Kleider machen Leute: IVa

Now for the fourth sentence, actually two sentences joined by 'und' [and].

Er hatte noch nichts gefrühstückt als eigene Schneeflocken, die ihm in den Mund geflogen, und er sah noch weniger ab, wo das geringste Mittagsbrot herwachsen sollte.

Before breaking the first sentence down, I'll transform its main clause from a verbal sentence to a sentence of possession (ie from 'he had breakfasted on' to 'his breakfast had been'):

Sein Frühstück war noch nichts als eigene Schneeflocken gewesen, die ihm in den Mund geflogen, und er sah noch weniger ab, wo das geringste Mittagsbrot herwachsen sollte.

So, breaking this first sentence down:

Subject: sein Frühstück = tāna kai o te ata
Subject Predicate: noch nichts als eigene Schneeflocken = ētahi [some] whārangi hukarere [snowflakes] + anake [only - I'm cheating here again]
Relative clause (referring to predicate): die [Schneeflocken] ihm in den Mund geflogen
— in den Mund = ki roto [into] i tōna waha [his mouth]
— geflogen in = kua [perfect particle] rere [fly]

Copulating sentences in te reo māori seem to be of this form in general:

He [predicate] [subject]

The predicate is just a noun without a determiner, and so it seems to me that the standard is to have the more general class in the predicate and the more specific instance as the subject. So: 'the house is a mansion' would be 'He mansion the house' rather than 'He house a mansion'. I could be wrong. But if I'm right then the basic sentence, without relative clause becomes:

He kai o te ata ētahi whārangi hukarere anake.

The relative clause as a separate sentence would be:

Kua rere ētahi whārangi hukarere ki roto i tōna waha.

To combine them we drop the subject from the relative clause and place the remainder of the relative clause after its head (in this case the subject of our main clause):

He kai o te ata ētahi whārangi hukarere anake kua rere ki roto i tōna waha.

That completes the first sentence. I'll leave the rest for my next post.

Any thoughts?