Chapter 9 The particle system, Phi's backbone
Slot 0: framing the utterance
Slot 0 comes before the subject because it applies to the utterance as a whole. A listener hears the frame before the content it frames.
wa: yes/no question
wa turns a statement into a yes/no question without moving anything else.
thia mia sano. — You know me.
wa thia mia sano. — Do you know me?
The particle settles the clause type at the first syllable, so nobody spends the sentence wondering whether it will end up being asked.
no: directive
no presents the following predicate to the listener as something to do. The same grammar covers a request and a command.
no ponu tapu. — Close the door.
no mia naphe. — Help me.
A directive cannot hide inside a bare verb: whoever hears no knows at once what kind of sentence has arrived. pi no adds politeness.
lu: realis condition
lu introduces a condition treated as open or plausible. The condition is its own sentence, followed by the consequence.
lu thia mia naphe. mia so thia whaline. — If you help me, I will thank you.
lu shea nai. sila thuroa. — If there is peace, the community flourishes.
For an unreal, imagined, or counterfactual condition, he follows lu:
lu he mia to naphe. shia to ma wepu. — If I had helped, although I did not, they would not have left.
The extra particle marks irrealis status. The surrounding tense still belongs to each clause's own verb.
su: wish or hope
su marks an utterance as a wish, hope, blessing, or prayer rather than an assertion.
su sila towe nai. — May the community be well.
su shea shua. — May peace come.
su thia thuroa. — May you flourish.
A wish leaves its fulfilment open. The frame gives hope its own grammar, so a blessing never has to disguise itself as a prediction.
pi: politeness
pi marks a polite stance toward the utterance. In a combined frame, it comes first.
pi no mia naphe. — Please help me.
pi wa thia po shua. — Could you please come?
Politeness can express care, convention, distance, or deference; the occasion decides which. The syllable's whole job is to make the stance audible.
The unmarked assertion
Without Slot 0, the clause is a declarative assertion:
mia thia lothea. — I love you.
shiro mioru nai. — The tree is beautiful.
This is the resting frame. The speaker reaches for Slot 0 when the utterance is doing something more specific than asserting.