can give you your food.” (R229.417)
(187) Ka hōrou mai koe ki oho rō tāua.
IPFV hurry hither 2SG to go 1DU.INC
EMPH
“Hurry up, so we can go.” (R313.109)
When the ki-clause has a first person plural subject as in (187), the clause may have
hortative overtones: “so we (can) go” > “let’s go”.
b. When mo would be potentially ambiguous. In (188), the main verb pohe is followed
by a complement clause marked with mo. If the next clause were also marked with mo,
it could be read as a second complement of pohe; to ensure a reading as purpose
clause, ki is used. The same happens in (189): while the mo-clause expresses the
purpose of the preceding main clause, the ki-clause after that expresses the ultimate
purpose, the higher-order goal of the preceding clauses as a whole.
(188) ꞌĪ e pohe atu ena mo ꞌata noho mai ki ꞌata keukeu
- ai
IMM IPFV desire away MED for more stay hither to more labour:RED PVP
tētahi aŋa.
other work
“I would like him to stay here a bit more, in order to get other projects done.”
(R204.005)
(189) O te hānau ꞌeꞌepe i keri ai i te rua...

of ART race corpulent PFV dig PVP ACC ART hole
521
kia was shortened to ki in various languages. Clark (1976:30) mentions Kapingamarangi,
Nukumanu, Sikaiana and Luangiua; Hawaiian i (Elbert & Pukui 1979:61) seems to represent the
same particle. As the particle is kia/ꞌia in most CE languages, the shortening to ki in Rapa Nui
must have been an independent development which took place after Rapa Nui broke off from
PEP (→ 2.5.2 sub 7 on the monophthongisation of particles). This process may have taken place
relatively recently: there are a few occurrences of kia in older texts, mostly in fossilised phrases
such as ka oho, kia tika “go straight” (Mtx-2-03.018; Mtx-6-07.014); see discussion in Fischer
(1994:429). Nowadays kia survives in kiahio “keep courage, be strong” (cf. hio-hio “strong”).
mo pae o te hānau momoko, ki noho e

- hānau ꞌeꞌepe nō.
for finished of ART race slender to stay AG race corpulent just
“The ‘corpulent race’ dug a hole... to exterminate the ‘slender race’, so the
‘corpulent race’ would be the only ones (left).” (Ley-3-06.019)
c. To express a result not intended by the main-clause subject. This is illustrated in the
following two examples. The ki-clause does not express a purpose which the main-
clause subject had in mind; rather, it is a result external to the intentions of the
subject.
(190) ¿He aha te meꞌe i meꞌe e ia ki aŋiaŋi - ai e tātou ko koa ꞌā?
PRED thing ART thing PFV thing AG 3SG to certain:RED PVP AG 1PL.INC PRF happy CONT
“What things did she do so that we (the readers of the story) know that she
was happy?” (R615.658)
(191) Māuruuru hakaꞌou ki te
- mau mahiŋo era i ꞌui mai era:
thank again to ART PL people DIS PFV ask hither DIS
hē te mātou raꞌatira, ki hakaroŋo atu tāꞌana vānaŋa.
CQ ART 1PL.EXC chief to listen away POSS.3SG.A word
“Thanks again to the people who asked: where is our chief, so we can hear his
words.” (R205.044)
As these examples show, the subject of the ki-clause is expressed in the same way as in
main clauses: either unmarked as in (186)–(187) or with the agent marker e as in
(189). In this respect, ki-clauses are different from mo-clauses, which usually have a
possessive subject.
A peculiarity of ki-clauses with purpose sense, is that the verb is often followed by ai,
the postverbal demonstrative which otherwise only occurs after i (→ 7.6.5). This is
illustrated in (188) and (190) above.
2. ki also marks temporal clauses.522 As the examples below show, these occur in
various contexts: with past reference, with future reference, or habitual. ki-clauses
usually occur before the main clause, but as (195) shows, they may also be placed after
the main clause.
(192) Ki oti a Puakiva te vānaŋa i kī ai e koro...
when finish PROP Puakiva ART talk say PVP AG Dad
PFV
“When Puakiva had finished speaking, Dad said...” (R229.490)
522
The double function of reflexes of PPN *kia as both optative/purposive and temporal markers
is also found with Maori kia (Bauer 1993:62; 459) and Tahitian ꞌia (Lazard & Peltzer 2000:138f);
unlike Rapa Nui, in these languages the particle is not used in temporal clauses referring to the
past. In Rapa Nui, the purposive sense of *kia has to a large degree been taken over by mo, as
discussed above.
(193) He haka hū au i te ꞌumu, ki oti he oho a koe...

NTR CAUS burn 1SG ACC ART earth_oven when finish NTR go 2SG PROP
“I will light the earth oven, when finished you will go...” (R184.007)
(194) Ki oho ararua e maꞌu te rima.
when go the_two EXH hold ART hand
“When the two of you walk together, hold hands.” (R166.004)
(195) He aŋa tātou he haka hōrou mo turu o tātou ki tai
NTR work 1PL.INC NTR CAUS quick for go_down of 1PL.INC to sea
ki tuꞌu mai a nua.
when arrive hither PROP Mum
“We will work quickly, so we can go to the sea when Mum comes.” (R229.456)
ki-marked clauses may indicate a goal or temporal boundary: “until”. This occurs for
example after the verb tiaki “wait”.523
(196) He tiaki ki hū tahi te hukahuka.
-
NTR wait to burn all ART firewood:RED

“They wait until all the firewood is burned.” (R333.460)
(197) He noho rō atu ꞌai o tū nuꞌu era ꞌi ira ki ora riva o te mata
NTR stay EMPH away SUBS of DEM people DIS at there to live good of ART eye
o Māhina Tea.
of Mahina Tea
“The people stayed there, until Mahina Tea’s eyes had healed well.” (R399.235)
(The preposition ki has the same use, see (271) on p. 204. This shows that the two
particles ki, though etymologically distinct, are closely related.)
In fact, there is not an absolute distinction between the senses “when” and “until”.
Whether ki is translated as one or the other, mainly depends on whether it is
connected to the preceding clause (“X until Y”) or to the following clause (“when Y,
then Z”). When connected to both, the ki-clause marks a boundary point or “hinge”
between two events:
(198) ꞌI roto e hāpaꞌo era ki takataka tahi te
- tarake
at inside IPFV care_for DIS to/when gather:RED all ART corn
he toꞌo mai he huhu.
NTR take hither NTR strip
“Inside they stored (the corn) until all the corn was gathered, (then) they
would take it and strip it.” (R250.068)
523
In other contexts, “until” is more commonly expressed by ka – rō, and/or using ꞌātā (→
11.6.2.5).
(199) He uru ki raro i te roꞌi he piko, ki roa te hora he eꞌa

NTR enter to below at ART bed NTR hide to/when long ART time NTR go_out
he tere mai.
NTR run hither
“He would go under the bed and hide, when/until a long time (had passed),
then he would come out and run away.” (R250.185)
11.5.4. ꞌo “lest”
The preverbal marker ꞌo524 indicates a consequence which is to be avoided. It can be
translated as “lest” or “so that ... not”.
ꞌo-marked clauses usually occur after the main clause and are always verb-initial. The
subject is expressed in the same way as in main clauses: unmarked as in (200), or with
the agent marker e as in (201).
(200) He oho a Eva he piko ꞌo kī rō a koro mo taꞌe oho ki hiva.
NTR go PROP Eva NTR hide lest say EMPH PROP Dad for NEG.CONS go to mainland
“Eva went and hid lest Dad would tell her not to go to the mainland.”
(R210.026)
(201) He tētere he pipiko tahi ꞌo varaꞌa rō

- - e te Miru i a rāua mo tiaŋi.
NTR PL:run NTR PL:hide all lest catch EMPH AG ART Miru ACC PROP 3PL for kill
“All of them fled and hid, lest the Miru would catch them to kill them.”
(R304.039)
(202) ¿He aha te kōrua meꞌe ka aŋa ena ꞌo ai pē ira?

PRED what ART 2PL thing CNTG do
lest exist like PRO
MED
“What will you do so that it won’t happen?” (R648.239)
(203) E tiaki ꞌana hoki Kaiŋa i a Vaha ꞌo iri atu Vaha
IPFV wait CONT also Kainga ACC PROP Vaha lest ascend away Vaha
ki ruŋa ki te motu.
to above to ART islet
“Kainga waited for Vaha, so Vaha wouldn’t climb on the islet.” (Mtx-3-01.124)
In modern Rapa Nui, a verb marked with ꞌo is usually followed by the asseverative
particle rō (→ 7.4.2), as illustrated in (200)–(201) above.
524
The origin of ꞌo is unclear. It may be a reflex of PPN *ꞌaua “negative imperative”, which
occurs throughout Polynesia (Tongic, Samoic-Outlier and EP). Cf. also fn. 496 on p. 482 on the
origin of the negator (e) ko.
Another possible cognate is Tahitian ꞌo, which introduces clauses after “des verbes exprimant la
crainte, la méfiance, et parfois l’eventualité”, and which is followed by a nominalised verb
(Acad.tah. 1986:197). However, given the fact that Rapa Nui ꞌo occurs in old texts already, it is
relatively unlikely that it is a borrowing from Tahitian.
Occasionally ꞌo is found in complement clauses expressing a negative complement:

riꞌariꞌa ꞌo “to fear lest”, haŋa ꞌo “to want that not...” (→ (75)–(76) in 11.3.5).
-
11.5.5. mai “before; while”

mai, which is common as a preposition “from” (→ 4.7.4) and as a directional
“movement towards deictic centre” (→ 7.5), also occurs occasionally as a preverbal
marker. It indicates an event prior to the event in the main clause: “before”.
(204) He tunu atu au i to tāua kai mai pō.
NTR cook away 1SG ACC ART:of 1DU.INC food from night
“I will cook our food, before it gets dark.” (R229.140)
mai is often reinforced by the constituent negator taꞌe, which in this construction does
not invert the polarity of the clause.
(205) ¡Ka hōrou mai, mai taꞌe taŋi te oe!
IMP hurry hither from NEG.CONS cry ART bell
“Hurry up, before the bell strikes!” (R334.077)
As these examples show, the event in the mai-clause indicates the end point of a time
frame, which limits the time available to accomplish the action in the main clause.
Event A should be done before (mai) event B happens.525
The event in the mai-clause may also be something which is to be avoided altogether:
A should be done before B happens, so that B will not happen at all.
(206) Ka horohorou koe mai taꞌe
- ꞌatrasao.
IMP RED:hurry 2SG from NEG.CONS tardy
“Hurry up or you will be late.” (R245.019)
(207) ꞌĪ au he oho rō ꞌai mai taꞌe maꞌurima i a au.
IMM 1SG NTR go EMPH SUBS from NEG.CONS surprise 1SG
ACC PROP
“I’m going now, before (=or else) they will catch me.” (R304.117)
Occasionally, the mai-clause marks not the boundary of a time frame, but the time
frame as such during which the action in the main clause is to be performed: “while, as
long as”. In this case, the verb is followed by the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana (→
7.2.5.5):
(208) ¿ꞌO te aha koe i taꞌe hāꞌaki mai ai mai noho ꞌana
because_of ART what 2SG PFV NEG.CONS inform hither PVP from stay CONT
525
Interestingly, in Hawaiian mai marks events to be avoided; it marks both negative imperatives
and events (always unpleasant ones) which almost happen, but not quite: Mai hāꞌule ke keike
“The child almost fell” (Elbert & Pukui 1979:61–63). This is somewhat similar to temporal mai in
Rapa Nui, though the latter is limited to subordinate clauses.
ꞌi Hiva, ꞌi te kāiŋa?
at Hiva at ART homeland
“Why didn’t you tell me when we still lived in Hiva, in the homeland?” (Ley-2-
07.028)
(209) ꞌO ira ka hāꞌere ꞌi roto i te māꞌeha, mai ai atu ꞌana te mōrī.

because_of PRO IMP walk:PL at inside at ART light from exist away CONT ART light
“Therefore walk in the light, while there is still light.” (John 12:35)
11.5.6. Summary
In the preceding sections, five preverbal markers have been discussed which introduce
subordinate clauses; two of these also introduce certain types of main clauses. The
following table summarises the different functions of these markers.
Table 65: Functions of preverbal markers
clause type gloss ref.

mo complement that 11.3
purpose to, in order to 11.5.1.1
conditional if
main clause: destined be to, be destined to 11.5.1.3
ana main clause: intention will, let’s 11.5.2.1
main clause: potential may, might, could
main clause: apodosis (if,) then
main clause: deontic must; be allowed to
main clause: general practice always, usually
conditional if 11.5.2.2
temporal when
dependent question whether
ki hortative let’s 10.2.3
purpose so, in order to 11.5.3
temporal when; until
ꞌo negative purpose lest 11.5.4
negative complement that not 11.3.5
mai temporal before; while 11.5.5
The sections above also show, that case marking in subordinate clauses follows the
same rules as in main clauses: the S/A argument is marked with Ø or e, the O
argument with i or Ø, depending on the factors described in 8.3–8.4. The only
exception is mo, where both arguments are often marked as possessive.
11.6. Adverbial clauses
11.6.1. Adverbial clause strategies

Adverbial clauses provide an adverbial modification of the main clause. They can be
constructed in various ways:
1. using one of the preverbal markers discussed in 11.5 above;
2. using a conjunction (where “conjunction” is defined as a clause-initial word
which indicates the function of the clause and which is not part of the verb
phrase);
3. without any special marking. In this case, the relationship between the
subordinate clause and the main clause is indicated by the aspectual marker,
possibly in combination with certain postverbal particles;
4. using a nominal construction. Properly speaking, such a construction is not an
adverbial clause, but as it fulfils similar functions, it will be mentioned in this
section as well.
Type 3 clauses are subordinate, even though they lack a conjunction or subordinating
marker; this is indicated by the fact that they are negated with the constituent negator
taꞌe (→ 10.5.6 sub 6), not by a main clause negator. Here is an example of a negated
temporal clause. Cf. also (257) on p. 545 (a reason clause marked with he).
(210) [I taꞌe kore era tuꞌu tokerau era] he manaꞌu mo haka tītika -
PFV NEG.CONS lack DIS POSS.2SG.O wind DIS NTR think for CAUS straight
i te vaka ki Tahiti.
ACC ART boat to Tahiti
“When the wind did not die down, they decided to steer the boat to Tahiti.”
(R303.064)
In the following subsections, adverbial clauses are discussed, grouped by function: time
(11.6.2), purpose (11.6.3), reason/result (11.6.4), condition (11.6.6), concession
(11.6.7) and circumstance (11.6.8). This is followed by an overview (11.6.9)
summarizing the different strategies used.
11.6.2. Time
A temporal clause is a subordinate clause which provides a temporal framework for
the event in the main clause. Rapa Nui has a variety of temporal clause constructions.
Some of these involve a conjunction or a nominal construction; in others, the temporal
relation is expressed by an aspectual marker.
11.6.2.1. Cohesive clauses

In Rapa Nui discourse – especially in narrative – it is common to find an unmarked
subordinate clause at the beginning of a sentence, which provides a temporal
framework for the main clause. R. Weber (2003:116) labels these “cohesive”: they
connect the events to the preceding context and provide a setting for the events that
follow. Two examples:
(211) I pō era, he eꞌa mai roto mai te vai te hānau ꞌeꞌepe.

PFV night DIS NTR go_out from inside from ART water ART race corpulent
“When it had become night, the ‘corpulent race’ came out of the water.” (Ley-
3-06.046)
(212) I poreko era a Puakiva, he māuiui a - Kuha.

PFV born DIS PROP Puakiva NTR sick PROP Kuha
“After Puakiva was born, (his mother) Kuha got sick.” (R229.001)
Cohesive clauses are characterised by the following features:
• They precede the main clause.
• They do not have a conjunction or subordinating marker.
• They are always predicate-initial, i.e. nothing precedes the verb phrase.
• The aspectual is usually i, though e and ka are also found.
• The verb is almost always followed by a postverbal demonstrative, usually
era.526
As the examples above show, cohesive clauses marked with perfective i express an
event anterior to the event in the main clause (→ 7.2.4.2 sub 1), which provides the
setting for the event in the main clause.
Cohesive clauses marked with imperfective e indicate events simultaneous to the

event in the main clause. They may be continuous as in (213) or habitual as in (214):
(213) E haꞌuru nō ꞌā a Eva he hakaroŋo atu ko te reꞌo ka raŋi...
IPFV sleep just CONT PROP Eva NTR listen
away PROM ART voice CNTG call
“When Eva was still asleep, she heard a voice calling...” (R210.080)
(214) E kā era i tou ꞌumu era paurō te mahana,
IPFV kindle DIS ACC DEM earth_oven DIS every ART day
ꞌina he ꞌōꞌotu te ꞌumu e pō rō era.
NEG PRED cooked ART earth_oven IPFV night EMPH DIS
“When they lighted the earth oven every day, the food was not cooked until
night.” (R352.013)
The contiguity marker ka in cohesive clauses expresses temporal contiguity: the

event in the subordinate clause marks the starting point of the event in the main
clause.
(215) Ka tuꞌu mai era a koro ki te kai he oho a Eva he piko.
CNTG arrive hither DIS PROP Dad to ART eat NTR go PROP Eva NTR hide
“When Dad came to eat, Eva would go and hide.” (R210.026)
526
In a representative corpus containing 304 i-marked cohesive clauses, 281 (92.4%) have era; ai
occurs in 13 clauses (4.3%), while the remaining clauses have nei (7x), ena (1x) or no PVD at all
(2x).
(216) Ka hakameꞌemeꞌe era he riri a Taparahi.

