When thinking about possession in Māori, we need to decide if a thing or person belongs to the A-category or the O-category. This choice will determine the correct possessive word to use because there are two groups of possessive words; ‘A’ and ‘O’ possessive’s.
There are a number of rules to help us decide. Some of these are pretty straightforward whilst others are a bit trickier.
The key is to focus on the thing or person who is possessed rather than the person or thing who posses it.
In the phrase ‘Wiremu’s hat’, ‘hat’ is the part to focus on, we want decide which category it belongs to.
In the phrase ‘The son of the father’, we look at ‘son’ and find out which category it belongs to.
If we flip the phase to ‘The father of the son’, ‘father’ is now the thing possessed, so we look at the rules to find out which category ‘father’ is in.
We’ll look at the rules in the next sections, but here are a couple of examples in English to help us think through how it works in Māori.
Take the phrase, ‘The house of Wiremu’ or ‘Wiremu’s house’.
We are focusing on ‘house’ because it the thing that is possessed by , or belongs to, Wiremu.
In our rules, we see that all houses, buildings and forms of shelter are O-category, so we will need an ‘O’ possessive in the Màori phrase.
How about, ‘The son of the father’ or ‘the father’s son’.
We focus on the son because he 'belongs to' the father.
In our rules, we see that ‘People in younger generations of a family (children, grandchildren nieces, nephews…)' are A-category. This time, we will need an ‘A’ possessive in the Màori phrase.
How about ‘The father of the son’ or ‘the son’s father’.
This time we focus on the father because he 'belongs to' the son.
In our rules, we see that ‘People in older generations of a family (parents, grandparents, ancestors)' are O-category, so we will need an ‘O’ possessive in this phrase.
Next, we have a look at the category rules and then at some of the different Māori possessives.