Editing Māori language (section)

=== Phrase grammar ===
A phrase spoken in Māori can be broken up into two parts: the "nucleus" or "head" and "periphery" (modifiers, determiners). The nucleus can be thought of as the meaning and is the centre of the phrase, whereas the periphery is where the grammatical meaning is conveyed and occurs before and/or after the nucleus.{{sfn|Biggs|1998|page=4}}

{| class="wikitable"
! Periphery
! Nucleus
! Periphery
|-
| ''te''
| ''whare''
| ''nei''
|-
| ''ki te''
| ''whare''
|
|}

The nucleus {{lang|mi|whare}} can be translated as "house", the periphery {{lang|mi|te}} is similar to an article "the" and the periphery {{lang|mi|nei}} indicates proximity to the speaker. The whole phrase, {{lang|mi|te whare nei}}, can then be translated as "this house".{{sfn|Biggs|1998|page=5}}

==== Phrasal particles ====
A definite and declarative sentence (may be a copulative sentence) begins with the declarative particle ''ko''.{{sfn|Biggs|1998|pages=15–17}} If the sentence is topicalized (agent topic, only in non-present sentences) the sentence begins with the particle '''''nā''''' (past tense) or the particle '''''mā''''' (future, imperfective) followed by the agent/subject. In these cases the word order changes to subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb. These are the agent emphatic sentences discussed earlier. The agent topicalizing particles can contract with singular personal pronouns and vary according to the possessive classes: ''nāku'' can be thought of as meaning "as for me" and behave like an emphatic or dative pronoun.{{sfn|Biggs|1998|pages=87–89}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Agent topic pronouns
!
!Past
!Future
|-
!1S
|nāku/nōku
|māku/mōku
|-
!2S
|nāu/nōu
|māu/mō
|-
!3S
|nāna/nōna
|māna/mōna
|}

==== Case particles ====
* Nominative: ko{{sfn|Bauer|1997|page=181}}
* Accusative: i{{sfn|Bauer|1997|pages=175–176}}
* Dative/directional locative: ki{{sfn|Bauer|1997|pages=176–179}}
* Genitive: a/o{{sfn|Bauer|1997|pages=183–184}}