—– Where does ne’e go?

katrina — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 02:31:31 +0000

As you know, ne’e means ‘this’. As Lauren has picked up, ne’e can be used in different places in Tetum, sometimes before another word, and sometimes after.

So the question is… where does ne’e go? Let’s start by looking at ‘this’ in English.

We can have the two following sentences, which have different meanings.

1- This is a book

2- This book is good

In sentence 1, we have the words is and a in between the other words, but in Tetum we don’t actually use these words…

This is a book

Ne’e livru

Tetum doesn’t distinguish beween this is a ____ , and this _____ using additional words, it uses a different strategy – switching the word order.

This book is good This is a good book

Livru ne’e di’ak Ne’e livru di’ak

I always remember it by thinking

THIS IS = ne’e first/before the word

THIS ____ = ne’e second/after the word