CNTG mock DIS NTR angry PROP Taparahi
“When they mocked, Taparahi would get angry.” (R250.151)
Perfect aspect ko – ꞌā in cohesive clauses (as in main clauses) expresses a state

resulting from a process. In cohesive clauses, ko – ꞌā only occurs with stative verbs.
(217) Ko nuinui ꞌā
- a Te Manu he hāipoipo ki tāꞌana
- viꞌe.
PRF big:RED CONT PROP Te Manu NTR marryto POSS.3SG.A woman
When Te Manu had grown up, he married a (lit. his) woman.” (R245.256)
(218) Ko ꞌōꞌotu527 mai ꞌā te ꞌumu he maꞌoa.
PRF cooked hither CONT ART earth_oven NTR open_earth_oven
“When the (food in the) earth oven is cooked, they open it.” (R372.075)
Concerning the function of cohesive clauses in discourse: in many cases the preposed
clause expresses an event which is predictable from the situation or from the preceding
events. The event is just to be expected, and therefore it is backgrounded to a
subordinate clause. In the following example, the person in question is on his way to
Hanga Oteo. Puna Marengo is a place that lies on the way to Hanga Oteo, so it is only
natural that he passes it on the way.
(219) He eꞌa he oho ki Haŋa ꞌŌteo. I haka noi atu era ꞌi ruŋa
NTR go_out NTR go to Hanga Oteo PFV CAUS incline away DIS at above
o te nihinihi- era o Puna Māreŋo, he uꞌi atu ko te ꞌau...
of ART curve:RED DIS of Puna Marengo NTR look away PROM ART smoke
“He went out to Hanga Oteo. When he had come down the slope of Puna
Marengo, he saw smoke...” (R313.091)
The preposed clause is not always closely connected to the preceding context,
however; it may also have a transitional function, marking the start of a new scene or
episode in the story. Such transitional clauses may express a lapse of time between the
previous and the next event, or indicate the point in time at which the next events take
place:
(220) I hinihini
- era he oho mai he haꞌi i tū poki era ꞌāꞌana.
PFV delay:RED DIS NTR gohither NTR embrace ACC DEM child DIS POSS.3SG.A
“After that, he went to embrace his child.” (R210.068)
(221) I tuꞌu nei ki te mahana e tahi he eꞌa hakaꞌou te taŋata nei...
PFV arrive PROX to ART day one NTR go_out again
NUM ART man PROX
“When a certain day came, this man went out again...” (R310.025)
527
ꞌōꞌotu is a stative verb meaning “to be cooked, done”, not an active verb “to cook”.
11.6.2.2. Other unmarked temporal clauses

Apart from cohesive clauses, there are other temporal clauses without a conjunction or
subordinator. The only way in which these clauses are marked, is by an aspectual
which is different from the aspectual in the main clause. They may be marked with i, e
or ka.
1. In sec. 7.2.4.2 on perfective i, it was shown that i-marked clauses may express a
restatement, conclusion or clarification of the preceding clause. Subordinate i-marked
clauses are somewhat similar in function; they express an event which is simultaneous
to the event expressed in the preceding clause.
(222) Kai takeꞌa mai i uꞌi ai e māua ko Vai Ora.
NEG.PFV seehither PFV look PVP AG 1DU.EXC PROM Vai Ora
“We didn’t see (the fish) when Vai Ora and I looked.” (R301.292)
(223) Meꞌe koa atu a Tahoŋa i eꞌa mai ai mai ꞌŌroŋo.
thing happy away PROP Tahonga PFV go_out hither PFV from Orongo
“Tahonga was happy when he came back from Orongo.” (R301.316)
2. Temporal clauses may also be marked with imperfective e. These clauses express a
continuous event simultaneous to the one in the main clause. As discussed in 7.2.5.4,
e-marked verbs in main clauses are followed either by a postverbal demonstrative
(PVD) or the continuity marker ꞌā/ꞌana. The same is true in temporal clauses: the verb
is either followed by a PVD as in (224)–(225), or by ꞌā/ꞌana as in (226)–(227).
(224) He meꞌe mai mai roto mai tau ꞌana era e vero atu era hai akaue...
NTR thing hither from inside from DEM cave DIS IPFV throw away DIS INST stake
“They said from inside the cave, while (the enemy) threw sticks at them...”
(Mtx-3-02.042)
(225) He oho hakaꞌou e ꞌui era ki te hare, ki te hare era.

NTR go again ask DIS to ART house to ART house DIS
IPFV
“He went again, asking from house to house.” (R310.152)
(226) Ko tuꞌu hakaꞌou mai ꞌā tū ŋā poki era e maꞌu rō ꞌā
PRF arrive again hither CONT DEM PL child DIS IPFV carry EMPH CONT
i te raꞌakau.
ACC ART castor_oil_plant
“The children had come back, carrying castor oil leaves.” (R313.053)
(227) Terā ka pāhono mai e Vaha e koa rō ꞌā...
then CNTG answer hither AG Vaha IPFV happy EMPH CONT
“Then Vaha answered happily...” (R304.098)
Though all these clauses are similar in function, there is a difference between clauses
marked with e – PVD and the ones marked with e – ꞌā. The constructions with a PVD can
be characterised as true temporal clauses, indicating an event which takes place at the
same time as the main event. The clauses with ꞌā are more like circumstantial or
‘manner’ clauses, further defining the nature of the event in the main clause or the
manner in which it takes place. They have less the character of an independent event
and can often be translated with a participle.
Two indications for the more “participial” character of the ꞌā constructions are:
a. With ꞌā, the subject is always the same as in the main clause; in the PVD
construction, the subject can be different, as in (224).
b. With ꞌā, the predicate can be an adjective, as in (227); in the PVD construction, this
is rare, unless the adjective indicates a process.
3. Subordinate clauses marked with the contiguity marker ka indicate an event

which is simultaneous with the event expressed in the main clause:
(228) He ruku te ꞌatariki, ka noho nō atu te haŋupotu.
NTR dive ART firstborn CNTG stay just away ART last_child
“The eldest dived, while the youngest stayed (ashore).” (Mtx-7-30.012)
(229) Ka turu nei tāua, he tuꞌu mai a koro era ko Vaha ki nei.
CNTGgo_down PROX 1DU.INC NTR arrive hither PROP Dad DIS PROM Vaha to PROX
“When we go down, father Vaha will come here.” (R229.187)
As these examples show, the subordinate clause may precede or follow the main
clause. As in (229), the verb is often followed by a postverbal demonstrative.
11.6.2.3. Development of hora “time” into a pseudo-conjunction

Temporal adjuncts can be expressed by a time noun preceded by a preposition; the
most general time noun is hora “time”. The adjunct can be further specified by a
modifier, e.g. a genitive as in (230) or a relative clause as in (231):
(230) ꞌI te hora era ꞌana o tōꞌoku māmārūꞌau era i oti rō ai
at ART time DIS IDENT of POSS.1SG.O grandmother DIS PFV finish EMPH PVP
rā oho iŋa.
DIS go NMLZ
“In my grandmother’s time this custom (lit. going) finished.” (R648.137)
(231) ꞌI te hora era e ora nō ꞌā tāꞌana kenu era, ꞌāꞌana te oho
at ART time DIS IPFV live just CONT POSS.3SG.A husband DIS POSS.3SG.A ART go
ki te kona aŋa...
to ART place work
“At the time when her husband was still alive, she was the one who would go
to work...” (R349.005)
Now as discussed in sec. 5.3.3.2 sub 3, the article can be omitted before clause-initial
nouns followed by a demonstrative like era. At the same time, the preposition ꞌi can be
omitted as well. This results in constructions like the following:
(232) Hora ena e vānaŋa ꞌā ki te rua, ¿e uꞌi rō ꞌā koe
time MED IPFV talk CONT to ART other IPFV look EMPH CONT 2SG
a roto i te mata?
by inside at ART eye
“When you talk to someone else, do you look (them) in the eyes?” (R209.027)
(233) Hora takeꞌa era e au, ¡ꞌai te nehenehe!
-
time see 1SG there ART beautiful

DIS AG
“When I saw her, she was so beautiful!” (R413.099)
In these constructions, hora ena/era resembles a temporal conjunction; semantic

bleaching is taking place, where hora ena/era comes to mean little more than “when”.
Notice however, that the construction is syntactically still a nominal phrase with
relative clause: as (233) shows, the aspectual can be omitted, something which is only
possible in relative clauses (→ 11.4.5). (Also, the verb takeꞌa has been raised from the
relative clause.)
11.6.2.4. “before”
Rapa Nui has a variety of devices to express that the event in the subordinate clause
takes place prior to the event in the main clause. One of these is preverbal mai,
discussed in sec. 11.5.5. The following strategies are also used:
— ꞌi raꞌe: raꞌe is a locational meaning “first” (→ 3.6.4.1). ꞌi raꞌe ki, followed by a

nominalised verb, means “before”:
(234) Paurō te mahana e ꞌara era ꞌi te pō era ꞌā, ꞌi raꞌe ki te eꞌa
every ART day IPFV wake_up DIS at ART night DIS IDENT at first to ART go_out
o te raꞌā.
of ART sun
“Every day he woke up early in the morning, before the sun came up.”
(R448.003)
— ante (< Sp. “antes”) is used as an adverb meaning “before, earlier, previously”. It is
also used as a conjunction, followed by ki + nominalised verb:
(235) Pero ante ki te uru, he oho tahi te ŋā poki he fira raꞌe.
but before to ART enter NTR go all ART PL child NTR line first
“But before going in, the children first go and stand in line.” (R151.012)
— ꞌō ira “before”528 consists of the otherwise unknown particle ꞌō, followed by the pro-
form ira (→ 4.6.5.2). It is always followed by a ka-marked verb. As (236) shows, the
subject after ꞌō ira is usually preverbal.
528
Not to be confused with ꞌo ira “therefore” (→ 11.6.4 sub 2).
(236) Te rāua henua raꞌe i noho ko Perú, ꞌō ira te Inca ka tuꞌu.

ART 3PL land first PFV stay PROM Peru ? PRO ART Inca CNTG arrive
“The first land where they lived was Peru, before the Incas arrived.”
(R376.011)
— hia: The postverbal marker hia, combined with a negation, means “not yet”; in a
multiclause construction it indicates that an event has not happened before another
occurs (→ 10.5.8).
11.6.2.5. “until”
1. “until” is often expressed by the aspectual ka (→ 7.2.6) in combination with the
emphatic marker rō (→ 7.4.2). This is in line with the function of ka as a contiguity
marker: the event or state expressed in the ka-clause marks the temporal boundary of
another event, often indicating the natural or expected outcome of an action
performed to completion. These ka-clauses usually occur sentence-finally.
(237) He kai a Te Manu ka mākona rō.
NTR eat PROP Te Manu CNTG satiated EMPH
“Te Manu ate until he was satiated.” (R245.067)
(238) I noho ai a Te Manu ꞌi muri tū pāpārūꞌau era ka rovaꞌa rō
PFV stay PVP PROP Te Manu at near DEM grandfather DIS CNTG obtain EMPH
hoꞌe ꞌahuru tūmaꞌa matahiti.
one ten more_or_less year
“Te Manu stayed with his grandfather until he was about ten years old.”
(R245.159)
In the examples above, the subject of the main clause reaches a certain state or end
point; for example, in (238), Te Manu reaches a state of satiation after having eaten.
The stative verb in the ka – rō clause may also specify the action of the main clause,
which is performed – or is to be performed – to a certain extent or in a certain way.
(Cf. the use of ka before numeralss to mark an extent, → 4.3.2.2).
(239) E hatu era ki a ꞌOhovehi ka rivariva rō.
-
EXHadvise DIS to PROP Ohovehi CNTG good:RED EMPH

“Advise Ohovehi well!” (R310.277)
(240) He uru atu ararua he here i te kūpeŋa ka hiohio
- rō.
NTR enter away the_two NTR tie net
ACC ARTCNTG strong:RED EMPH
“The two went in and tied the net firmly.” (R310.397)
2. “until” is also expressed by ꞌātā (< Sp. “hasta”). ꞌātā is used in nominal
constructions before the preposition ki (→ (272) on p. 204), but also in verbal
constructions, followed by ka – rō. As (242) shows, ꞌātā may be shortened to ꞌā:
(241) Mai ki hāpaꞌo nō tātou i a ia ꞌātā ka nuinui rō.

-
hither HORT care_for just 1PL.INC ACC PROP 3SG until CNTG big:RED EMPH
“Let us take care of him until he is big.” (R211.063)
(242) ...ꞌai ka haka teka ka oho ki Haŋa Piko
there CNTG CAUS turn CNTG go to Hanga Piko
ꞌā tāua ka tomo rō nei.
until 1DU.INC CNTG go_ashore EMPH PROX
“...then we will turn and go to Hanga Piko, until we come ashore.” (R230.401)
3. Less commonly, the conjunction ꞌahara is used, followed by ka:

(243) He noho rō ꞌai tāua ꞌahara ka haka hoki rō koe i a au
NTR stay EMPH SUBS 1DU.INC until CNTG CAUS return EMPH 2SG ACC PROP 1SG
ki muꞌa ki tōꞌoku nuꞌu.
to before to POSS.1SG.O people
“We will stay, until you make me return to my people.” (Fel-1978.115)
4. Finally, “until” may be expressed by the subordinator ki, especially after verbs like
tiaki “wait” (→ 11.5.3).
11.6.3. Purpose: bare purpose clauses

Purpose clauses are often marked with preverbal mo (→ 11.5.1.1) or ki (→ 11.5.3).
Purpose may also be expressed by a bare verb, i.e. a verb without aspect marker.529
This verb is always initial in the clause. Bare purpose clauses are found especially after
motion verbs. A few examples:
(244) Paurō te mahana e eꞌa era te poki ki haho mātaꞌitaꞌi - i te raŋi
every ART day IPFV go_out DIS ART child to outside observe ACC ART sky
ꞌe i te vaikava.
and ACC ART ocean
“Every morning the child went outside to watch the sky and the sea” (R532-
07.004)
(245) He oti te kai, he moe te ꞌariki ki raro haka ora.

NTR finish ART eat NTR lie ART king to below CAUS live
“When the meal was finished, the king lay down to rest.” (Ley-2-10.017)
More commonly, the purpose of an action is expressed by a noun phrase introduced by

the preposition ki, followed by a bare verb. Here are a few examples:
529
Clauses with a bare verb cannot be analysed as juxtaposed main clauses, as main clause verbs
always have an aspect marker, except occasionally when the verb is followed by certain
postverbal particles (→ 7.2.2).
(246) Te poki nei i iri atu ai ki te tarake toke.

ART child PROX PFV ascend away PVP to ART corn steal
“This boy went (to the field) to steal corn.” (R132.003)
(247) He iri ararua ki te rāua hoi ꞌaꞌaru mai.
-
NTR ascend the_two to ART 3PL horse grab hither

“Both of them went to grab their horse.” (R170.002)
(248) He turu tahi mātou ki te pērīkura mātaꞌitaꞌi ꞌi te
- hare hāpī era.
NTR go_down all 1PL.EXC to ART movie watch
at ART house learn DIS
“We all went down to watch a movie at school.” (R410.010)
In these examples, the main verb is a motion verb; the ki-marked noun phrase is the
Goal of movement. This noun phrase is followed by a bare verb, of which the
preceding noun is the Patient.530
The noun in this construction is not an incorporated object of the following verb: it is
the head of a regular noun phrase, marked with the article te and preceded by a
preposition. A somewhat more plausible analysis would be to consider the verb as
incorporated into the noun; however, the directional mai in (247) shows that the verb
is the head of a true verb phrase. It is best to analyse these constructions simply as a
combination of a noun phrase and a bare purpose clause, rather than assuming that the
noun phrase + verb are a single constituent. An additional reason to do so, is that this
construction is not an isolated phenomenon, but an instance (admittedly, the most
common instance) of a group of constructions in which a locative noun phrase and a
purpose clause occur together. Related constructions include:
— A ki te N V construction where the noun is not the verb’s Patient.
(249) I oti era he turu ki raro ki te teata mātaꞌitaꞌi.
-
PFV finish DIS NTR go_down to below to ART cinema watch

“After that, they went down to the cinema to watch (a movie).” (R210.145)
— A Source noun phrase (with preposition mai “from”) followed by a bare verb:
(250) He tuꞌu mai tau viꞌe matuꞌa era mai te kūmara keri.
NTR arrive hither DEM woman parent DIS from ART sweet_potato dig
“The mother came (back) from harvesting sweet potatoes.” (MsE-094.006)
— A ki-marked Goal noun phrase followed by a mo-marked purpose clause:

- he eꞌa a ꞌOrohe ki ruŋa i te vaka
at ART afternoon NTR go_out PROP Orohe to above at ART boat
ki te ika mo maꞌu mai.
to ART fish for carry hither
“In the afternoon Orohe went out by boat to bring fish.” (R160.005)
530
Clark (1983b:424) points out that the same construction occurs in Marquesan and
Mangarevan. Different from what Clark suggests, in Rapa Nui this construction is not limited to
generic objects, as (247) shows.
— A ki-marked Goal noun phrase, with the associated action left implicit:
(252) —¿Ki hē a kuā ꞌOrohe i iri ai ꞌi ruŋa i te vaka?
to CQ PROP COLL Orohe PFV ascend PFV at above at ART boat
—Ki te rāua ika ꞌi ruŋa i te toka.
to ART 3PL fish at above at ART rock
“—Where did Orohe and the others go by boat? —To their fish (i.e. to catch
fish) on the rocks.” (R154.038)
— A mo-marked Goal noun phrase followed by a purpose clause; the latter may be
either bare or marked with mo.
(253) ...ꞌai ka maꞌu atu ki hiva mo te purumu mo aŋa.
there CNTG carry away to mainland for ART broom for make
“...then they transported (the horsehair) to the mainland to make brooms.”
(R539-02.091)
These examples suggest that ki te N V in (246)–(248) should not be analysed as a

special construction involving a single NP+V constituent. Rather, it is a combination
of two constituents, a nominal Goal phrase followed by a bare purpose clause.
11.6.4. Reason
Reason clauses can be constructed in several ways.
1. Reason is often expressed by nominalised clauses marked with the prepositions ꞌi
and ꞌo (→ 4.7.2.2).
2. In modern Rapa Nui, the phrase ꞌi te meꞌe (era) (lit. “in the thing” or “because of the
thing”) is used as a conjunction introducing a reason clause. As the examples show, the
reason clause either precedes or follows the main clause.
(254) He riꞌariꞌa ꞌi te
- meꞌe era ko piri ꞌā ki a rāua te taꞌoraha.
NTR afraid
at ART thing DIS PRF join CONT to PROP 3PL ART whale
“They are afraid because whales approach them.” (R364.038)
(255) Bueno, ꞌi te meꞌe era e ꞌitiꞌiti
- nō ꞌā au ꞌina he haꞌatiꞌa mai
good at ART thing DIS IPFV small:RED just CONT 1SG NEG NTR permit hither
e tōꞌoku pāpā era mo eke ki ruŋa te hoi.
AG POSS.1SG.O father DIS for go_up to above ART horse
“OK, because I was little, my father didn’t allow me to mount a horse.”
(R101.004)
3. The reason clause may also be a subordinate clause marked with the aspectual he.
That this is a subordinate clause, is shown by the fact that it is negated with the
constituent negator taꞌe (→ 10.5.6); main clauses would have a different negator.
(256) I tuꞌu mai ai ki Rapa Nui mai Marite he ai o te aŋa
PFV arrive hither PVP to Rapa Nui from America NTR/PRED exist of ART work
o tōꞌona matuꞌa tane ꞌi nei.

of POSS.3SG.A parent male at PROX
“He came to Rapa Nui from America because his father had work here.”
(R461.002)
(257) Te nuꞌu nei i tētere ai he

- taꞌe haꞌatiꞌa e te huaꞌai
ART people PROX PFV PL:run PVP NTR/PRED NEG.CONS permit AG ART family
mo hāipoipo ararua.
-
for marry the_two

“These people fled because their family did not allow them to marry.”
(R303.144)
In these constructions, he can also be considered as a nominal predicate marker

followed by a nominalised verb (hence the double gloss in the examples above). One
reason to do so, is that other nominal constructions are also used to express reasons: in
(258) a nominalised verb preceded by a possessive pronoun, in (259) a subordinate
existential construction (an existential main clause would be ꞌIna he meꞌe mo kai):
(258) Tuꞌu taꞌe hakaroŋo ena ki te vānaŋa o te taote; ꞌo ira
POSS.2SG.O NEG.CONS listen MED to ART word of ART doctor because_of PRO
koe i māuiui hakaꞌou ena.
-
2SG PFV sick again MED

“You didn’t listen to the words of the doctor, therefore you got sick again.”
(R237.087)
(259) He meꞌe kore mo kai, ꞌo ira au e taŋi nei.

