Note.—Occasionally we meet with an exception to this rule, in emphatic, elliptical, and complementary clauses; e. g., in taunting; tou ngene, your ngene[35]; taku tirohanga, my looking, i. e., when I looked. Ka whati tera, te pa, that was discomfitted, the pa. Vid. our illustrations of Epanorthosis in preliminary remarks, page 104.
11. It is sometimes used in elliptical sentences like the following: E pai ana ano; ko te maeke ra, we are willing; but the cold, i. e., we should be glad to go only for the cold; Haere ana ia, ko tona ko tahi, he went by himself alone.
Note.—It may be seen in the above example that ko is sometimes used for but; so also in the following: Me he mea ko te Paki, e rongo ratou; ko tenei e kore e rongo, if it had been Paki they would have listened, but as for this, they will not listen.
12. In connexion with the two preceding rules, we may observe, that ko is almost always prefixed to the nominative absolute; e. g., ko taua kupu au, e kore e rangona, as for that word of yours, it will not be listened to.
- Ko te hunga whakapono, ka ora ratou, believers, they will be saved.
N.B.—In some districts the ko is omitted under this rule.
13. Nga we have designated as the plural of the definite article page 12. The student will therefore remember that it does not recognize the rules a, b, c, d, e, mentioned under te—pages 10 and 11.
14. The omission of the article.
There are some cases in which no article is prefixed to the noun, (a) when the noun follows immediately after the verb; e. g., Whakamate tangata, murderous; (vid. compound words page 17.) Haere po, go by night.
(b) Nouns preceded by the adverbial particles a and tua; e. g., tatau a tangata, count man by man.