Thank you very much Terry ! I will remember to be uncomfortable with vowels ^^ I had read somewhere about elision in Hawaiian and that had made me confused. Thanks for reminding me of that google trick, I use it quite often for Chinese, but it didn't occurred to me that I could use it for this question. And that you very much for for the Trussel dictionnary, I have the feeling I will use it a lot ! :D I have order online a textbook for Hawaiian called Ka Lei Ha'Aheo and should receive by the end of the week. Would you mind helping me from time to time if I have questions ?

The plural of ali'i is still nā ali'i. (Google it; you'll find many examples. Googling for a word in the target language is an old translator's trick to judge the acceptability of a word, or the relative popularity of one word over another. It's not foolproof but it can help.) In English vowels make us uncomfortable -- in Hawaiian it's not a problem. That phrase will sound like nāli'i when spoken, not nā'ali'i. No glottal stop added or needed between the nā and the noun. Do you know about this online dictionary? You can probably find a lot of information through looking at examples there: http://www.trussel2.com/haw/haw-a.htm If you have an device that can display Kindle files, you can also get this dictionary in electronic format: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Hawaiian-Dictionary-Kahikahealani-Wight-ebook/dp/B004WP4UUK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396456457&sr=1-3&keywords=hawaiian+dictionary I've found the examples in this one to be very useful.