PRED thing lack for eat because_of PRO 1SG IPFV cry PROX
“There is nothing (lit. the lack of things) to eat, therefore I am crying.”
(R349.013)
11.6.5. Result
Results may be marked by the adverbial connector ꞌo ira “because of that; therefore”
(the reason preposition ꞌo followed by the pro-form ira). As (261) shows, it is possible
to mark both the reason clause (in this case, a nominal construction) and the result
clause.
(260) ꞌIna paꞌi o māua kona mo noho. ꞌO ira au i iri mai nei
NEG in_fact of 1DU.EXC place for stay because_of PRO 1SG PFV ascend hither PROX
ki a koe...
to PROP 2SG
“We don’t have a place to live. Therefore I have come up to you...” (R229.210f)
(261) ꞌI te taꞌe hakaroŋo ōꞌou ꞌo ira koe i hiŋa ena.
at ART NEG.CONS listen POSS.2SG.O
because_of PRO 2SG PFV fall MED
“Because you didn’t listen, therefore you fell.” (R481.136)
As these examples show, the subject tends to be placed straight after ꞌo ira. This
conforms to a general preference for preverbal subjects after initial oblique
constituents (→ 8.6.1.1).
11.6.6. Condition
1. Conditional clauses can be marked by one of the subordinators mo (→ 11.5.1.1 sub
2) and ana (→ 11.5.2.2 sub 1).
2. Condition is not always marked, however: clauses with a conditional sense may also
occur without special marking. The verb is marked with one of the aspectuals i, e or ka
and followed by a postverbal demonstrative. Two examples:
(262) ꞌE i haŋa era koe mo rere ki taꞌa kona i manaꞌu,
and PFV want DIS 2SG for fly to POSS.2SG.A place PFV think
he rere rō ꞌai koe....
NTR fly EMPH SUBS 2SG
“And if you want to fly to the place you think of, you (can) fly...” (R378.006)
(263) Ka hāŋai atu ena ki a koe, he mate koe.
CNTG feed away MED to PROP 2SG NTR die 2SG
“If (the two spirits) feed you, you will die.” (R310.061)
The contiguity marker ka is relatively common in clauses expressing a condition. It

seems natural that a marker which indicates temporal contiguity (simultaneous or
sequential events) also marks logical contiguity, i.e. contingency of one event on
another.
To mark irreal conditions, the conjunction ꞌāhani (var. ꞌani) is used.

(264) ꞌĀhani ꞌō au he ꞌono, ko hoꞌo mai ꞌā au i te hare e tahi...
if_only really 1SG PRED rich buy hither CONT 1SG ACC ART house NUM one
PRF
“If I were rich, I would buy a house...” (R399.182)
(265) ꞌĀhani ꞌō tōꞌoku nua era i taꞌe mate,
if_only really POSS.1SG.O Mum DIS PFV NEG.CONS die
ꞌī au ꞌi muri i a ia ꞌi te hora nei.
IMM 1SG at near at PROP 3SG at ART time PROX
“If my mother hadn’t died, I would be with her now.” (R245.007)
As these examples show, the subject after ꞌāhani is usually preverbal (→ 8.6.1.1).
11.6.7. Concession
1. The aspectual marker ka, in combination with the directional atu, can be used in a
concessive sense, indicating a circumstance which might be expected to prevent – but
actually does not prevent – the event in the main clause.531
“Even if I have many children, I will care for them myself.” (R229.023)
As discussed in sec. 7.2.6, ka expresses temporal contiguity; the concessive sense
follows in a way from this basic sense. By explicitly juxtaposing two events or
situations which are temporally contiguous or simultaneous, the contrast between the
two is highlighted.532
The ka – atu construction with concessive sense is especially common with the
existential verb ai, in the expressions ka ai atu “even” and ka ai atu pē ira/nei “even
though; even so”:
(267) Ka ai atu te meꞌe ꞌitiꞌiti
- hopeꞌa, he tau nō ki a au.
CNTG exist away ART thing small:RED last pretty just to PROP 1SG
NTR
“Even the smallest things are beautiful to me.” (R224.037f)
(268) E haka topa rō mai ꞌā mai roto tētahi nūnaꞌa henua
IPFV CAUS happen EMPH hither CONT from inside some group land
ka ai atu pē nei ē: ꞌi te Pacífico ꞌā.
CNTG exist away like PROX thus at ART Pacific IDENT
“Some groups of islands are excluded (from Oceania), even though they are in
the Pacific.” (R342.005)
2. Concession can also be expressed by the preposition nōatu, followed by a

nominalised verb:
(269) Nōatu te paŋahaꞌa, te mahana te mahana e hāpī ena ꞌi ira.
no_matter ART heavy ART day day
teach MED at PRO
ART IPFV
“Even though it's heavy, they teach there day after day.” (R537.023)
3. Finally, concession is expressed by the adverbial expression te meꞌe nō “however,

even so”, which functions as a coordinating conjunction (→ 5.9.2 sub 4):
531
This does not mean that all ka – atu constructions have a concessive sense, see e.g. example
(263) above.
532
The same use can be observed for constructions expressing simultaneity in other languages.
English “while” can be used in the sense “even though” (“While he had a good job, he did not
earn enough to support his expensive tastes.”). The French gérondif, preceded by “tout en”, has a
concessive sense (“La police a des soupçons tout en ignorant l’identité du coupable” = “The
police has suspicions, but does not know the identity of the culprit.”).
(270) ꞌApa te toe a au he mate; te meꞌe nō, ꞌī a au e ora nō ꞌā.

half ART remain PROP 1SG NTR die thing just IMM PROP 1SG IPFV live just CONT
ART
“I almost died; even so, I am alive.” (R437.050)
11.6.8. Circumstance
Circumstantial clauses may be expressed by koia ko “with” preceding the verb (→
8.10.4.2):
(258) He hoki mai a Kāiŋa koia ko taŋi.
NTR return hither PROP Kainga COMIT PROM cry
“Kainga returned crying.” (R243.173)
Alternatively, mā “and, with” may be used, followed by a nominalised verb.533 As (272)

shows, mā te may be assimilated to mata.
(271) E noho nō ꞌā mā te aŋa kore, mā te hupehupe.
-
IPFV stay just CONT with ART do with ART lazylack

“She lived doing nothing, being lazy.” (R368.016)
(272) He ꞌaꞌamu, mata taꞌe ꞌite hia pē nei ē: he tahutahu.
-
NTR tell with_the NEG.CONS know yet like PROX thus NTR witch
“She told (the other woman), without knowing that she was a witch.” (R532-
07.044)
When circumstances are states rather than events, they tend to be expressed in a clause
in the perfect aspect (ko – ꞌā), without a special marker.
(273) He taŋi ko ꞌū ꞌā era pē he puaꞌa.
NTR cry PRF bellow CONT DIS like PRED cow
“He cried, howling like a cow.” (R210.016)
(274) He raŋi mai ko riri rivariva ꞌā...
-
NTR call hither PRF angry good:RED CONT

“Very angry, she shouted...” (R245.214)
I have not found this construction in older texts, so it may be a modern development.
Perfect aspect clauses expressing circumstances are especially common in the

construction ko – ꞌā e – era. In this construction, the second clause is marked with e –
era and expresses an action, while the preceding ko – ꞌā clause expresses a quality (e.g.
a feeling or attitude) possessed by the subject performing the action. Even though e –
era in general expresses durative actions, in this construction it is not necessarily
durative.
533
mā has a limited distribution in Rapa Nui: it is only used in the construction under discussion
and in numerals. Both uses are also found in (and were probably borrowed from) Tahitian (→ fn.
162 on p. 140).
(275) Ko riri ꞌā e kī era ki a nua...

PRFangry CONT IPFV say DIS to PROP Mum
“Angrily she said to Mum...” (R210.062)
(276) He māroa ki ruŋa, ko nene ꞌā e uꞌi era pe tū haŋa era.
NTR standto above PRF tremble CONT IPFV look DIS toward DEM bay DIS
“He stood up and looked trembling towards that bay.” (R408.128)
Notice that e – era is obligatory when the circumstantial ko – ꞌā clause comes first;
when the circumstantial clause follows the main clause, the main clause may be he-
marked, as in (273)–(274) above.
11.6.9. Summary
Events which modify the event in the main clause, can be expressed in several ways.
Certain interclausal relationships are expressed using a subordinating marker or
conjunction. In other cases no special marker is used; even so, the modifying clause is
subordinate, as is shown by the fact that these clauses are negated by the subordinate
negator taꞌe rather than a main clause negator. The various strategies are summarised
in the following table.
Table 66: Overview of adverbial clauses

subord. no subord. adverbial
conjunction nominal
marker marking connector
temporal 11.6.2.1– hora “time” Asp – PVD
11.6.2.3
“before” 11.6.2.4 ꞌō ira “before” ꞌi raꞌe “first”;
ante “before”
“until” 11.6.2.5 ki “to” ꞌātā “until”; ka – rō
ꞌahara “until”
purpose 11.6.3 mo “for”; bare verb
ki “to”
reason 11.6.4 ꞌi te meꞌe ꞌi “at”; ꞌo
“because” “because of”;
he “PRED”
result 11.6.4 ꞌo ira
“therefore”
condition 11.6.6 mo “if”; Asp – PVD
ana “IRR”
irreal 11.6.6 ꞌāhani
condition “if only”
concession 11.6.7 ka – atu nōatu “no te meꞌe nō
matter” “however”
11.7. Conclusions
This chapter has explored the ways in which clauses are combined. A common way to
combine clauses is simple juxtaposition. In fact, older Rapa Nui did not have any
coordinating conjunction. In modern Rapa Nui ꞌe “and” is used, but juxtaposition is
still the default strategy for coordinating clauses. Juxtaposition is not only used to
express sequential events, but also to express semantic complements of the verbs
haꞌamata “begin” and hōrou “hurry”.
Rapa Nui has various strategies to express the argument of a matrix verb. Only some of
these involve a proper complement clause, i.e. a clause which is syntactically
dependent on the main verb; they may involve the subordinating marker mo “for, in
order to”, or a nominalised complement. Other verbs are followed by a juxtaposed
clause or an independent clause.
The subordinator mo marks both complement clauses and adverbial clauses;
interestingly, it marks both purpose and condition. The marker ana has an even wider
range of functions, all of which can be characterised as “irrealis”: an ana-marked
clause refrains from claiming the truth of the proposition expressed. ana-marked
clauses express intentions, potential events and obligations, but also general truths. In
subordinate clauses, ana marks conditional clauses and dependent questions.
Relative clauses in Rapa Nui are not marked by a conjunction or preverbal marker, but
they have various distinctive properties: they are invariably verb-initial and the choice
of aspectuals is limited. A peculiar feature is, that the aspect marker may be left out (in
most other clause types, unmarked verbs are rare or nonexistent). In these “bare
relative clauses”, the verb is often raised to a position immediately after the head
noun, before any postnominal markers.
A wide range of constituents can be relativised; most of these are not expressed in the
relative clause, others are expressed as a pronoun. The distribution of these two
constructions does not entirely conform to the noun phrase hierarchy proposed by
Keenan & Comrie (1977): while subjects, objects and adjuncts are left unexpressed,
oblique arguments (which are higher in the hierarchy than adjuncts) are expressed
pronominally, just like constituents low in the hierarchy like possessors.
There is a tendency to express the entity which is subject of the relative clause as a
possessor before or after the head noun: “your thing [did yesterday]” = “the thing you
did yesterday”. Syntactically there is nothing special about these constructions: the
possessor is no different from other possessors in the noun phrase; the relative clause is
no different from other relative clauses, apart from the fact that the subject is not
expressed.
Appendix A: Interlinear texts
Below are three glossed and interlinearised texts, all of which are part of the PLRN text
corpus (→ 1.6.2). The first text is a children’s story, written during a writer’s workshop
in 1984. The second text is a dramatic retelling of a traditional story by Luis Avaka
Paoa (“Papa Kiko”), a renowned storyteller; a very short version of the same story was
published by Blixen (1974). Number three is a description of a fishing trip, composed
as part of a schoolbook containing stories about traditional activities on Rapa Nui.
1. Te tātane taŋata – The devilman (R215)

by Virginia Haoa Cardinali (Haoa Cardinali 1984; N. & R. Weber 1990a vol. 3:118f)
01 Ko ahiahi pō ꞌā. 02 Te ŋā poki nei e rua: e tahi ko Kihi te
PRF evening night CONT ART PL child PROX NUM two NUM one PROM Kihi ART
ꞌīŋoa, e rima ōꞌona matahiti, poki teatea, ritorito, he tau nō; te rua poki
name NUM five POSS.3SG.O year child white clear NTR pretty just ART two child
ko ꞌAtera te ꞌīŋoa, e hitu matahiti, meꞌe rakerake a vērā.
PROM Atera ART name NUM seven year thing bad:RED PROP poor_thing
03 Mahana tāpati ꞌi te pō, he haka rivariva e te rāua māmā mo maꞌu
day Sunday at ART night NTR CAUS good:RED AG ART 3PL mother for carry
i te kai ki te rāua koro. 04 Te aŋa iŋa ꞌi te kona motore mo haka pura
ACC ART food to ART 3PL Dad ART work NMLZ at ART place engine for CAUS shine
i te mōrī paurō te mahana ꞌi te pō. 05 Ko haꞌaꞌī ꞌā tū kai era e nua
ACC ART light every ART day at ART night PRF fill CONT DEM food DIS AG Mum
ꞌi roto i te pani e tahi, ꞌai ka viri rō hai pānio teatea.

at inside at ART pan NUM one SUBS CNTG wrap EMPH with towel white
01 It was evening. 02 There were two children: one was called Kihi, she was five
years old, a fair child, light-skinned, just pretty; the other child was called Atera, seven
years old, the poor one was ugly. 03 On Sunday night, their mother made
preparations to take food to their father. 04 He worked at the electrical power plant
every day at night. 05 Mother had put the food in a pan and wrapped it in a white
towel.
06 He hahari i te pūꞌoko o tū ŋā poki era, he haka uru i te paratoa,

NTR comb ACC ART head of DEM PL child DIS NTR CAUS dress ACC ART jacket
ꞌai ka vaꞌai rō tū pūꞌahu kai era ki te poki ꞌatariki era. 07 He kī ia
SUBS CNTG give EMPH DEM bundle food DIS to ART child firstborn DIS NTR say then
e nua: 08 —Ka maꞌu hiohio te kai ena mā koro. 09 E maꞌu hiohio ꞌi roto
AG Mum IMP carry strong ART food MED for.A Dad EXH carry strong at inside
i tuꞌu rima; taꞌe mo haka pakō tāꞌue. 10 E tahi rima ena ōꞌou
at POSS.2SG.O hand NEG.CONS for CAUS loose perchance NUM one hand MED POSS.2SG.O
ka maꞌu ena i te kai, e tahi i te rima o tuꞌu taina; ararua nō
CNTG carry MED ACC ART food NUM one ACC ART hand of POSS.2SG.O sibling the_two just
ꞌina ko haka pakoꞌo ki te hora hopeꞌa.
NEG NEG.IPFV CAUS loose to ART time last
06 She combed the children’s hair, put on their jacket and gave the bundle of food to
the oldest one. 07 Then mother said, “Hold the food for Dad firmly. 09 Hold it tight
in your hands; you must not let go of it. 10 With one hand carry the food, with the
other hold on to you sister’s hand; don’t ever let go of each other.”
11 He eꞌa ia tū ŋā poki era a te vāeŋa o te ara he haꞌere he iri.

NTR go_out then DEM ART child DIS by ART middle of ART road NTR walk NTR ascend
12 ꞌIna e tahi vānaŋa rere ararua; ko momou ꞌā ꞌi te riꞌariꞌa ꞌi te pōhāhā.

NEG NUM one word fly the_two PRF PL:quiet CONT at ART fear at art dark
13 ꞌE ꞌi te riꞌariꞌa ꞌi tū pōhāhā era, he paꞌahia te rima ararua.
and at ART fear at DEM dark DIS NTR sweat ART hand the_two
14 He haꞌamata te paŋahaꞌa o te rāua vaꞌe, pē ira ꞌā tū kai era

NTR begin ART heavy of ART 3PL foot like PRO IDENT DEM food DIS
mā koro.
for.A Dad
11 The children went out by the middle of the road and walked up. 12 The two didn’t
say anything; they were silent, because they were afraid in the dark. 13 And because
they were afraid in the dark, both had sweaty hands. 14 Their feet started to feel
heavy, and the food for Dad felt heavy as well.
15 Ko hinihini ꞌā te hora e iri era, he ꞌui ia e ꞌAtera ki a Kihi:

PRF delay:RED CONT ART time IPFV ascend DIS NTR ask then AG Atera to PROP Kihi
16 —¿E ko haŋa ꞌō rō koe mo maꞌu i te kai nei mā koro?

