Grammar

Tongan possessives: ʻeku or hoku, and why there are two

My knife is ʻeku hele. My house is hoku fale. Both mean "my", and Tongan chooses between two complete sets of possessives depending on your relationship to the thing, not on the thing itself. The course calls them the ʻe-class and the ho-class after the sound each set carries.

ʻeku hele
my knife (I act on it)

hoku fale
my house (it shelters me)

The short version: the ʻe-class is for things you act upon, control, create or consume, and the ho-class is for things that act upon you, shelter you or define you. The image the course uses to anchor it is that ʻe-class is for things upon which you impress yourself, and ho-class is for things which impress themselves upon you.

Which class a noun takes

Your money, your food, your work and your tools are ʻe-class. Your house, your body, your relatives, your clothes and your country are ho-class.

Ho-class (it characterises you)	ʻE-class (you control it)
Relations: hoku tokoua (my sibling)	Emotions: ʻeku ʻita (my anger)
Houses and boats: hoku fale (my house)	Animals: ʻeku moa (my chicken)
Clothes: hoku tatā (my hat)	Work and activities: ʻeku ngāue (my work)
Countries and lands: hoku fonua (my country)	Language and speech: ʻene lea (his speech)
Body parts: hoku nima (my hand)	Food: ʻeku talo (my taro)

Some words move between the classes with the situation. ʻEku fala is the mat I make, because I act on it; hoku fala is the mat I sit on, because it holds me up.

Not every noun follows the guide above, and the course says plainly that working out which noun takes which class is a long job for an English speaker rather than something that clicks at once. Some of the exceptions are common: ʻeku tamai (my father) and hoʻo faʻē (your mother) are ʻe-class even though they are relatives. The workable strategy is to learn each noun's class along with the noun.

The two sets of words

Both sets go in front of the noun they belong to, and both cover the same seven persons, including the two kinds of "our" that Tongan distinguishes: ʻetau and hotau include the person you are talking to, ʻemau and homau leave them out.

Meaning	ʻE-class	Ho-class
my	ʻeku	hoku
your (one person)	hoʻo	ho
his, her, its	ʻene	hono
our (including you)	ʻetau	hotau
our (not you)	ʻemau	homau
your (several people)	hoʻomou	homou
their	ʻenau	honau

Inside the table above there is a reliable way to tell the two sets apart in writing. Every ʻe-class pronoun there carries a fakauʻa, the catch in the throat, in its possessive element: ʻeku, ʻene, ʻetau. None of the ho-class ones does: hoku, hono, hotau. Do not test on the first letter, because the ʻe-class second-person forms hoʻo, hoʻomo and hoʻomou also begin with h, and each still carries the fakauʻa. The test is about this table and not about the whole system: the ho-class preposition is ʻo, and the emphatic ho-class forms further down this page are ʻoʻoku, ʻoʻou and ʻoʻona.

Tongan also has dual forms, for exactly two people: ʻeta and hota (yours and mine), ʻema and homa (his and mine), hoʻomo and homo (yours, the two of you), ʻena and hona (theirs, the two of them).

Ko fē hona kote?
Where are their coats (the two of them)?

Kuo ngalo homa kote.
We (he and I) have forgotten our coats.

The idea underneath the two classes

ʻEku tokoni is "my helping", the help I give. Hoku tokoni is "my being helped", the help given to me. Same English word "my", opposite roles, and that is the principle the two classes are built on: the ʻe-class marks the possessor as the doer, and the ho-class marks the possessor as the receiver.

ʻE-class (doer)	Ho-class (receiver)
ʻeku tokoni my helping	hoku tokoni my being helped
ʻene fili his choosing	hono fili his being chosen
ʻene tohi his writing	hono tohi his being written about

That principle runs through the ordinary nouns as well, which is what makes the list further up this page more than an arbitrary sorting. You are the doer with your knife and the receiver with your clothes.

ʻEku vala.
The clothes I make (I act on them).

Hoku vala.
The clothes I wear (they cover me).

ʻEne hiva.
The song he sings (he produces it).

Hono hiva.
The song sung about him (it is about him).

