Lesson 19: Transitive Word Order
Every sentence so far has had either no object at all (Naʻe ʻalu ʻa Sione. Sione went) or an indefinite object fused to the verb (Naʻá ku kai ma. I ate bread). This lesson introduces a new sentence pattern for saying who does what to whom, using two markers: ʻe for the doer and ʻa for the thing acted upon.
Tongan splits sentences into two shapes based on one question: does the verb have an object? Compare:
Lesson 18 · All 52 lessons · Lesson 20
The Tongan alphabet and pronunciation · Tongan greetings and what they mean · Tongan tense markers explained · Tongan word order · Saying "not" in Tongan · Tongan possessives · The Tongan ko pattern