IPFV NEG.IPFV want really EMPH 2SG for carry ACC ART food PROX for.A Dad
17 Ka maꞌu ꞌitiꞌiti koe mo haka ora ꞌitiꞌiti o tōꞌoku rima. 18 Terā ka kī
IMP carry little 2SG for CAUS rest little of POSS.1SG.O hand then CNTG say
e Kihi: 19 ––¡Ko aha ꞌā i a koe! 20 ¿Ko haŋa ꞌana ꞌō pēaha
AG Kihi PRF what CONT at PROP 2SG PRF want CONT really perhaps
koe mo pakoꞌo tōꞌoku rima? 21 He momou hakaꞌou ararua, ꞌai ka iri nō.
2SG for loose POSS.1SG.O hand NTR PL:quiet again the_two SUBS CNTG ascend just
Appendix A: Interlinear texts 553
15 When they had walked for a while, Atera asked Kihi, 16 “Don’t you want to carry
the food for Dad? 17 Carry it for a little while, so my hand can rest a little.” 18 Kihi
said 19 “What are you thinking! 20 Do you really want to let go of my hand?” 21
The two were silent again, while they kept going up.
22 I roaroa hakaꞌou era te hora, he kī hakaꞌou e ꞌAtera:

PFV long again DIS ART time NTR say again AG Atera
23 —¡Mo taꞌe haŋa ōꞌou mo maꞌu i te kai nei mā koro,
if NEG.CONS want POSS.2SG.O for carry ACC ART food PROX for.A Dad
he haka pakō e au tuꞌu rima nei! 24 He oho ia a Kihi mo taŋi,
NTR CAUS loose AG 1SG POSS.2SG.O hand PROX NTR go then PROP Kihi for cry
ꞌai ka kī rō: 25 —¡E te taina riva ōꞌoku ē, ꞌina koe ko
SUBS CNTG say EMPH VOC ART sibling good POSS.1SG.O VOC NEG 2SG NEG.IPFV
haka pakō i tōꞌoku rima ꞌo riꞌariꞌa rō au ꞌi te tātane!
CAUS loose ACC ART hand lest fear EMPH 1SG at ART devil
26 Ki hāhine nō tāua mo tuꞌu ana maꞌu iho e au te kai.
when near just 1DU.INC for arrive IRR carry just_then AG 1SG ART food
22 After a long time, Atera said again, 23 “If you don’t want to carry the food for
Dad, I will let go of your hand!” 24 Kihi was about to cry and said, 25 “My dear
sister, don’t let go of my hand, or else I will be afraid of the devil! 26 When we are
almost there, then I will carry the food.”
27 He kī ia e ꞌAtera: 28 —¡Ko aha ꞌā koe i vānaŋa mai ai i te

NTR say then AG Atera PRF what CONT 2SG PFV speak hither PVP ACC ART
vānaŋa o te tātane! 29 ¿Hoki ko tikeꞌa ꞌā e koe te tātane raꞌe?
word of ART devil Y/N PRF see CONT AG 2SG ART devil first
30 He pāhono mai ia e Kihi: 31 —Te parautiꞌa, kai tikeꞌa ꞌā e au
NTR answer hither then AG Kihi ART truth NEG.PFV see CONT AG 1SG
te tātane raꞌe. 32 O tētahi ŋā poki ꞌō tāꞌau i ꞌaꞌamu mai pē nei ē:

ART devil first of other PL child really POSS.2SG.A PFV tell hither like PROX thus
e ai rō ꞌā te tātane ꞌe ꞌi te pō e eꞌa e haꞌere nei.
IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART devil and at ART night IPFV go_out IPFV walk PROX
27 Atera said, 28 “What are you talking about the devil! 29 Have you ever seen a
devil?” 30 Kihi replied, 31 “The truth is, I have never seen a devil. 32 Other
children have told that devils exist and that they go out and walk around at night.”
33 Ka topa tū vānaŋa era ꞌa Kihi, ꞌī rāua ka uꞌi atu ena

CNTG happen DEM word DIS of.A Kihi IMM 3PL CNTG look away MED
e noho nō mai ꞌā te tātane e tahi ꞌi ruŋa i te ꞌāua. 34 A ruŋa
IPFV sit just hither CONT ART devil NUM one at above at ART fence by above
i peꞌe ai ararua ko kikikikiu atu ꞌana ia. 35 E tuꞌu nō ꞌā

PFV jump_up PVP the_two PRF RED:shriek away CONT then IPFV arrive just CONT
te reꞌo ki te rāua hare era ꞌe pē ira ꞌā ki te kona aŋa era o koro.
ART voice to ART 3PL house DIS and like PRO IDENT to ART place work DIS of Dad
36 He momoko mai te taŋata taꞌatoꞌa mai roto i te rāua hare.
NTR PL:rush hither ART man all from inside at ART 3PL house
37 Pē ira ꞌā a nua ararua ko koro ko tahuti mai ꞌā i ŋaroꞌa era
like PRO IDENT PROP Mum the_two PROM Dad PRF run hither CONT PFV perceive DIS
te reꞌo o tū ŋā rikiriki era o rāua. 38 I tuꞌu era ki tū kona era
ART voice of DEM PL small.PL DIS of 3PL PFV arrive DIS to DEM place DIS
o tū ŋā poki era ko te kikikikiu haŋa ꞌā, e puru rō ꞌā te ꞌāriŋa
of DEM PL child DIS PROM ART RED:shriek NMLZ IDENT IPFV close EMPH CONT ART face
ararua hai tū paratoa era o rāua.
the_two INST DEM jacket DIS of 3PL
33 Just when Kihi had said that, they saw a devil that was sitting on a fence. 35 They
both jumped up and yelled. 35 The sound could be heard at their house and also at
the place where Dad worked. 36 All the people rushed out from their houses. 37
Mum and Dad came running when they heard the voice of their little ones. 38 When
they came to the place where their children were, the two were still yelling, covering
their face with their jackets.
39 He haka hāhine atu ia a nua ararua ko koro, ꞌai ka kī rō:

NTR CAUS near away then PROP Mum the_two PROM Dad SUBS CNTG say EMPH
40 —Ka momou, e koā vovo ē. 41 Taꞌe he tātane te meꞌe era
IMP PL:quiet VOC COLL dear_girl VOC NEG.CONS PRED devil ART thing DIS
o ruŋa i te ꞌāua. 42 He mautini piro ko kakaro ꞌā te roto

of above at ART fence PRED pumpkin rotten PRF hollow_out CONT ART inside
e Hao Kūmā. 43 ꞌAi ka aŋa rō te mata, te haha, ꞌai ka puꞌa rō
AG Hao Kuma SUBS CNTG make EMPH ART eye ART mouth SUBS CNTG cover EMPH
hai paratoa ꞌe he toꞌo mai he haka eke ki ruŋa o te ꞌāua
with jacket and NTR take hither NTR CAUS go_up to above of ART fence
mo haka riꞌariꞌa o te huaꞌai haꞌere pō.
for CAUS fear of ART family walk night
39 Mum and Dad came near and said, 40 “Be quiet, dear girls. 41 That thing on the
fence is not a devil. 42 It’s a rotten pumpkin which Hao Kuma has hollowed out. 43
He made eyes and a mouth, then he covered it with a jacket and put it on top of the
fence to scare the people who walk by at night.”
2. Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa – Tikitiki a Ataranga (R352)

by Luis Avaka Paoa (N. & R. Weber 1990a Vol. 4:93ff)
01 Hora nei he ꞌaꞌamu atu au i te ꞌaꞌamu era o Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa.

time PROX NTR tell away 1SG ACC ART story DIS of Tikitiki a Ataranga
02 A Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa, kai aŋiaŋi mai e au he aha tōꞌona mata
PROP Tikitiki a Ataranga NEG.PFV certain hither AG 1SG PRED what POSS.3SG.O tribe
he aha tōꞌona hakaara, he Tūpāhotu ꞌo he Miru. 03 ꞌIna kai aŋiaŋi
PRED what POSS.3SG.O descendance PRED Tupahotu of PRED Miru NEG NEG.PFV certain
rivariva mai e au. 04 Te meꞌe ōꞌona i aŋiaŋi mai e au, he nua
good:RED hither AG 1SG ART thing POSS.3SG.O PFV certain hither AG 1SG PRED Mum
ōꞌona te ꞌīŋoa ko Nuahine ꞌa Raŋi Kotekote. 05 I poreko era te poki nei,
POSS.3SG.O ART name PROM Nuahine a Rangi Kotekote PFV born DIS ART child PROX
he hāŋai e te rūꞌau nei ararua ko tāꞌana kenu. 06 He nuinui,
NTR raise AG ART old_woman PROX the_two PROM POSS.3SG.A husband NTR big:RED
he mate te koro. 07 I mate era te koro o te poki nei, he toe

NTR die ART Dad PFV die DIS ART Dad of ART child PROX NTR remain
he rūꞌau nō nei, he noho he hāŋai ē... 08 he nuinui.
PRED old_woman just PROX NTR stay NTR raise on_and_on NTR big:RED
01 Now I’m going to tell the story of Tikitiki a Ataranga. 02 Concerning Tiki a
Ataranga, I don’t know what his tribe was or his descendance, whether Tupahotu of
Miru. 03 I don’t know it well. 04 The thing about him I do know, is that his mother’s
name was Nuahine a Rangi Kotekote. 05 When this child was born, this old woman
brought it up with her husband. 06 When he was bigger, his father died. 07 When
the child’s father had died, just the old woman was left; she continued to raise the
child 08 until he was grown up.
09 He moe tou poki era ko Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa ki tāꞌana viꞌe Tūpāhotu.

NTR lie_down DEM child DIS PROM Tikitiki a Ataranga to POSS.3SG.A woman Tupahotu
10 He poreko e toru poki: e rua poki tane, e tahi poki vahine.

NTR born NUM three child NUM two child male NUM one child female
11 He hāŋai i tū ŋā poki era he nunui.

NTR raise ACC DEM PL child DIS NTR PL:big
09 The boy Tikitiki a Ataranga married a Tupahotu wife. 10 Three children were
born: two boys and one girl. 11 They raised the children and they grew up.
12 I hāŋai era i nunui era, te aŋa o tū rūꞌau māmā era he kā

PFV raise DIS PFV PL:big DIS ART work of DEM old_woman mother DIS PRED kindle
i te ꞌumu paurō te mahana. 13 E kā era i tou ꞌumu era
ACC ART earth_oven every ART day IPFV kindle DIS ACC DEM earth_oven DIS
paurō te mahana, ꞌina he ꞌōꞌotu te ꞌumu e pō rō era.
every ART day NEG NTR cooked ART earth_oven IPFV night EMPH DIS
14 E pō rō ꞌā e ꞌōꞌotu era te ꞌumu e maꞌoa era,

IPFV night EMPH CONT IPFV cooked DIS ART earth_oven IPFV open_earth_oven DIS
ꞌai ka kakai ananake ko te ŋā poki. 15 He uꞌi paꞌi i te meꞌe era
SUBS CNTG PL:eat together PROM ART PL child NTR look in_fact ACC ART thing DIS
ꞌina ꞌō he kai ꞌi te ꞌōtea ꞌā. 16 E pō rō ꞌana ꞌō e kai era,
NEG really NTR eat at ART daytime IDENT IPFV night EMPH CONT really IPFV eat DIS
e mōkirokiro rō ꞌā.
17 He ꞌaroha paꞌi he kī:
IPFV nightfall EMPH CONT NTR pity in_fact NTR say
18 —¡Kai riva ꞌō te kai nei o tātou, e repa ē!
NEG.PFV good really ART eat PROX of 1PL.INC VOC young_man VOC
19 ꞌI te ꞌao nui ꞌō e kai nei te ŋā poki, e haꞌuru rō ꞌō te ŋā poki.
in ART day big really IPFV eat PROX ART PL child IPFV sleep EMPH really ART PL child
12 When they had raised them and they had grown up, what the old mother did was
cooking food in the earth oven every day. 13 When she cooked food in the oven every
day, the food was not cooked before it got dark. 14 When it was dark, the food would
be done and she would open the earth oven; then she would eat with the children. 15
So she saw that they did not eat in the daylight. 16 It was night when they ate, it was
dark. 17 So she took pity and said, 18 “The way we eat is not right, my son! 19 The
children eat at midnight, when they are asleep.”
20 He oti ꞌana he kī e tou poki era o tou rūꞌau era

NTR finish CONT NTR say AG DEM child DIS of DEM old_woman DIS
ko Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa: 21 —¿Maꞌa ꞌā rō koe, e nua ē?

PROM Tikitiki a Ataranga know CONT EMPH 2SG VOC Mum VOC
22 He kī tou rūꞌau era: 23 —ꞌE, ¿he aha?
NTR say DEM old_woman DIS and PRED what
24 —A au he eꞌa a au he oho. 25 He oho au ki ŋā hare
PROP 1SG NTR go_out PROP 1SG NTR go NTR go 1SG to PL house
he noꞌinoꞌi hai kona mahute, hauhau mo hiro o te taura mo tāea
PL request:RED INST place mulberry kind_of_tree for braid of ART rope for catch_with_lasso
e au i te raꞌā mo here. 26 ¿ꞌE ku tano ꞌā, e nua ē?
AG 1SG ACC ART sun for tie and PRF correct CONT VOC Mum VOC
27 —e kī era ki tōꞌona nua nei. 28 He kī: 29 —ꞌĒē, ku tano ꞌā.
IPFV say DIS to POSS.3SG.O Mum PROX NTR say yes PRF correct CONT
20 Then the son of the old woman, Tikitiki a Ataranga, said, 21 “You know what,
Mum?” 22 The old woman said, 23 “Well, what?”
24 “I will go out. 25 I will go to the houses and ask for mulberry and hauhau fibers to
braid a rope to catch the sun with a lasso. 26 Is that okay, Mum?” 27 he said to his
mother. 28 She said, 29 “Yes, that’s okay.”
30 I eꞌa era ꞌi te ꞌao era ꞌā o te rua raꞌā, he oho he tuꞌu

PFV go_out DIS at ART dawn DIS IDENT of ART two day NTR go NTR arrive
he paꞌo mai i tāꞌana mahute i tāꞌana hauhau, he hahaꞌo ki roto
NTR chop hither ACC POSS.3SG.A mulberry ACC POSS.3SG.A kind_of_tree NTR insert to inside
te vai he haka pā mo haka marere mo haka piro haka kōpiro ꞌi roto
ART water NTR CAUS double for CAUS fall_apart for CAUS rotten CAUS ferment at inside
i te vai mo te taura mo hiri. 31 He oho ki te hare o tōꞌona ŋaruhoa
at ART water for ART rope for braid NTR go to ART house of POSS.3SG.O friend
e noho era ananake. 32 ꞌE i tupuꞌaki ꞌā ꞌi tōꞌona hare, he oho
IPFV stay DIS together and PFV near CONT at POSS.3SG.O house NTR go
he tuꞌu he noꞌinoꞌi hai mahute hai hauhau. 33 He rovaꞌa mai.
NTR arrive NTR request:RED INST mulberry INST kind_of_tree NTR obtain hither
34 He maꞌu he oho mai he tuꞌu, he puꞌa he haka kōpiro

NTR carry NTR go hither NTR arrive NTR cover NTR CAUS ferment
mo te taura mo hiri.
for ART rope for braid
30 When he had gone out at dawn the next day, he went and chopped mulberry and
hauhau trees; he put the fibres in the water and folded them so they would fall apart
and rot and ferment in the water, to braid a rope from. 31 He went to the houses of
his friends who lived together with him. 32 And when he was near their houses, he
went and asked for mulberry and hauhau. 33 He got them. 34 He carried them away
and covered them (with water) to ferment to braid a rope from.
35 I oti era tū meꞌe era, he toꞌo koroꞌiti mai tū taura era i tou hau era,
PFV finish DIS DEM thing DIS NTR take slowly hither DEM rope DIS ACC DEM cord DIS
he hiro i te taura. 36 He hiro ka hiro era ē... 37 ka kumi
NTR braid ACC ART rope NTR braid CNTG braid DIS on_and_on CNTG long
ka kumi. 38 He toꞌo mai i tū taura era he aŋa ꞌā ka oti rō.
CNTG long NTR take hither ACC DEM rope DIS NTR make until CNTG finish EMPH
39 I oti era tū taura era, he oho mai he kī ki tū rūꞌau māmā era:
PFV finish DIS DEM rope DIS NTR go hither NTR say to DEM old_woman mother DIS
40 —Āpō ꞌi te ꞌao era ꞌā, e oŋa iho nō mai ꞌā te raꞌā,
tomorrow at ART dawn DIS IDENT IPFV appear just_then just hither CONT ART sun
he rere au he oho he tuꞌu he tāea i te ŋao o te raꞌā, he here
NTR jump 1SG NTR go NTR arrive NTR catch_with_lasso ACC ART neck of ART sun NTR tie
a ruŋa i te māꞌea. 41 Haka rito koe, e nua ē, mo kā i to
by above at ART stone CAUS ready 2SG VOC Mum VOC for kindle ACC ART:of
tātou ꞌumu āpō.
42 He kī tū rūꞌau era: 43 —Ku tano ꞌā.
1PL.INC earth_oven tomorrow NTR say DEM old_woman DIS PRF correct CONT
35 When that was done, he took the fibres bit by bit and braided a rope. 36 He
braided and braided 37 until the rope was very long. 38 He took the rope and kept
working until it was finished. 39 When the rope was finished, he went and said to his
old mother, 40 “Tomorrow early in the morning, just when the sun appears, I will
jump and catch the neck of the sun with a lasso and tie it to a rock. 41 Get ready,
Mum, to cook our earth oven tomorrow.” 42 The old woman said, 43 “That’s okay.”
44 Ka moe ka ꞌara, ka moe ka ꞌara ē.... 45 ꞌI te ꞌao

CNTG lie_down CNTG wake_up CNTG lie_down CNTG wake_up on_and_on at ART dawn
era ꞌā i ꞌara rō ai, he tiaki he haka tau he noho he uꞌi ki te raꞌā.
DIS IDENT PFV wake_up EMPH PVP NTR wait NTR CAUS hang NTR stay NTR look to ART sun
46 I oho mai era mo hāhine mai mo eꞌa mai o te raꞌā, he rere he oho.
PFV go hither DIS for near hither for go_out hither of ART sun NTR jump NTR go
47 Ka rere atu ka oho atu, ka oŋa mai te raꞌā, he haka eke
CNTG jump away CNTG go away CNTG appear hither ART sun NTR CAUS go_up
hai taura ki te ŋao, he here hiohio taꞌa ika. 48 He totoi he oho mai
INST rope to ART neck NTR tie strong POSS.2SG.A victim NTR drag NTR go hither
i te taura, he tuꞌu mai he here ki ruŋa ki te puku māꞌea ena,

ACC ART rope NTR arrive hither NTR tie to above to ART boulder stone MED
ꞌā ka ŋōŋō rō ka ŋōŋō rō, ꞌā ka harara rō.
until CNTG firm EMPH CNTG firm EMPH until CNTG stiff EMPH
49 He here, ꞌā ka hiohio rō, ꞌina kai hōrou hakaꞌou mai tū raꞌā era.
NTR tie until CNTG strong EMPH NEG NEG.PFV quickly again hither DEM sun DIS
50 He iri mai tū raꞌā era koroꞌiti nō koroꞌiti nō i iri mai ai.
NTR ascend hither DEM sun DIS slowly just slowly just PFV ascend hither PVP
44 He slept and woke up, he slept and woke up... 45 Early in the morning he woke
up and stayed on the lookout, keeping an eye on the sun. 46 When the sun was close
to rising, he jumped up. 47 Just when he jumped, the sun appeared; he put the rope
to the neck and tied his victim firmly. 48 He dragged the rope and tied it to a stone
boulder, so it was very firmly tied and the rope was taut. 49 He tied it firmly and the
sun did not go quickly any more. 50 The sun came up; slowly, slowly it came up.
51 He eꞌa mai tou rūꞌau era ꞌi tou hora ꞌā e ki tāꞌana

NTR go_out hither DEM old_woman DIS at DEM time IDENT quickly to POSS.3SG.A
ꞌumu, he amo ka maꞌitaki rō. 52 He penapena i te ꞌumu

earth_oven NTR wipe CNTG clean EMPH NTR arrange_firewood ACC ART earth_oven
pae, he tutu. 53 He oho ki tāꞌana kūmā he keri mai he tata,

hewn_stones NTR set_fire NTR go to POSS.3SG.A sweet_potato NTR dig hither NTR wash
ki tāꞌana moa he unu. 54 Pōpōrā e keꞌokeꞌo mai era te rima o tou

to POSS.3SG.A chicken NTR pluck quickly IPFV hurry hither DIS ART hand of DEM
rūꞌau era. 55 He toꞌo mai he kā i tou ꞌumu era he ꞌōꞌotu.

old_woman DIS NTR take hither NTR kindle ACC DEM earth_oven DIS NTR cooked
56 He taꞌo i te kūmā, i te taro, i te ꞌuhi, i te moa.
NTR cook ACC ART sweet_potato ACC ART taro ACC ART yam ACC ART chicken
57 Ko turu ꞌā tū taŋata era ki tai ko hī mai ꞌā i te ika,

PRF go_down CONT DEM man DIS to sea PRF fish.V hither CONT ACC ART fish
e here ꞌā i te kōreha. 58 Tanu te ꞌumu raꞌe nei o te

IPFV tie CONT ACC ART eel bury ART earth_oven first PROX of ART
rūꞌau nei, ko tata mai ꞌā tū taŋata era mo tou ika era.
old_woman PROX PRF approach hither CONT DEM man DIS for DEM fish DIS
51 At that time the old women went quickly to her earth oven and wiped it clean. 52
She arranged the firewood over the earth oven made of hewn stones, and kindled it.
53 She went and dug up sweet potatoes and washed them, and plucked chickens. 54
The hands of the old woman moved quickly. 55 She lighted the earth oven and got
the food cooked. 56 She cooked sweet potatoes, taro, yam and chicken. 57 The man
had gone down to sea to catch fish with hook and line and to catch eels with a trap.
58 The old woman covered the first earth oven when the man had come back with his
fish.
59 Puhi hakaꞌou ꞌā ka rua ꞌumu. 60 Ko ꞌōꞌotu hakaꞌou mai ꞌā

blow again CONT CNTG two earth_oven PRF cooked again hither CONT
te taꞌo, penapena hakaꞌou mai ꞌā ka toru ꞌumu.
ART cook arrange_firewood again hither CONT CNTG three earth_oven
61 He eꞌa mai tou rūꞌau era ki tou ꞌumu raꞌe era, he mātaki mai.
NTR go_out hither DEM old_woman DIS to DEM earth_oven first DIS NTR open hither
62 He raŋi mai ki te ŋā poki: 63 —¡Ka oho mai!
NTR call hither to ART PL child IMP go hither
64 He oho atu tou viꞌe hunoŋa era, tou ŋā poki era he takataka,
NTR go away DEM woman child_in_law DIS DEM PL child DIS NTR gather:RED
he maꞌoa tou ꞌumu era.