When the verb has no object the possessor can only be the doer, so only the ʻe-class applies: ʻene ngāue (his working), ʻenau fiefia (their being happy).

Plants sort themselves by the same test. Crops and fruit are ʻe-class because you tend and harvest them, and trees are ho-class because they stand over you: ʻeku niu is my coconuts, the fruit, and hoku niu is my coconut palms, the trees.

Whose it is, when the owner is named

Ko e paʻanga ʻa Sione is "Sione's money" and Ko e fale ʻo Sione is "Sione's house". With a name rather than a pronoun, the two classes appear as two prepositions: ʻa for the ʻe-class and ʻo for the ho-class. Both translate as "of", and the class rules decide which one you reach for.

Ko e paʻanga ʻa Sione.
Sione's money. (ʻE-class: money is something he controls.)

Ko e fale ʻo Sione.
Sione's house. (Ho-class: a house shelters him.)

Ko e vaka ʻo Tēvita.
Tēvita's boat.

The distinction shows up most sharply with abstract nouns. Ko e tokoni ʻa e faiako is the help the teacher gives, and ko e tokoni ʻo e fonua is the help the country receives. The teacher produces it; the country is on the other end of it.

Asking whose something is

The same two prepositions form the question. Hai is "who", so ʻa hai asks whose for an ʻe-class noun and ʻo hai asks whose for a ho-class noun.

Ko e hele eni ʻa hai?
Whose knife is this?

Ko e fale eni ʻo hai?
Whose house is this?

That one is MINE

To put the weight on the owner, Tongan has a second set of possessives that follow the noun instead of preceding it. Ko e kato ia ʻaʻaku is "that basket is mine", with the emphasis English gives by raising the voice.

Meaning	ʻE-class	Ho-class
mine	ʻaʻaku	ʻoʻoku
yours (one person)	ʻaʻau	ʻoʻou
his, hers, its	ʻaʻana	ʻoʻona

Ko e hele ia ʻaʻau.
That knife is yours.

Ko e fale ia ʻoʻoku.
That house is mine.

Ko e kofu ia ʻoʻona.
That dress is hers.

The forms are built out of the possessive preposition doubled and then the pronoun, so ʻaʻaku is ʻa plus ʻa plus ku, near enough "of-of-me". The dual and plural forms follow the same classes without the doubling: ʻamautolu (ours, not yours), ʻamoutolu (yours, several).

Saying you have something

Tongan has no verb meaning "to have". The job is done by ʻoku ʻi ai ("there is") plus a possessive, and the possessive switches to an indefinite form when the thing is not a specific one: ʻeku becomes haʻaku, hoʻo becomes haʻo, hoku becomes haku, ho becomes hao.

ʻOku ʻi ai haʻo kato?
Do you have a basket? (Literally "Is there a-your basket?")

ʻOku ʻikai ke ʻi ai haʻaku hele.
I do not have a knife.

ʻOku ʻi ai ʻeku hele ʻe ua.
I have two knives.

The indefinite form turns up in the question, where the speaker does not know whether you have one, and in the negative, where you have none. The ordinary definite form comes back in an affirmative answer, because by then the thing is specific.

After a preposition

A ho-class possessive connects straight to ki, ʻi and mei, with no article in between: ki hoku falé (to my house), ʻi hono lokí (in his room), mei homau ʻapí (from our home). Ordinary nouns take the article, so ki he fale is "to the house" while ki hoku fale is "to my house".

An ʻe-class possessive behaves differently: the article he appears between the preposition and the possessive.

mei heʻeku tamaí
from my father

ki he ʻene faiakó
to his teacher

ʻe he ʻenau mātuʻá
by their parents

The second-person ʻe-class forms are the exception and connect directly, with no he: ki hoʻo tohi, mei hoʻomou ngāue.

Sort them until the class comes automatically

Reasoning your way to the right class mid-sentence is slow work, and sorting nouns one at a time is how you stop having to. The doer-and-receiver drill trains the harder half of the system.

The Tongan alphabet and pronunciation · Tongan greetings and what they mean · Tongan tense markers explained · Tongan word order · Saying "not" in Tongan · The Tongan ko pattern