Chapter 10 The mindful sentence
Questions, requests, and conditions
Slot 0 can label a whole clause before its subject arrives.
wa thia shelomu. — Do you understand?
English often marks this question by moving an auxiliary. Phi leaves the statement order untouched and adds wa. The first syllable tells the listener that the whole proposition is being asked rather than asserted.
Content questions
A content question does not use wa. Its interrogative stands exactly where the answer would stand:
thia hina nila. — What do you see?
sua shua. — Who comes?
thia thela kealo. — How do you create it?
Phi has seven interrogatives: sua who, hina what, weno when, kua where, misa why, thela how, and wia how many. wia precedes a classifier or noun as a quantifier does.
The same placement works across ordinary topics:
ha hina welisha nai.
PROX what color be.
thia wia torua phelu.
2SG how many year hold.
mia wi phoi torua phelu.
1SG two nine-group year hold.
thia weno shua. asks when someone comes; lohau kua nai. asks where the dog is; thia kua kipona phaelo. asks where someone feels pain. English "which cup" is hina noru, with hina asking what kind or selection before the noun. A gap-word and wa never share a clause because they ask different kinds of question.
Directives
no marks a directive:
no thepalu temoe. — Tend the garden.
The grammar covers requests and commands without disguising either as a statement. The listener's practical freedom remains a matter for the people involved. Courtesy can be marked with pi.
pi no thepalu temoe. — Please tend the garden.
Conditions
lu introduces a realis condition and gives it its own clause:
lu mia shelu theo. mia so shelomu. — If I read the book, I will understand.
lu does not turn the consequence into part of the condition. Each clause keeps its own subject, tense, and predicate. lu he changes the condition to irrealis when the speaker presents it as imagined or counterfactual.
A request and an answer
Polite wording does not supply consent. Phi has a direct verb for a freely given answer to a particular act:
pi wa mia thia weloni po palo.
POL Q 1SG 2SG body POT touch.
mia ha palo lesawi.
1SG PROX touch consent.
lesawi belongs to the act named, with whatever conditions the person states, and it can be withheld or withdrawn. Agreement with an explanation, another person's authorization, and silence are different facts. The question makes room for an answer; the answer is still the speaker's own act.
Framing makes clause type audible early. It cannot make a directive harmless or a question sincere. What it can do is leave fewer excuses for pretending that an assertion was only a question, or that politeness was permission.