NTR open_earth_oven DEM earth_oven DIS
59 She lighted another earth oven, the second one. 60 When the food was cooked
again, she arranged firewood again for the third earth oven. 61 The old woman went
to the first earth oven and opened it. 62 She cried to the children, 63 “Come!” 64
Her daughter-in-law and the children gathered and she opened the earth oven.
65 He hoa te kai ki ruŋa, he kī: 66 —Pē nei hoki taꞌa meꞌe.

NTR throw ART food to above NTR say like PROX indeed POSS.2SG.A thing
67 ꞌĪ tātou ka rovā kai. 68 Ka kai iho tātou ꞌi te hora māꞌeha
IMM 1PL.INC CNTG obtain food CNTG eat just_now 1PL.INC at ART time light
ꞌi te ꞌōtea. 69 Kai riva hoki taꞌa meꞌe era tātou e kakai era
at ART daytime NEG.PFV good indeed POSS.2SG.A thing DIS 1PL.INC IPFV PL:eat DIS
ꞌi te pō ꞌi te ꞌao nui. 70 ꞌIna he māꞌeha mo uꞌi iŋa i te kai.
at ART night at ART dusk big NEG PRED light for see NMLZ ACC ART food
71 E hāꞌuru rō era te ŋā poki, ꞌina he kakai.
IPFV PL:sleep EMPH DIS ART PL child NEG NTR PL:eat
72 ¡ꞌĀ, meꞌe ꞌaroha! 73 ꞌO ira ꞌī tātou ka toꞌo rō mai
ah thing pity because_of PRO IMM 1PL.INC CNTG take EMPH hither
ka kai rō atu. 74 He kai mai i tou ꞌumu era, he oti.
CNTG eat EMPH away NTR eat hither ACC DEM earth_oven DIS NTR finish
75 He maꞌoa hakaꞌou mai ka rua ꞌumu ꞌi ruŋa ꞌā,
NTR open_earth_oven again hither CNTG two earth_oven at above IDENT
he kai hakaꞌou mai. 76 He taꞌo hakaꞌou mai i te ꞌumu.
NTR eat again hither NTR cook again hither ACC ART earth_oven
77 I taꞌo i oho nō i taꞌo i oho nō.
PFV cook PFV go just PFV cook PFV go just
65 She took the food out and said, 66 “Here, look at this. 67 Now we have
something to eat. 68 We will eat in the daytime, when it is light. 69 It was not good
what we did, eating in the dark at midnight. 70 There was no light to see the food.
71 The children were asleep and did not eat. 72 Ah, what a pity! 73 So we will go
ahead now and eat.” 74 They ate the food from the earth oven and finished. 75 Then
they opened the second earth oven and ate again. 76 They cooked another earth
oven. 77 They just kept cooking and cooking.
78 I ahiahi era, he tikeꞌa e te taŋata ko here ꞌā i te raꞌā.

PFV evening DIS NTR see AG ART man PRF tie CONT ACC ART sun
79 He oho mai he tuꞌu mai he haka takataka ꞌi tū hare era o tū
NTR go hither NTR arrive hither NTR CAUS gather:RED at DEM house DIS of DEM
taŋata era. 80 He taū te tauꞌa, he rakerake te tauꞌa he noho he kakai.

man DIS NTR fight.V ART fight NTR bad:RED ART fight NTR stay NTR quarrel
81 Kakai i te tauꞌa nei, ka rakerake rō ꞌi te hare era o tū taŋata era.
quarrel ACC ART fight PROX CNTG bad:RED EMPH at ART house DIS of DEM man DIS
82 He kī: 83 —¿He aha koe i toꞌo mai ai i here ai i te raꞌā?

NTR say PRED what 2SG PFV take hither PVP PFV tie PVP ACC ART sun
78 In the evening, the people saw that the sun had been tied. 79 They came and
gathered at the house of that man. 80 A fight broke out, there was an ugly quarrel.
81 There was a bad quarrel at the house of that man. 82 They said, 83 “Why did you
take the sun and tie it up?”
84 He kī e tū taŋata era: 85 —Ka koa hoꞌi kōrua.

NTR say AG DEM man DIS IMP happy indeed 2PL
86 ¿Kai koa ꞌō kōrua ꞌi te meꞌe rivariva? 87 Ku toꞌo mai ꞌā

NEG.PFV happy really 2PL at ART thing good PRF take hither CONT
a au i te raꞌā ku here ꞌā mo haka māꞌeha mo tātou mo kakai.

PROP 1SG ACC ART sun PFV tie CONT for CAUS light for 1PL.INC for PL:eat
88 ꞌO ira hoꞌi au i here ena. 89 Nā ka uꞌi rā kōrua,
because_of PRO indeed 1SG PFV tie MED MED IMP look INTENS 2PL
ka hia ꞌumu nei ꞌāꞌaku e kā atu ena.

CNTG how_many earth_oven PROX POSS.1SG.A IPFV kindle away MED
90 He kā te ꞌumu nei he maꞌoa he kai. 91 He kā hakaꞌou
NTR kindle ART earth_oven PROX NTR open_earth_oven NTR eat NTR kindle again
he maꞌoa he kai. 92 ꞌAi e kā hakaꞌou mai era.

NTR open_earth_oven NTR eat SUBS IPFV kindle again hither DIS
84 The man said, 85 “Be happy! 86 Aren’t you happy with a good thing? 87 I have
taken the sun and tied it up to give us light to eat. 88 That’s why I tied it up. 89
There, look how many earth ovens I’ve been cooking. 90 We lighted this earth oven,
opened it and ate. 91 We lighted another, opened it and ate. 92 Then we lighted
another.”
93 He ture ka rakerake rō te tauꞌa. 94 He rere mai e te taŋata

NTR scold CNTG bad:RED EMPH ART fight NTR jump hither AG ART man
he horehore i tou taura era. 95 He momotu he haka pokoꞌo.

NTR cut:RED ACC DEM rope DIS NTR break_completely NTR CAUS loose
96 I haka pokoꞌo atu era i te raꞌā era, he nini rō ꞌai tū raꞌā era
PFV CAUS loose away DIS ACC ART sun DIS NTR spin EMPH SUBS DEM sun DIS
he oho he ŋaro. 97 He raŋi e te rūꞌau nei: 98 —E paꞌo rō kōrua
NTR go NTR disappear NTR call AG ART old_woman PROX IPFV chop EMPH 2PL
i te raꞌā here e tāꞌaku poki. 99 Rohirohi e tāꞌaku poki i iri ai

ACC ART sun tie AG POSS.1SG.A child tired AG POSS.1SG.A child PFV ascend PVP
i here mai ai mo haka māꞌeha o tātou. 100 ꞌE ꞌī au ka raŋi rō atu:
PFV tie hither PVP for CAUS light of 1PL.INC and IMM 1SG CNTG call EMPH away
e toꞌo rō au i taꞌa meꞌe hukahuka ena mai ruŋa i te henua.
IPFV take EMPH 1SG ACC POSS.2SG. thing firewood MED from above at ART land
101 ꞌĪ ka toꞌo rō.
IMM CNTG take EMPH
93 They made reproaches and quarreled bitterly. 94 The people jumped up and cut
the rope. 95 It snapped and the sun was loose. 96 When the sun was loose, it turned
around and disappeared. 97 The old woman cried out, 98 “You’re chopping the rope
with which my son tied the sun. 99 My sun wore himself out to go up and tie the sun
to give us light. 100 Now I’ll tell you: I will take your firewood from the earth. 101 I’ll
take it straightaway.”
102 He rere mai te rūꞌau nei ki tāꞌana ꞌumu pae,

NTR jump hither ART old_woman PROX to POSS.3SG.A earth_oven hewn_stones
ki tāꞌana hukahuka, ki tāꞌana kai, ki tāꞌana meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa.

to POSS.3SG.A firewood to POSS.3SG.A food to POSS.3SG.A thing all
103 He ꞌapa tahi ko te ŋā poki, ko te hare, ko te meꞌe taꞌatoꞌa.
NTR carry all PROM ART PL child PROM ART house PROM ART thing all
104 He rere he oho rō atu ꞌai, ko te iri iŋa ꞌā ko te oho oŋa

NTR fly NTR go EMPH away SUBS PROM ART ascend NMLZ IDENT PROM ART go NMLZ
ꞌā, ē... 105 he ŋaro ki roto ki te māhina, he oti rō ꞌai.

IDENT on_and_on NTR disappear to inside to ART moon NTR finish EMPH SUBS
106 Ki roto i te māhina i ŋaro ai te rūꞌau nei.
to inside at ART moon PFV disappear PVP ART old_woman PROX
107 Te ꞌīŋoa o tou rūꞌau era ko Nuahine ꞌa Raŋi Kotekote.
ART name of DEM old_woman DIS PROM Nuahine a Rangi Kotekote
108 He ŋaro rō atu ꞌai ki roto ki te māhina.

NTR disappear EMPH away SUBS to inside to ART moon
102 The old woman jumped to her stone earth oven, to her firewood, to her food, to
all her things. 103 She carried all the children, the house, everything. 104 She flew
away, going up, going away... 105 and disappeared into the moon, and that was it.
106 Inside the moon the old woman disappeared. 107 The name of the old woman
was Nuahine a Rangi Kotekote. 108 She disappeared into the moon.
109 He kī te taŋata: 110 —¡ꞌĀ, ko tere ꞌā te rūꞌau!

NTR say ART man ah PRF run CONT ART old_woman
111 I ꞌōtea mai era ki te popohaŋa he uꞌi te taŋata ku oŋe ꞌā,
PFV daylight hither DIS to ART dawn NTR look ART man PRF shortage CONT
ꞌina he hukahuka. Ku oŋe ꞌā te kai, ko pakapaka ꞌā ku mei ꞌā.
NEG PRED firewood PRF shortage CONT ART food PRF dry:RED CONT PRF wither CONT
113 He kī: 114 —¡ꞌĀ! 115 O tou rūꞌau era ꞌā te kai, e topa era
NTR say ah of DEM old_woman DIS IDENT ART food IPFV happen DIS
te mau, te hukahuka e ai era. 116 Ku kore ꞌā te hukahuka mo tunu
ART abundance ART firewood IPFV exist DIS PRF lack CONT ART firewood for cook
o te kai. 117 Ku pakapaka ꞌā te henua. 118 Ku oŋe ꞌā tātou.
of ART food PRF dry:RED CONT ART land PRF shortage CONT 1PL.INC
119 He oti mau ꞌā. 120 ¿Ka aha rā ia?
NTR finish really CONT CNTG what INTENS then
121 Ku tere ꞌā te rūꞌau nei.

PRF run CONT ART old_woman PROX
109 The people said, 110 “Ah, the old woman has run off!” 111 At dawn the next
day the people saw that there was shortage, there was no firewood. 112 The food was
scarce, it was dry and had withered. 113 They said, 114 “Ah! 115 It was because of
the woman that there was food, that there was abundance, that there was firewood.
116 Now there is no firewood to cook food. 117 The land is dry. 118 We are in need.
119 That’s how it is. 120 What can we do? 121 The old woman has run off.”
122 Kai ꞌite atu hoꞌi e te taŋata pē nei ē:

NEG.PFV know away indeed AG ART man like PROX thus
tou rūꞌau era ꞌō e ai rō ꞌā tōꞌona mana; rūꞌau mana.
DEM old_woman DIS really IPFV exist EMPH CONT POSS.3SG.O power old_woman power
124 Pē ira ꞌā tū taŋata era. 124 ꞌO ira hoꞌi i iri era
like PRO IDENT DEM man DIS because_of PRO indeed PFV ascend DIS
i here era i te raꞌā era. 125 E ai rō ꞌā to rāua mana.
PFV tie DIS ACC art sun DIS IPFV exist EMPH CONT ART:of 3PL power
122 The people did not know that the old woman had mana (supernatural power); it
was a woman with power. 123 The same was true for the man. 124 That’s why he
went up and tied the son. 125 They had supernatural power.
126 He oti mau ꞌā. 127 Ku ŋaro ku oti ꞌā te rūꞌau nei

NTR finish really CONT PRF disappear PRF finish CONT ART old_woman PROX
ki roto ki te māhina. 128 ꞌE ku noho ꞌā te taŋata o te henua

to inside to ART moon and PRF stay CONT ART man of ART land
he taŋi rō ꞌai mo tou rūꞌau era ꞌi tū meꞌe era ko ŋaro ꞌā.
NTR cry EMPH SUBS for DEM old_woman DIS at DEM thing DIS PRF disappear CONT
129 He oti mau rō ꞌai te ꞌaꞌamu nei o Tikitiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa.
NTR finish really EMPH SUBS ART story PROX of Tikitiki a Ataranga
126 That’s all. 127 The old woman had disappeared into the moon. 128 And the
people of the land stayed and cried for the woman, because she had disappeared. 129
The story of Tikitiki a Ataranga is finished.
3. He oho iŋa o te nuꞌu hoko rua rama – The trip of two people who went torch
fishing (R357)
(N. & R. Weber 1990a Vol. 5:22f)
01 Ko te ꞌāvaꞌe era o te evinio ꞌe ko te mahana maha ia,

PROM ART month DIS of ART Lent and PROM ART day four then
he eꞌa te nuꞌu hoko rua, he puꞌa i te hoi, he aŋa i te rama,

NTR go_out ART people NUM.PERS two NTR cover ACC ART horse NTR make ACC ART torch
he haka rito i te rāua meꞌe, he eke te hoi, he oho ararua
NTR CAUS ready ACC ART 3PL thing NTR go_up ART horse NTR go the_two
a te pāꞌeŋa ena o Vaihū. 02 I tuꞌu era ki ꞌAkahaŋa, he noho
by ART side MED of Vaihu PFV arrive DIS to Akahanga NTR stay
he tiaki ki te tai hahati mo rama.
NTR wait to ART sea break for fish_with_torch
01 In the month of Lent on a Thursday, two people went out; they saddled their
horses, made torches and prepared their things; they mounted their horses and went
together to the side of Vaihu. 02 When they arrived at Akahanga, they stayed and
waited for the rising tide (suitable) for torch fishing.
03 Ko rote ꞌahuru mā hoꞌe o te pō ia, he eꞌa ararua, he tutu

PROM inside_ART ten plus one of ART night then NTR go_out the_two NTR set_fire
i te rama, he topa he rama ꞌi rote haŋa era o ꞌAkahaŋa.
ACC ART torch NTR descend NTR fish_with_torch at inside_the bay DIS of Akahanga
04 E rama nō ꞌā, i hoa rō atu ai te ꞌua ki te kāveꞌuveꞌu
IPFV fish_with_torch just CONT PFV throw EMPH away then ART rain to ART ache
o te tuaꞌivi. 05 Kai rovaꞌa hia e tahi meꞌe. 06 He eꞌa ararua, he tētere
of ART back NEG.PFV obtain yet NUM one thing NTR go_out the_two NTR PL:run
ki rote ꞌana, he nonoho koia ko mamae ꞌi tū meꞌe taꞌe rovaꞌa era.
to inside_the cave NTR PL:stay with PROM pain at DEM thing NEG.CONS obtain DIS
03 Around eleven o’clock at night the two went out, lighted their torches, went down
and went torch fishing in the bay of Akahanga. 04 While they were fishing, suddenly
the rain came down, lashing their backs. 05 They didn’t catch anything. 06 The two
left and fled into a cave, sad because they hadn’t caught anything.
07 I nonoho era, he papaŋahaꞌa ꞌi te haꞌuru. 08 E haꞌuru nō ꞌā,

PFV PL:stay DIS NTR PL:heavy at ART sleep IPFV sleep just CONT
he tuꞌu atu hoko rua hakaꞌou nuꞌu mai te puhi iŋa mo te evinio.
NTR arrive away NUM.PERS two again people from ART fish_at_night NMLZ for ART Lent
09 He hipa atu he haka ꞌara i tū ŋā haꞌuru era. 10 I ꞌaꞌara
NTR pass_by away NTR CAUS wake_up ACC DEM PL sleep DIS PFV PL:wake_up
mai era, he eke te hoi, he oho mai mai ꞌAkahaŋa, he tuꞌu ki Motu
hither DIS NTR go_up ART horse NTR go hither from Akahanga NTR arrive to Motu
o Pope. 11 He topa hakaꞌou ararua ꞌi tū kona era he tutu te rama.
o Pope NTR descend again the_two at DEM place DIS NTR set_fire ART torch
07 While they stayed there, they fell asleep. 08 While they were sleeping, two other
people arrived, who had been fishing at night for Lent. 09 They came by and woke
the sleepers up. 10 Once awake, they mounted their horses, left Akahanga and went
to Motu o Pope. 11 There the two descended again and lighted their torches.
12 I māꞌeha atu era tū rama era, ꞌī ka uꞌi atu ena ko te ꞌura

PFV light away DIS DEM torch DIS IMM CNTG look away MED PROM ART lobster
ku noho ꞌā ꞌi tū kona era. 13 He topa ararua he ꞌaruꞌaru mai
PRF stay CONT at DEM place DIS NTR descend the_two NTR grab:RED hither
i tū ŋā ꞌura era mai tū kona era. 14 He rovaꞌa e hoꞌe ꞌahuru
ACC DEM PL lobster DIS from DEM place DIS NTR obtain NUM one ten
mā piti ꞌura. 15 Ku koa ꞌā ko ruŋa i te hoi, he ꞌehu
plus two lobster PRF happy CONT PROM above at ART horse NTR twilight
he oho rō mai ꞌai ki Haŋa Roa ꞌi tū hora era.

