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This week I touch on the O-Category. Below is what I cite from Ray Harlow's A Maori Reference Grammar pg 143-145

a. Large, immovable entities that belong to the possessor, such as houses, land, country:

Toona whare (His house), No Ngaitai aua whenua (Those lands belong to Ngaitai.)

b. Subject of nominalisations of neuter and experience verbs and of passive transitive verbs:

Te rongonga o te tangata i te putorino. (The man's hearing the flute.)

Te whainga o te kuri e nga tamariki. (The children's chasing of the dog.)

c. Subjects of nominalisations of intransitive verbs:

Too raua taenga atu. (Their arrival.)

d. All family relationships and kinship terms for the generations of the same generation or above, and friends:

Te tukakana o Mere (Mere's older sister.)

Tokowha oona teina. (He has four younger brothers.)

Oona maatua. (His parents.)

He hoa nooku. (A friend of mine.)

Korua ko toou hoa wahine. (You and your wife.)

e. Parts of a whole, including parts of the body and by extension, clothing worn by someone:

Te tuanui o te whare. (The roof of the house)

Toona ringa. (Her hand.)

Tooku potae. (My hat.)

Te koi hoki o te hinengaro o te tamaiti ra. (What a smart kid that is!)

f. Attributes of people and things, such as size, age, colour, name, qualities which inhere in a person always take o.By this are meant aspects of a thing or person. A person's language is regarded as an attribute in this way:

Ko Rei tooku ingoa. (My name is Rei.)

He aha te kara o ana makawe. (What colour is his hair?)

Tekau tau te pakeke o taku tamaiti. (My son is ten years old.)

He aha te painga o te pera? (What is the good of doing that?)

Ko te reo Maori too ratou reo tuatahi. (Maori is their first language.)

g. Emotions that one feels, knowledge and thoughts that one has, even "sins" that one commits, or mistakes that one makes, are treated as internal aspects of a person which emanate from s/he, rather than as actions that her/him perform. Thus, these also usually take o:

Te aroha o te Atua. (The love of God.)

Murua oo matou hara. (Forgive us our trespasses.)

He nui rawa atu toona mohio ki taua take. (His knowledge of that matter is very great, he knows a great deal about that matter.)

Noona te he. (Hi was his mistake, his fault.)

Tino pai te whakaaro o Pita kia ... (That's a good idea of Pita's to ...)

h. Finally among the types of word to be listed here, means of conveyance, be they mechanical like cars, or animate like horses, toke o if the possessor uses them for that purpose:

i tae mai nga tamariki ma rungia i oo ratou hoiho. (The children arrived on their horses.)