"Where is the hot rice?"
Translation:Aia i hea ka laiki wela?
11 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Aia is a word that starts sentences for location. Aia has no meaning in English but if it helps you out, you can consider it to mean "to be located". Shhh - a little secret: it is an optional word, but taking it out means totally rearranging the words in the sentence.
The most common syntax would be - Aia + the noun + the prepositional phrase of location.
When you include the question word for where - hea - then that prepositional phrase can get moved to position 2.
Aia + i hea / ma hea + the noun ?
Aia + the noun + i hea ? is less common but possible. They're flexible.
See in
https://hawaiian-grammar.org/current/
They use both interchangeably, and even say for "this question" that "the ʻami “ma” and “i” are interchangeable."
That doesn't mean they always are, though. I have heard some discussions about whether "i" and "ma" are precisely equivalent or not in general. I imagine to a certain extent it depends on the person and their background. They might be used differently in a more complex sentence, where "i" has multiple meanings while "ma" pretty much always means the same thing.
But for this kind of construct, my understanding is "Aia i hea" and "Aia ma hea" are in fact equivalent.