NTR go EMPH hither SUBS to Hanga Roa at DEM time DIS
12 When their torches gave light, they saw lobsters sitting in that place. 13 The two
went down and grabbed the lobsters from there. 14 They got twelve lobsters. 15
Happily they climbed their horses, and in the early morning light they went to Hanga
Roa.
16 Tū oho era hoꞌi i oho ai e oho ꞌā mo rovaꞌa ꞌura mo eꞌa

DEM go DIS indeed PFV go PVP IPFV go CONT for obtain lobster for go_out
ki ruŋa ki te vaka ki te nanue hī ꞌi te motu mo kai o te evinio.
to above to ART boat to ART kind_of_fish fish.V at ART islet for eat for ART Lent
17 ꞌI te meꞌe era, te taŋata o nei ꞌi rā hora ꞌina he kai i te kiko
at ART thing DIS ART person of PROX at DIS time NEG NTR eat ACC ART meat
ꞌi te taꞌatoꞌa mahana pae o te evinio.
at ART all day five of ART Lent
16 This trip happened when they went to catch lobsters (as bait), to go out by boat to
fish for nanue at the islets, to eat during Lent. 17 Because at that time the people here
did not eat meat on Fridays during Lent.
Appendix B: The text corpus
Below is a list of texts in the corpus. The first column gives the reference as given in
the example sentences in this grammar (x is a variable representing any digit). The
second column gives a basic characterisation of the text type. The third column
provides a short description; for published texts, a bibliographic reference is given. The
final column gives the number of words in thousands.
The corpus is described in sec. 1.6.2.
1. Older texts
Code Text type Description wrd
Egt-xx narrative; Egt-03 Englert (1948:377-417) 12.5
= Bible trnsl.
Ley-x-xx narrative; Englert (1980; 2001); collected c. 1936. Numbering 38.5
description corresponds to published version.
Ley-x-xxa narrative Englert (1939a, b): earlier versions of certain legends 1.7
in Englert (1980)
MsE-xxx narrative Manuscript E, c. 1910. Frontier (2008), earlier 17.7
published in original orthography in Barthel (1978).
Three-digit number refers to page no. in the ms.
Mtx-x-xx narrative Métraux 1935 (unpublished stories); 1971 (bilingual 54.1
published stories, collected in 1934-35); 1937 (one
short story). For a list of texts, see:
www.tinyurl.com/metraux-text-listing
Total word count 124.5
2. Texts from the 1970s

Blx-2-x narrative Blixen (1973) 1.5
Blx-3 narrative Blixen (1974) 1.3
Fel-xx narrative Felbermayer (1971); numbers correspond to the 7.1
initial page of each story
Fel-1973A/B narrative Felbermayer (1973) 2.1
Fel-1978 narrative Felbermayer (1978) 2.5
3. PLRN corpus
R101, 111- description Description of the island and current/everyday 4.8
112, 121, activities (Mario Tuki Hey, Felipe Tuki Tepano,
185-187 Lorenzo Teao Hey)
R102 narrative Story “Ŋuŋurei” (Luis Avaka Paoa) 2.5
R103 description Recorded letter to family members (Miguelina Hotus 4.9

Pakarati)
R104-105 narrative Story “The bewitched stone” (Luis Avaka Paoa) 5.1
R106 narrative Story “Manutara” (Felipe Pakarati Tuki) 1.4
R107, 109 narrative Two short stories (Felipe Pakarati Tuki) 3.4
R108 translated Story “He puhi o te pipi puhi” (The shout of the 2.6
narrative conch shell) (translation of Hawaiian story)
R110 persuasive Health leaflet, hospital Hanga Roa 0.3
R122-149, narrative Short stories/essays by primary school children 5.1

188
R150-184 narrative Short stories (Mariluz Hey Paoa) 13.8
R200 procedural Description “Building a boat” (Felipe Tuki Tepano) 2.6
R201-207 persuasive Radio talks (Sergio Rapu Haoa, Clementina Tepano 9.2
Haoa, Felipe Pakarati Tuki)
R208 phrasebook Hotus Tuki (2001) 2.2
R209 persuasive Counselling questions 0.6
R210 narrative Writers Workshop 1984: Chávez Ika (1984) 3.8
R211-215 narrative id.: Haoa Cardinali (1984) 5.3
R216-228 poetry id.: B. Hucke Atán (1984) 2.8
R229 narrative id.: L. Hucke Atán (1984) 6.8
R230 narrative id.: Pakarati Tuki (1984) 7.2
R231 narrative id.: Pakomio Ika (1984) 5.4
R232-234 narrative id.: Paté Tuki (1984) 2.7
R235-237 narrative id.: C. Tepano Haoa (1984) 5.6
R238-240 description id.: F. Tepano Haoa (1984) 3.2
R241-244 dialogue; id.: E. Tuki Tepano (1984) 5.3
narrative; poetry
R245 narrative id.: F. Tuki Tepano (1984) 3.3
R250 narrative Writers Workshop 1985: Cardinali (1985) 5.3
R251-300 poetry id.: Hey Chávez (1985) 3.5
R301 narrative id.: A. Hey Icka (1985) 5.8
R302-303 narrative id.: S. Hey Icka (1985) 5.1
R304-308 narrative; poetry id.: Tepano Pont (1985) 4.0
R309 narrative id.: “He manaꞌu ki toꞌoku taina” (Thinking of my 2.7
brother) (Flora Tepano Haoa)
R310-312 narrative id.: Tuki Hey (1985) 6.6
R313-314 narrative id.: Tuki Pakarati (1985) 5.6
R315-317 narrative; poetry id.: Tuki Paté (1985) 6.1
R333 narrative N. & R. Weber (1990a) = schoolbook series Mai ki 3.9
hāpī..., Vol. 1, main text
R334 narrative id., Vol. 2, main text 4.1
R335-339 narrative id., Vol. 2, miscellaneous stories (Mariluz Hey Paoa et 1.8
al.)
Appendix B: The text corpus 569
R340-341, poetry id., Vol. 3–6, poems (Leonardo Pakarati Languitaki, 1.7
351, 355, María Dolores Tuki Paté, Felipe Tuki Tepano, Felipe
358, 362, Pakarati Tuki, Kio Teao Atán)
366, 377, 382
R342-343, description id., Vol. 4, description of different Pacific islands 7.9
346, 348, 350
R344-345, narrative, id., Vol. 4, translated tales from other parts of the 7.9
347, 349 translated Pacific
R352 narrative id., Vol. 4, “Tiki-tiki ꞌa ꞌAtaraŋa” (Luis Avaka Paoa) 1.6
R353-354, description id., Vol. 5, Description of fishing techniques and 5.0
356-357, 360, customs
364
R359, 367 narrative, id., Vol. 5, Two biblical stories 0.8
translated
R361, 363, narrative id., Vol. 5, stories on fishing and boat construction 6.4
365 (Felipe Pakarati Tuki, Hilaria Tuki Pakarati)
R368 narrative id., Vol. 5, “Nuahine Rima Roa” (The woman with 1.7
the long arms) (Luis Avaka Paoa)
R369-371, description id., Vol. 6, Episodes from the history of Rapa Nui 7.9
373-374, 376,
378
R372 narrative id., Vol. 6, “ꞌAo Hoe-hoe” (Luis Avaka Paoa) 2.0
R375 narrative id., Vol. 6, “Oromatuꞌa keu-keu henua” (The priest 1.6
who worked the land) (Hilaria Tuki Pakarati)
R379 narrative id., Vol. 6, “Manutara” (Felipe Pakarati Tuki) = 1.6
edited version of R106
R380 narrative id., Vol. 6, “Poki vaꞌe rohi-rohi ki a nua era” (Child of 2.9
weary feet to Mum) (Clementina Tepano Haoa)
R381 narrative id., Vol. 6, “E toru hanere huru maika” (One hundred 1.5
kinds of bananas) (Felipe Pakarati Tuki)
R397 narrative = R105 3.0
R398 persuasive Health leaflet, hospital Hanga Roa 0.3
R399-402 narrative Four stories (Mariluz Hey Paoa) 4.8
R403-404 description = extracts from R103 2.7
R405-407 narrative Short stories (Mario Tuki Hey) 1.7
R408 narrative = R108 (edited) 2.7
R409 poem Poem “He kai nui o te henua” (The great food of the 0.4
island) (Felipe Pakarati Tuki)
R410 narrative Story “He mau o te ara oho ki kampō” (The 1.3
abundance of a trip to the country) (Felipe Tuki
Tepano)
R411-416 conversation Recorded conversations around a collection of 27.7
photographs
R420-463 narrative, poetry “Taller Literario Aldea 2006”: stories and poems by 16.6
high school students
R470 informative Report on irrigation project 0.5
R472-475 poetry Four poems (Ana Chávez Ika) 1.4
R476-477 narrative, Two stories translated from Maori 1.9

translated
R478-479 narrative Story “Te tumu o Rapa Nui” (Virginia Haoa 2.2
Cardinali), 2 versions
R480-497; narrative Various writing exercises 8.6
536
R501-523 poetry Pātaꞌutaꞌu: poetry collection by anonymous writers 4.6
R530 description Introduction to Pauly & Huke Atán (2008) 0.7
R531-532 narrative Cuadros Hucke (2008) 6.5
R533 persuasive Speech for Polynesian language forum 1998 (Hilaria 0.8
Tuki Pakarati)
R534 misc. Survey form Rapa Nui language academy 1.1
R535 narrative Story on the elimination of the striped mosquito 2.5
R537 narrative Story “A little sheep” (Nancy Weber & Maria Eugenia 0.6
Tuki Pakarati)
R538 misc. Tomb epitaph 0.1
R539 narrative Pakarati Tuki (2010) 34.5
R615-617 misc. Weber et al. (1990a), Vol. 3-6: Exercises and 27.9
explanations; Weber et al. (1990b)
R620-629 conversation Radio interviews 10.8
R633-646 misc. Ka 'Ara te Mata, Rapa Nui magazine, 2 issues, 1992 4.1
(Francisco Edmunds Paoa, Rodrigo Paoa Atamu et al.)
R647-649 misc. Tapura Hetu (later Tapura Re'o), Rapa Nui newspaper, 18.8
3 issues, 2010
R650-654 conversation Television speeches and interviews 6.2
Total word count (excluding duplicates R379, R397, R408, R403-404) 399.9
4. Bible translation
Book misc. Bible translation: the complete New Testament (final 348.6
chapter:verse version 2015)
Book misc. Bible translation: Old Testament portions (draft) 85.0
chapter:verse
R630-632 misc. Text of the Gospel of Luke, adapted for the dubbing of 32.7
a Biblical video, including opening and closure
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Summary
This dissertation describes the grammar of Rapa Nui, the language of Easter Island. It
is mainly based on the analysis of an extensive and varied corpus of texts, dating from
c. 1920 till the present.
Chapter 1 provides a short overview of the origins and history of the Rapa Nui people.
The provenance and date of settlement of the island bear on the question of Rapa Nui’s
position in the Polynesian language family and the status of its protolanguage, Proto-
Eastern Polynesian (PEP). Re-examination of the evidence for Eastern Polynesian and
Central-Eastern Polynesian shows that the evidence for the latter is much weaker than
hitherto assumed; this suggests that Rapa Nui split off at a time when PEP was already
diverging.
34 innovations are identified which set Rapa Nui apart from its closest relatives, as
well as 11 innovations which took place in the last century. Some of the latter are due
to Spanish and Tahitian influence; both languages have exerted a massive influence on
Rapa Nui. Even so, in its grammar Rapa Nui has maintained its integrity vis-à-vis
Spanish and Tahitian.
Chapter 2 provides a concise treatment of the phonology. The phoneme inventory is

small, with 10 consonants, 5 short and 5 long vowels. Unlike most other Polynesian
languages, Rapa Nui retained the Proto-Polynesian glottal plosive, which is contrastive
both word-initially and -medially. Utterance-initially the glottal plosive is not
contrastive; this means, for example, that there is no phonetic contrast between ꞌe
“and” and e “IPFV”, despite the difference in spelling.
All words in Rapa Nui consist of bimoraic trochaic feet; only the first foot may be
degenerate. This means that a heavy syllable is never followed by an odd number of
light syllables. All VV sequences are bisyllabic; diphthongs do not occur. The final foot
of the word is stressed; in connected speech, the final foot of the phrase is stressed. As
a consequence, postnuclear particles often receive the main stress, with secondary
stress falling on the nucleus of the phrase.
Utterance-final vowel devoicing after voiceless consonants is common and affects all
vowels.
Lexicalised sound changes are pervasive: metathesis, vowel changes, insertion and
deletion of glottals, monophthongisation et cetera. Borrowings are usually adjusted to
the Rapa Nui phoneme inventory and metrical structure.
Two types of reduplication can be distinguished, monomoraic (type 1) and bimoraic
(type 2). There is no principal distinction between full and partial reduplication; full
reduplication is merely the result of type 2 reduplication of bimoraic words. Vowel
lengthening and shortening in the base or the reduplicant can be derived from a
number of metrical constraints.
Chapter 3 discusses nouns and verbs and their subcategories. For Polynesian
languages, the existence of a noun-verb distinction in the lexicon has often been
denied, but there are good reasons to maintain this distinction. The semantic relation
between nominal and verbal uses of a word is often unpredictable, hence lexically
specified. Moreover, words that are the nucleus of a noun phrase (hence “nouns”
according to a syntactic approach often propagated) may either be true nouns with a
nominal sense and syntax, or have a verbal sense, function and syntax. This can be
accounted for by a prototypical approach to noun- and verbhood, which allows for
non-prototypical forms and constructions without abolishing the noun/verb
distinction. Moreover, a distinction must be made between lexical and syntactic
nominalisation.
Nouns can be divided into common nouns (which take determiners), proper nouns
(which take the proper article a) and locationals (which take neither).
There is evidence for an adjective category as a subclass of the verb, though this can
only be based on a range of “soft” criteria.
Chapter 4 deals with other word classes: pronouns, numerals, quantifiers, adverbs,
demonstratives and prepositions. The inventory of numerals and quantifiers has been
heavily influenced by Tahitian. Even so, the syntax of Tahitian quantifiers was not
adopted; the borrowed quantifiers have syntactic characteristics (such as their position
in the noun phrase) not found in Tahitian. Another new quantifier is meꞌe rahi
“much/many”; originally a noun+adjective combination functioning as nominal
predicate, it developed into a prenominal quantifer.
Rapa Nui is the only Polynesian language to have a set of definite numerals, formed by
reduplication of the cardinal numerals.
Rapa Nui has two similar sets of demonstrative forms. The first set functions as
demonstrative determiners and deictic locationals (“here, there”); the second set
functions as postnominal and postverbal demonstratives, and marginally as
demonstrative pronouns. Both sets exhibit a three-way distance distinction (proximal,
medial and distal), though the distal forms are the default choice in many contexts. An
additional demonstrative determiner tū is not specified for distance. Together,
determiners and postnominal demonstratives mark noun phrases for definiteness and
anaphora.
The preposition ko has a variety of uses: it marks highlighted topics, constituents in
focus, appositions, certain nominal predicates et cetera. In view of this diversity, ko is
best analysed as the default preposition for noun phrases that do not have an argument
role, nor are marked by other prepositions.
Chapter 5 discusses the elements of the noun phrase. The common noun phrase
contains 17 different slots. Quantifiers and numerals occur in several different
positions; for example, certain quantifiers occur before, others after the determiner.
Numerals after the noun tend to have a more specific sense than numerals before the
noun.
Summary 597
The article te marks referentiality, not definiteness or specificity. te (or another t-

determiner) is obligatory in most syntactic contexts and excluded in others. The
determiner he marks noun phrases as predicates.
The noun phrase may also contain a plural marker, a selection of adverbs, a deictic
particle and a postnominal demonstrative.
Proper nouns can be modified by the same elements as common nouns, except
quantifying elements. They take the proper article a in certain contexts; different from
what the label “article” may suggest, a is not in determiner position.
Chapter 6 discusses possession. Possessive forms are used in a wide range of

