Lesson 39: Relative Clauses with Ai and Demonstratives
This lesson expands two grammar areas that appeared in basic form earlier: the back-reference word ai and the demonstrative system. Two useful expressions, naʻa mo (even) and kaeʻumaʻa (and also), round out the lesson.
The word ai appeared earlier as a back-reference meaning "there" or "in it," and in the existential expression ʻoku ʻi ai (there is). Ai also serves a connecting function: it links a descriptive clause back to a noun in the main clause, much as English uses "where," "in which," or "that...in."
Lesson 38 · All 52 lessons · Lesson 40
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