constructions; for example, they may express the S/A argument in certain subordinate
clauses and – occasionally – in main clauses.
Like most Polynesian languages, Rapa Nui exhibits a contrast between a- and o-
possessive forms, but only in singular pronouns and with proper nouns. Which form is
used, depends on the semantic relation between possessor and possessee. a-forms are
used when the possessor has an active and/or dominant role with respect to the
possessee. The use of o-forms, on the other hand, encompasses such a wide range of
relationships, that o must be regarded as the default possessive form. This is also
suggested by the fact that in plural pronouns and with common nouns, where the a/o
distinction was neutralised, only the o-forms have been maintained.
Chapter 7 deals with the elements of the verb phrase. In most contexts, the verb is
obligatorily preceded by a preverbal marker, which may express aspect, mood,
subordination or negation. This means that aspectual distinctions are neutralised in
clauses containing a preverbal subordinator or negator.
Rapa Nui has five aspectual markers. Four of these are common in Polynesian
languages; the fifth, neutral he, developed from the nominal predicate marker. he is by
far the most common aspect marker, used for example to mark theme line events in
discourse.
Of the Proto-Polynesian set of directional markers, only two were retained in Rapa
Nui, mai “toward deictic centre” and atu “away from deictic centre”. Apart from their
deictic use, where they indicate orientation with respect to speaker and/or hearer,
directionals serve to single out participants or locations in discourse as deictic centre.
Examples from different narrative texts show that this deictic centre may be either
stable or shifting. With motion, speech and perception verbs, directionals mark
orientation; with certain (groups of) verbs there is a statistical preference for one
directional over the other.
Rapa Nui is the only Polynesian language to have a serial verb construction in which
the preverbal marker is repeated. In this construction, two or more verbs together form
a single verb phrase; this predicate has a single argument structure and expresses a
single event or macro-event.
The verbal clause is discussed in chapter 8. The default constituent order is VS/VAO;
other orders occur, with frequencies depending on the degree of variation from the
default order.
Rapa Nui is an accusative language: S/A is unmarked or has the agent marker e; O has
the accusative marker i. The accusative character of the language is somewhat
obscured by the high frequency of the agent marker e. Unlike its cognates in other
Polynesian languages, e is used in intransitive as well as transitive clauses. Its use
depends on a combination of semantic, syntactic and pragmatic factors. For example, it
is very common with verbs of uncontrolled perception; it is obligatory in VOA clauses;
it is common with subjects high in agentivity. Another factor obscuring the accusative
character of the language is the frequent omission of the accusative marker i. This too
is motivated by syntactic and pragmatic factors; for example: i tends to be omitted
with the verb rovaꞌa “obtain” and with non-salient non-human objects, and is excluded
with preverbal objects.
Despite the absence of a passive suffix, Rapa Nui has a passive construction, which is
characterised by VOA order, absence of the accusative marker and presence of the
agent marker.
Rapa Nui has various non-canonical constructions, among which are topicalised
arguments, as well as the actor-emphatic construction, in which the S/A argument is
expressed as a possessor.
Rapa Nui has a variety of comitative constructions (“with”); two or more concomitant
elements may be connected by a dual or plural pronoun or by a collective quantifier
(“together”). For a looser connection, the connector koia ko “with” is used.
The causative construction is extremely common. It can be applied to any verb or
adjective and may express various types of causation. In some cases a causative form
does not change the argument structure of the verb, but adds an element of
intentionality or intensity.
Chapter 9 discusses clauses without a lexical verb. One major type concerns clauses
with a nominal predicate. There is a distinction between classifying clauses, in which
the predicate (marked with he) expresses a category to which the subject belongs, and
identifying clauses, in which the predicate (marked with ko + determiner) identifies
the subject with a certain referent. The latter construction is only used when the
predicate meets strict requirements of identifiability.
Adjectives are used as verbal predicates to express non-inherent (and potentially
transient) properties of the subject (chapter 3). They cannot be used by themselves as
nominal predicates; for an adjective to express an inherent property of the subject, it
must be embedded in a noun phrase: “this horse is a black horse”. This means that
attributive clauses are similar in form to classifying clauses; however, the nominal
predicate marker he is usually omitted.
Existential clauses show a shift over time: in older texts they are predominantly
verbless, in modern Rapa Nui the existential verb ai is more common.
Summary 599
In modern Rapa Nui, a copula verb construction is emerging: the existential verb ai is
occasionally used as a copula “to be”; riro “to become” was borrowed from Tahitian
and became a copular verb.
Chapter 10 deals with clause types other than positive declarative clauses: imperatives,
interrogatives and exclamatives. Negation is discussed as well.
Polar questions are often marked by intonation only, though there is an optional
marker hoki. For content questions, there is a set of four question words, all of which
belong to different word classes: ai “who” is a proper noun, aha “what” is a common
noun, hia “how much/many” is a numeral, hē “which, when, where” is an adjective.
Question constituents are always fronted and in focus; “who” and “what” questions are
often constructed as clefts.
Rapa Nui has a neutral negator ꞌina and preverbal negators kai (perfective) and e ko
(imperfective). The latter can both be reinforced by ꞌina. ꞌina is a phrase nucleus which
has some predicate-like properties; in this respect ꞌina is similar to other clause-initial
elements. On the other hand, there is no reason to analyse ꞌina as a verb, unlike
nuclear negations in other Polynesian languages.
Negations in other contexts than main clauses are expressed by taꞌe.
Chapter 11 discusses the combination of clauses into sentences. There are various
strategies to combine clauses: syndetic and asyndetic coordination, juxtaposition of
independent clauses, subordinating conjunctions and preverbal subordinators.
Relative clauses follow the head noun without a special marker. Any constituent can
be relativised; most relative clause constructions involve gapping, while a few non-core
constituents involve a resumptive pronoun. These two strategies do not entirely
conform to the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy, as formulated by Keenan & Comrie
(1977).
A particularity of relative clauses is, that the preverbal marker may be omitted,
something which is uncommon otherwise in Rapa Nui. In this case, the verb of the
relative clause tends to occur immediately after the head noun, before other noun
phrase elements.
Rapa Nui has a set of preverbal modal markers, the most common of which are mo “if;
in order to” and ana “irrealis”. The latter has a wide range of functions, including
intention, potentiality, obligation, general practice and condition.
Subject index
a (preposition), 34, 121, 206–207 Anaphora, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 193, 195,
a (proper article), 35, 36, 49, 71, 95–99, 115, 196, 198, 237, 351, 352, 520
119, 128, 133, 147, 149, 198, 199, 205, 212, Animacy, 132, 196, 199, 371, 383, 385, 409,
221–223, 228, 234, 261, 262, 263–266, 396, 410
422, 460, 461, 464, 467, 509, 516 ꞌanīrā ‘later today’, 50, 127
a- ‘future’, 127, 470 ante ‘before’, 87, 540
ꞌa (possessive prep.), 34. See Possession: o/a Anteriority, 303, 307, 318, 319
distinction ꞌaŋa- ‘recent past’, 126, 470
ꞌā (identity), 86, 92, 128, 174, 186, 219, 256– ꞌaŋahē ‘when (past)’, 126
257, 262, 368, 373, 414, 415 ꞌaŋahuru ‘ten’, 52, 138, 139, 143
ꞌā (postverbal), 53, 299, 313, 318–322, 460, ꞌaŋanīrā ‘earlier today’, 126
482, 533. See e (imperfective): e – ꞌā; ko – ꞌā ꞌaŋapō ‘last night’, 126
aꞌa ‘your’, 135 ꞌaŋarīnā ‘earlier today’, 126
ꞌāꞌaku ‘my’, 135 ꞌaŋataiahi ‘yesterday’, 126
ꞌāꞌana ‘his/her’, 135 ꞌapa ‘part’, 149, 150, 252, 299, 325–327
ꞌāꞌau, 135 āpō ‘tomorrow’, 127
Accessibility, 192, 394, 395, 439 Apposition, 161, 213, 216, 217, 220, 226, 230,
Actor-emphatic construction, 14, 76, 85, 101, 231, 259–261, 434, 437, 445, 446, 508
102, 209, 275, 277, 292, 310, 354, 361, 365, ararua ‘the two’, 148, 149, 416
386, 395–398, 444, 451, 465 in comitatives, 417–418
Adjective, 103–114, passim ꞌarīnā ‘later today’, 50, 127
in noun phrase, 252–253 Aspect. See ko – ꞌā; i (perfective); e
used nominally, 110 (imperfective); ka (aspect marker); he (aspect
Adverb, 92, 104–108, 111, 127, 128, 131, 146, marker)
150, 160, 164, 167–183, 219, 253, 262, 299, continuous, 309–311, 313, 329, 355, 536
309, 333, 351, 387, 428, 501, 540 durative, 279, 302, 304, 518, 548
in noun phrase, 253 habitual, 84, 85, 299, 302, 304, 309–312,
ꞌafa ‘half’, 149 347, 354, 397, 398, 460, 475, 483, 518,
Agentivity, 371, 372, 427 527, 530, 536
aha ‘what’, 8, 226, 444, 467–468, 473 imperfective. See e (imperfective)
ꞌāhani ‘if only’, 387, 546 perfect, 102, 175, 313, 318, 320, 321, 384,
ꞌahara ‘until’, 315, 542 481, 482, 498, 528, 548. See ko – ꞌā
ꞌahuru ‘ten’, 139, 141 Aspect marker, 34, 72–74, 86, 103, 104, 107–
ai (deictic), 219, 257–258 109, 111, 112, 144, 160, 300–322, 393, 399,
ai (postverbal), 13, 299, 351–352 474, 479, 486, 493, 497, 499–501, 513, 525,
ai ‘to exist’, 14, 311, 446–448, 511, 521, 528 535, 542, 547
as copula verb, 453–455 Asseverative. See rō
ai ‘who’, 411, 444, 464–466 ꞌata ‘more’, 111–113, 252, 299, 326–327
ꞌai (deictic), 176–177, 258, 317, 387, 473 ꞌātā ‘until’, 87, 204, 315, 541
ꞌai (postverbal). See he – rō ꞌai Attenuative, 67
ꞌai (preposition), 177, 212 atu ‘away’, 165, 547. See Directional
ana ‘irrealis’, 14, 524–528 au ‘1SG’, 132
ꞌana (identity). See ꞌā (identity) aꞌu ‘your’, 135
ꞌana (postverbal), 8, 13. See ꞌā (postverbal) Benefactive preposition, 207–209
anake ‘all’, 154 Borrowing, 27, 28, 32, 37–39, 41–43, 48, 50,
ananake ‘together’, 149, 150, 154, 155, 416 52–54, 56, 57, 83, 122, 142, 370, 430. See
in comitatives, 417–418 Spanish influence; Tahitian influence
calque, 247 bare, 14, 108, 250, 251, 301, 325, 347,
Case marking, 362–414 354, 500, 517–520
in nominalised clauses, 410–411 headless, 244, 392, 508
object, 363–365, 374–379 result, 530, 545
subject, 363–374 small clause, 407
Cataphora, 191 temporal, 87, 201, 303, 307, 312, 314, 315,
Causative, 78, 79, 101, 105, 106, 173, 299, 327, 317, 461, 486, 524, 525, 530, 535–542
403, 413, 414, 422–430, 461 verbal, 358–430
Central-Eastern Polynesian, 7, 8–11, 12, 30, 33, verbless. See Clause: nominal
50, 126, 196, 277, 314, 362, 482, 484, 488, Clause (identifying), 435–441
529 Cleft, 213, 216, 392, 439, 442–444, 465–467,
Clause 508
adverbial, 535–549 Code switching, 54
attributive, 444–446 Collocation, 378
attributive, 162, 228, 433 Comitative, 149, 154, 213, 216, 359, 415–421
attributive, 445 Comparative, 108, 111–113, 205, 326, 351, 451
causal. See Clause: reason Complement. See Clause: complement; object
circumstantial, 538, 548–549 Compound, 107, 139, 219, 244–251, 301, 352
classifying, 231, 407, 433–434, 435, 439, Conjunction, 14, 35, 36, 181, 255, 314, 316,
439, 444, 453, 455, 467 329, 353, 387, 486, 491, 492, 493, 535, 536,
cohesive, 303, 307, 312, 329, 347, 351, 352, 538–540, 542, 544, 546
535–537, 538 Consonant cluster, 55
complement, 496–507 Consonant clusters, 55
concessive, 547–548 Consonant inventory, 27
conditional, 181, 315, 520, 521, 525, 527, Constituent order, 360–362, 380, 434, 435, 440–
546 442. See Object: preverbal; Subject: preverbal
equative/equational. See identifying Contiguity, temporal, 314, 316, 460, 546, 547.
existential, 90, 231, 237, 433, 446–449, 452, See ka (aspect marker)
453, 475, 478, 488, 511 Cooccurrence restrictions, 41–43
existential-locative, 447–448, 511 Coordination, 354, 380, 491–494
identifying, 212, 254, 433, 435, 438–440, Counterexpectation, 329, 331, 463
442, 439, 511 Definiteness, 184, 189, 190, 223–225, 229, 435,
locative, 450, 455, 510 439. See Accessibility
nominal, 76, 88, 90, 108, 159, 171, 214, 227, Deictic centre, 333–347
250, 372, 392, 411, 431–452, 454, 464, Deictic particle, 175–178
469, 478, 521 Deixis, 187, 190, 192, 195, 198. See Locational,
nominalised. See Verb: nominalised deictic; Deictic particle
non-verbal. See Clause-nominal Demonstrative, 74, 93, 115, 128, 131, 151, 169,
numerical, 144, 271, 451–452 183–198, 199, 209, 220, 223, 309, 435, 518,
possessive, 134, 275, 277, 390, 448–449, 512 519
possessive-relative, 467, 476, 515–517 determiner, 13, 14, 192–195, 222
proprietary, 202, 275, 277, 397, 448, 450– postnominal, 92, 122, 128, 138, 185, 186,
451, 466 187–192, 195, 198, 219, 225, 227, 236,
purpose, 87, 300, 520, 529, 542 258, 262, 435, 519
bare, 542–544 postverbal, 92, 109, 299, 304, 309–312, 313,
reason, 87 316, 347–352, 393, 460, 479, 513, 514,
relative, 95, 107, 108, 158, 159, 189, 193, 519, 525, 530, 536, 538, 539
197, 198, 220, 250, 258, 260, 280, 301, Deontic mode, 526, 527
315, 366, 367, 392, 393, 402, 408, 411, Determiner, 222–234, passim
412, 416, 441–443, 465, 467, 475, 476, demonstrative. See Demonstrative: determiner
486, 491, 499, 507–520, 539, 540 Devoicing, 48, 49
Diphthong, 36, 37, 40, 56
Subject index 603
Directional, 13, 44, 75, 78, 92, 108, 165, 169, Geographical names, 96, 115, 123
170, 203, 299, 333–347, 355, 460, 462, 479, Glottal plosive, 9, 18, 28–30, 32, 33–36, 43, 51,
482, 489, 525, 533, 543 52, 56, 100, 135, 141, 143, 170, 173, 200,
Dislocation 207, 212, 258, 264, 280, 281, 304, 313, 370,
left, 227, 389, 392, 448 396, 410, 464, 484
Distal. See era hā ‘four’, 139
Distributive, 65, 66, 136, 144, 226, 228, 290, haꞌa- (causative), 430
295, 296 haho ‘outside’, 116
Dual, 132 hai (instrumental prep.), 13, 157, 199, 210–212,
e (agent marker), 13, 14, 34, 101, 363–374, 226, 228, 236, 265, 403–405
380–385, 475, 504, 509, 521 haka (causative), 78. See Causative
e (imperfective), 8, 34, 109, 309–314, 347, 482, haka roŋo ‘to listen’, 344, 345, 400
487, 514, 536, 538 case marking, 370
e – nō ꞌana, 109, 308 hakaꞌou ‘again’, 146, 165, 167, 173, 174, 253
e – PVD, 304, 309, 310–313, 538, 548, 549 hānere ‘hundred’, 140
e – rō, 304, 309, 310, 331 haŋa (nominaliser), 78, 82, 90, 91
e –ꞌā, 306, 309, 310–313, 332, 446, 498, 538 hau ‘to exceed’, 112
e (exhortative), 459–460 haꞌamata ‘to begin’, 387, 499–500
e (numeral particle), 144 he (aspect marker), 13, 109, 301–305, 306, 387,
ꞌe ‘and’, 34, 492–494 393, 399, 474, 475, 479, 508, 515, 544
e ko (negator), 477, 479, 482–484, 487 he – rō ꞌai, 177, 301, 304, 305, 331, 342
Eastern Polynesian, 3, 4, 7, 8–11, 13, 21, 22, 30, he (nominal predicate marker), 13, 83, 86, 90,
33, 41, 51, 52, 56, 116, 126, 128, 132, 135, 93, 147, 209, 216, 217, 222, 226, 230, 231–
170, 173, 185, 192, 196, 206, 210, 223, 233, 234, 259, 261, 301, 433, 439, 444–446, 449,
238, 277, 305, 314, 326, 362, 363, 380, 395, 453, 455, 467, 475, 478, 544
446, 464, 467, 468, 488, 529, 532 in topicalisation, 393–395
Elision, 28, 32, 33, 48, 49, 52–55, 56, 506 hē (content question marker), 53, 226, 228, 252,
ena (medial distance). See Demonstrative: 468–470
postnominal Heavy shift, 258–259, 258
postnominal, 191–192 hia ‘how many’, 138, 470–471
postverbal, 74, 299, 349–350 hia ‘not yet’, 52, 299, 489, 541
Epenthesis, 55 hitu ‘seven’, 139
Equative, 209 hō (dubitative), 183, 463
era (distal). See Demonstrative: postnominal hoꞌe ‘one’, 139, 141
postnominal, 187–190, 519 hoꞌi ‘in fact’, 178, 179
postverbal, 74, 299, 350–351 hoki (polar questions), 463
Ergativity, 9, 100, 297, 362–364, 368, 370, 373 hoki ‘also’, 172, 491
Evaluative marker. See rō; nō hoko (numeral particle), 145, 146
Exclamative, 14, 109–111, 182, 202, 213, 216, hopeꞌa ‘last’, 112, 113
317, 459, 472–473 hora ‘summer’, 98
Exclusive, 132 hora ‘time’, 98, 127
Exhortative, 49, 310, 375, 447, 460, 526 hōrou ‘to hurry’, 501–502
Focus, 175, 176, 216, 375, 386, 392, 395, 396, Hortative, 375, 461–462, 520
442, 439, 444, 463, 464, 465, 467 hū (demonstrative), 186
Foot, 37, 39–41, 43, 56–60, 62, 63 i (accusative marker), 75, 199, 214, 228, 265,
degenerate, 37, 39, 41, 43, 49, 56, 58, 59, 61, 266, 362, 363, 364, 374–380, 399–403, 408,
62 411, 412, 460, 485, 494, 498, 500, 501, 522.
Fraction, 149 See Case marking: object
Fricative, 28, 29, 54, 55 i (perfective), 8, 305–308, 347, 487, 513, 536,
Full word, 34, 71 538
Future, 304, 310, 316, 319, 460, 514, 530 i (preposition), 118, 119, 265, 451
Genitive. See Possession agent marker, 102, 202–203, 409–410
ꞌi ‘in, at’, 34, 87, 190–202, 265, 279, 450 548, 549
ꞌī (deictic), 175–176, 317, 350, 387 koā (collective). See kuā
ia ‘3SG’, 132 koe ‘2SG’, 132, 136, 137
ia ‘not yet’, 489 koia ko ‘with’, 87, 228, 418–419, 548
ia ‘then’, 180, 181, 441 kōnui ‘far’, 122, 125
ꞌia ‘not yet’. See hia ‘not yet’ koraꞌiti. See koroꞌiti
Identifiability, 209, 224, 232, 260, 436 kore (negator), 8, 488
iho ‘just now’, 167, 169 koroꞌiti ‘slowly, softly’, 51, 167
Imperative, 45, 49, 53, 101, 181, 182, 264, 300, kōrua ‘2DU/PL’, 132
301, 302, 303, 314, 315, 330, 347, 375, 376, ku, 52. See ko – ꞌā (perfect aspect)
378, 379, 409, 459–462, 477, 481–484, 520, kuā (collective), 13, 14, 98, 219, 221–222, 262
526, 527, 529 Lengthening. See Vowel: lengthening
Imperfective aspect. See e (imperfective) Lexical word. See Full word
ꞌina (negator), 71, 226, 232, 271, 302, 387, 449, Limitative. See nō
474–478, 482, 483, 487, 524 Loanword. See Borrowing
Inclusive, 132 Locational, 71, 72, 89, 95, 96, 114–128, 155,
Inclusory pronoun. See Pronoun: inclusory 169, 184, 193, 195–197, 199, 200, 203, 205,
Incorporation. See Object incorporation 207, 212, 214, 219, 236, 276, 423, 450, 468,
Indirect object, 411, 412 540
Interrogative. See Question mā (benefactive prep.), 52, 207–209
Intonation, 34, 45–48, 462 mā ‘with’, 140, 141, 548
iŋa (nominaliser), 78, 82, 90, 91 maha ‘four’, 139, 141
ira (anaphor), 9, 196, 197, 545 mai ‘from’, 205
Irrealis, 84, 87, 207, 314, 471, 486, 524, 527, mai ‘hither’. See Directional
528. See ana mai ‘while, before’, 533–534
ꞌite ‘to know’, 401, 505 mātou ‘1PL.EXCL’, 132
Iterative, 57, 65–68 matu ‘come on’, 462
iva ‘nine’, 139 mau (plural marker), 241
ka (aspect marker), 109, 314–317, 347, 472, mau ‘really’, 128, 146, 167, 174, 219, 253, 262
497, 498, 514, 536, 539, 541, 546, 547 māua ‘1DU.EXCL’, 132
ka – rō, 314, 316, 331, 472, 531, 541 Medial distance. See ena
ka (imperative marker), 459–460 Metathesis, 12, 50
ka (numeral particle), 144–146, 315 Metrical structure, 12, 37–41, 56–58, 62
kā ‘each’, 150, 163 meꞌe ‘thing’, 191, 197, 243, 244, 442, 444–446,
kai (negator), 477, 479, 481–482, 487 465, 467. See meꞌe rahi
kampō ‘countryside’, 122, 123, 125 te meꞌe nō ‘however’, 547
kē ‘different’, 150, 162, 163, 168 ꞌi te meꞌe ‘because’, 544
ki (preposition), 112, 203–205, 265, 399–403 meꞌe rahi ‘many’, 150, 151, 158–160, 165, 167,
ki (preverbal), 53, 528–532. See Hortative 228, 229
Kinship term, 97, 221, 261, 269, 282–284, 422 mo (benefactive prep.), 52, 136, 207–209
ko (locative prep.), 214 marking obliques, 413
ko (prominence marker), 86, 212–217, 234, 464, mo (preverbal), 14, 87, 275, 502–506, 515, 520–
498, 499 524, 529
in appositions, 259–261 Months, names of, 98
in clefts, 442–439 Mood, 457–473
in comitatives, 415, 419 Mora, 37–40, 43, 44, 57–60, 71, 147
in exclamations, 472 muꞌa ‘front’, 116, 121, 205
in identifying clauses, 435–441 muri ‘near’, 116, 119, 120
in topicalisation, 390–393 nā (demonstrative)
non-topicalised arguments, 406–408 deictic, 177, 178
ko – ꞌā (perfect aspect), 51, 102, 109, 175, 300, deictic locational, 195
313, 318–322, 347, 481, 497–499, 514, 537, demonstrative determiner, 195
Subject index 605
demonstrative pronoun, 197, 198 ꞌō (asseverative), 146, 182, 183, 463

Nasal, 28, 29, 42, 52, 54, 55 ꞌō ira ‘before’, 315, 540
Negation, 14, 110, 230, 244, 279, 299, 300, 387, Object, 359–365, 374–379, passim
474–489 demotion, 403–405
nei (demonstrative). See Demonstrative: incorporation, 249–251, 377, 408, 543
postnominal nominalised verb, 88
deictic locational, 195, 196 possessive, 411
demonstrative determiner, 194 preverbal, 351, 361, 389, 396
demonstrative pronoun, 197, 198 Oblique, 235, 411–414, 425
postverbal, 299, 348–349 oho ‘to go’, 355, 356, 502
nī (demonstrative determiner), 194, 195 ono ‘six’, 139
nō ‘just’, 52, 92, 108, 128, 146, 165, 174, 219, Orthography, 18–20, 28, 31, 33–35, 56, 200,
262, 299, 312, 328–330, 460 246, 410, 561
in noun phrase, 254–255 ōꞌoku ‘my’, 135
nōatu ‘no matter’, 547 ōꞌona ‘his/her’, 135
Nominal hierarchy, 296–297 ōꞌou ‘your’, 135
Nominalisation, 78, 79–93, 110, 111, 169. See oti ‘to finish’, 355, 387, 500–501
Noun: verbal; Verb: nominalised oꞌu ‘your’, 135
lexical, 76, 79, 82, 83 pa ‘like’. See pē
syntactic, 76, 78, 82, 83 pae ‘five’, 139, 141
Noun, 95–99, passim paꞌi ‘in fact’, 178, 179
as modifier, 107, 244–251 Particle, passim
common, 71, 72, 95, 96, 98, 115, 149, 207, postnuclear, 31, 71, 131, 480
212, 214, 217, 219, 223, 228, 232, 259, prenuclear, 31, 34, 35, 40, 71, 480
261, 265, 281, 296, 297, 391, 396, 397, Partitive, 134, 242, 272–274
407, 422, 435, 436 Passive, 101, 359, 362, 377, 380–385, 386, 403,
countable, 95 411, 501, 502. See Pseudopassive
deverbal, 67 Past, 305, 319, 481, 530
non-countable, 95 paurō ‘every’, 150, 151, 153–154, 155, 166
proper, 71, 72, 95, 96–99, 115, 133, 207, pē ‘like’, 113, 195, 196, 199, 205, 226, 228, 230,
210, 212, 214, 217, 232, 260, 261, 265, 232, 233, 236, 469
281, 296, 391, 396, 397, 422, 436, 439, pē nei ‘like this’, 196, 503
440, 499 pe ‘towards’, 121, 205–206, 207
verbal, 77, 83–93, 213, 216, 410 pēaha ‘perhaps’, 8
Noun phrase, 218–266, passim Perfective aspect, 481. See i (perfective)
headless, 13, 153, 236, 242, 243, 270, 272, Personal article. See a (proper article)
274, 276 Phoneme inventory, 27
proper, 261–266 piti ‘two’, 139, 141
Numeral, 14, 138–150, 451–452 Plosive, 28, 29, 42, 54. See Glottal plosive
definite, 13, 99, 147–149, 154 Pluperfect, 321
in noun phrase, 234–238 Plural
ordinal, 139, 147, 226, 235, 252 adjective, 105
Numeral, cardinal, passim noun, 238–242
nuꞌu ‘people’, 242 verb, 64, 66
ŋā (plural marker), 13, 93, 98, 219, 222, 223, Polynesian languages, 5–8, passim
227, 238–241, 249, 422 Possession, 77, 78, 133, 193, 202, 207, 208, 219,
ŋaroꞌa ’to perceive’, 50, 344, 345, 370, 376 257, 269–297, 413, 448–450, 466, 508, 511–
o (possessive prep.), 34, 118, 119, 448. See 513, 515–519. See ta (possessive prep.); to
Possession: o/a distinction (possessive prep.); Clause: possessive;
ꞌo ‘because of’, 34, 87, 201–202, 545 Pronoun: possessive
ꞌo ‘lest’, 53, 331, 505, 532–533 o/a distinction, 13, 133, 135, 207, 208, 280–
ꞌo ‘or’, 495–496 297, 466, 516
Posteriority, 205, 315, 316, 397, 499, 514 rahi ‘much’, 150, 160, 161, 252. See meꞌe rahi
Preposition, 199–217, passim Raising. See Verb raising; Subject raising
Pro-form, 71. See ira (anaphor); Pronoun raro ‘below’, 116, 120
Progressive, 84, 309, 312, 313, 329, 347 rau ‘hundred’, 155
Prominence, 216, 390, 440. See ko (prominence rāua 3DU/pl’, 132
marker) rauhuru ‘diverse’, 150, 151, 155, 156, 165, 229
Pronoun, 12 rava ‘usually’, 13, 50, 299, 325
benefactive, 71, 132, 135–136, 207, 269 ravaꞌa ‘to obtain’, 50, 51. See rovaꞌa
inclusory, 415–417, 420–421 raꞌe ‘first’, 127, 147, 540
personal, 97, 131, 132–133, 135, 196, 197, Realis, 84, 92, 207, 330, 395, 527
264, 265, 271, 414, 436, 464 Reciprocal, 66, 414
as comitative marker, 416 Reduplication, 27, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 48, 56–68,
possessive, 12, 93, 131, 132, 133–135, 137, 104, 147, 148, 154
138, 187, 222, 223, 263, 266, 269–273, Referentiality, 226, 227, 228, 229–231, 241,
277, 280–282, 290, 297, 395, 449 261, 393, 433, 435, 478
Ø-class, 9, 133, 135, 219, 270, 271, 272, Reflexive, 170, 256, 257, 414, 426, 427
275, 277, 396, 398, 449, 450 rima, 139
t-class, 133–134, 135, 207, 219, 225, 233, riro ‘become’, 455–456
242, 262, 270–272, 275, 449, 452 rō (emphatic marker), 53, 108, 146, 299, 330–
Proper article. See a (proper article) 332, 446, 460, 525, 532. See he (aspect
Proper noun. See Noun: proper marker): he – rō ꞌai
Prosodic phrase, 29, 34, 35, 44, 49 roto ‘inside’, 116
Prosodic word, 37 rovaꞌa ‘to obtain’, 51, 370, 506
Proto Central-Eastern Polynesian. See Central- case marking, 370, 376
Eastern Polynesian object incorporation, 408
Proto Eastern Polynesian. See Eastern Polynesian rua ‘two, 139, 147
Proto-Polynesian, 3, 8–10, 13, 21, 30, 31, 33, 36, ruŋa ‘above’, 116, 120, 121
41, 50–53, 68, 116, 123, 126, 127, 132, 140, Salience, 379, 380, 399
145, 167, 169, 170, 174, 184, 185, 200, 203, Serial verb, 13, 300, 333, 351–357, 366, 501
207, 209, 210, 216, 223, 233, 247, 263–265, Simultaneity, 175, 315, 497, 499, 536, 538, 539
269, 313, 314, 318, 325, 328, 333, 335, 362, Spanish influence, 14, 16–17, 53, 54, 83, 141,
370, 392, 395, 422, 464, 467, 468, 470, 481, 163, 506
484, 528, 532 Specific reference, 223–225, 227, 229, 233, 237,
Prototype, 76–78, 99, 103–105, 107, 108, 111, 259, 375, 393, 439
173, 219, 311, 321, 369 non-specific reference, 210, 224, 233, 237,
Proximal. See nei 403, 404
Pseudopassive, 384–386 Split predicate, 441–442
puē ‘can’, 483, 506 Stranding, 408, 441, 442
pura ‘mere’, 150, 163, 164 Stress, 27, 31, 32, 36, 37, 41, 43–45, 47–49, 55,
Quantifier, 14, 71, 78, 93, 95, 128, 131, 149, 56, 61, 62, 194, 392, 464
150–167, 172, 219, 220, 228–230, 234, 239, Subject, passim. See Case marking: subject
242, 252, 253, 271, 328, 342, 364, 365, 486, demotion, 399
518, 519 possessive, 399, 410–411, 504, 521, 522
Question, 230, 279, 324, 387, 462–473 preverbal, 322, 324, 351, 366, 368, 372,
content, 181, 183, 217, 411, 464–472 387–389, 393, 406, 475, 480, 509, 516,
dependent, 471–472 523, 546. See Topicalisation
polar, 46, 462–464, 471, 528 raising, 376, 381–383, 387, 479, 500–502,
rā (demonstrative) 516
deictic locational, 195 Superlative, 112, 113, 326, 327
demonstrative determiner, 192–194 Syllable, 27, 32, 36–41, 42–47, 49, 50, 53, 55–
demonstrative pronoun, 197, 198 61, 63, 68, 90, 154, 184, 207, 256, 318, 462
rā (intensifier), 181, 182 taꞌa ‘your’, 134, 137, 138
Subject index 607
tāꞌaku ‘my’, 134 ꞌuta ‘inland’, 122–125

tāꞌana ‘his/her’, 134 uꞌu ‘your’, 135
taꞌatoꞌa ‘all’, 150, 151–153, 155, 166, 229 vāeŋa ‘middle’, 116, 120, 121
tāꞌau ‘your’, 134 vara ‘usually’. See rava
taꞌe (negator), 92, 161, 299, 327, 387, 398, 445, varaꞌa ‘to obtain’. See rovaꞌa
478, 484–488, 524, 533, 544 varu, 143
tahaŋa ‘simply’, 167 vaꞌu ‘eight’, 139
tahatai ‘seashore’, 122, 125 Verb, 99–102, passim
tahi ‘one’, 139, 225, 237–238 active, 101, 102, 103, 109, 318, 319, 345,
tahi ‘all’, 150, 164, 167 409, 537
Tahitian influence, 5, 14–17, 30, 33, 37, 50, 56, as modifier, 107
79, 140, 141, 149–151, 153, 164, 166, 174, aspectual verb, 84, 88, 369, 499–502
178, 241, 245, 248, 325, 370, 385, 430, 455, cognitive, 89, 100, 321, 401, 502–503
456, 492, 532 copula, 14, 231, 422, 452–456
tai ‘seaside’, 122–125 denominal, 67, 93
takeꞌa ‘to see’, 345 emotion, 400
case marking, 370, 376 intransitive, 64, 99, 100, 101, 102, 290, 353,
takoꞌa ‘also’, 50, 167, 170–172, 253, 491 354, 359, 360, 362, 364–369, 373, 374,
tātou ‘1PL.INCL’, 132 379, 384, 395, 398, 405, 409, 422, 423,
tau (demonstrative), 185. See tū 425, 426, 453
taꞌu ‘your’, 134, 137, 138 middle, 100, 102, 204, 362, 363, 364, 375,
tāua ‘1DU.INCL’, 132 399–403, 412
tāꞌue ‘perchance’, 167 modal, 14, 505–507, 520
taꞌutini ‘thousand’, 52, 141 motion, 333, 334, 337, 338, 342, 343, 345,
te (article), 83, 93, 134, 156, 187, 189, 190, 346, 353, 355, 356, 369, 371, 372, 502,
222–231, 233, 264, 265, 422 542, 543
tētahi ‘some’, 150, 151, 156–158, 165, 167 naming, 217, 406
Thematicity, 216, 217, 388, 390–392, 399, 406, nominalised, 76, 79–93, 201, 278, 282, 290,
407, 415, 440 292, 354, 359, 376, 378, 379, 397–399,
tiene que ‘must’, 506 410, 485, 496, 500, 501, 505, 532, 540,
tikeꞌa ‘to see’, 50, 51. See takeꞌa 544, 545, 547, 548
to (possessive prep.), 134, 447, 449 patientive, 99, 102, 370, 409
tōꞌoku ‘my’, 134 perception, 89, 100, 315, 321, 342, 344, 369–
tōꞌona, 134 372, 374, 399, 400, 407, 497–499
tōꞌou ‘your’, 134 case marking, 370
Topic, topicality, 216, 382, 383, 385, 388, 389, raising, 518–520
396, 403, 405, 414, 434, 435 speech, 80, 89, 333, 338, 339, 342–346, 369,
Topicalisation, 97, 213, 216, 232, 233, 390–395, 371, 373, 401, 471, 503–504, 520
406, 523 stative, 101, 102–104, 111, 304, 309, 313,
Topic-comment construction, 389–390, 449 318, 320–322, 341, 371, 481, 483, 537
toru ‘three’, 139 transitive, 64, 66, 100, 101, 290, 321, 327,
tou (demonstrative), 185. See tū 340, 353, 359, 360, 362–370, 374, 379,
toꞌu ‘your’, 134 382, 395, 398, 399, 403, 405, 410, 413,
tū (demonstrative determiner), 53, 185–190, 422, 425, 454, 521
193, 194, 272 volition, 321, 439, 504
tūmaꞌa ‘more or less’, 140 weather, 78, 80, 81
tupuꞌaki ‘near’, 116 Verb phrase, 298–357, passim
tuꞌa ‘back’, 116, 120, 121 Vocative, 137, 220, 222, 265, 421–422
turu ‘to go down’, 124 Vowel, 30
tuꞌu ‘your’, 134 length, 31, 32, 37, 40, 43, 44, 62, 90
uꞌi ‘to look’, 344, 345, 400 lengthening, 41, 48, 49, 55–58, 61, 207, 424
case marking, 370

Gramática Rapa Nui

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A grammar of Rapa Nui

the language of Easter Island

Cover background picture: rongorongo board, known as the Mamari tablet

Printing: Ridderprint BV, www.ridderprint.nl

A grammar of Rapa Nui

ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan

Paulus Jan Abraham Kieviet

Table of contents ........................................................................................vii

Symbols and abbreviations ....................................................................... xvii

2.2.4. The glottal plosive............................................................................... 33

3. Nouns and verbs ..................................................................................... 71

4. Closed word classes .............................................................................. 131

4.7.7. The benefactive prepositions mo and mā .......................................... 207

5. The noun phrase................................................................................... 219

5.15. Conclusions.............................................................................................. 266

6. Possession ............................................................................................ 269

7. The verb phrase.................................................................................... 299

7.7. Serial verb constructions ........................................................................... 352

8. The verbal clause ................................................................................. 359

8.12.4. Reflexive and implicit causatives .................................................... 426

9. Nonverbal and copular clauses ............................................................. 433

10. Mood and negation ............................................................................. 459

10.5. Negation .................................................................................................. 474

11. Combining clauses .............................................................................. 491

11.6.7. Concession....................................................................................... 547

Appendix A: Interlinear texts .................................................................... 551

Appendix B: The text corpus ..................................................................... 567

References ............................................................................................... 571

Summary ................................................................................................. 595

Subject index ........................................................................................... 601

(Abbreviations for text sources are listed in Appendix B.)

IMM immediate (ꞌī)

Language groups and protolanguages

Ahu ꞌAkivi Rano Raraku 150m

statue quarry ■ Toŋariki

1.1. Rapa Nui: the island and the language

1.1.1. The island and its name

1.1.3. Snippets of history

In 1870, the French trader/adventurer Dutrou-Bornier, acting for a Scottish company,

1.2. Genetic affiliation

1.2.1. Rapa Nui in the Polynesian language family

Figure 1: Genetic classification of the Polynesian languages

1.2.2. Evidence for Eastern Polynesian and Central-Eastern Polynesian

For EP, the following innovations have been suggested:

The following innovations are considered characteristic for CE:

Lexicon & semantics

1.3. The Rapa Nui language: typology and innovations

1.3.1. General typology

• Syllable structure is restricted to CV(ː). Moreover, there are strict metrical

1.3.2. Innovations and losses in Rapa Nui

9. Development of definite numerals, formed by reduplication (→ 4.3.4).

30. Emergence of a nominal actor-emphatic construction, besides a perfective and

In recent times, the following developments took place:

1.4. Sociolinguistic situation

1.4.1. Influence from Tahitian and Spanish

The influence of Tahitian on modern Rapa Nui is striking. In my lexical database,

by his widow).19 It is hard to conceive that scores of words borrowed 50 or 60 years

1.4.2. Language use and vitality

• The glottal plosive is represented by a straight apostrophe ꞌ.21

1.5. Previous work on the language

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