Chapter 11 Nouns and their world
The words of place
Here and there use ha and ra alone with nai; chapter 13 ยง5 will return to the pair as part of deixis. This section adds the compass, the sides, the nineteen spatial prepositions, and the reason Phi owns no ruler.
The compass reads the sky
| Phi | Gloss | The direction |
|---|---|---|
| nitho | north | atomic, value-neutral |
| ronua | south | atomic, value-neutral |
| sileta thorui | sun's beginning | east |
| sileta lumae | sun's end | west |
East and west compose from the sun's daily path when it is visible; north and south remain their own words because the sun's noonward direction changes by hemisphere. All four are ordinary nouns, and none carries an up, down, better, or worse judgment. They ride inside preposition phrases like any noun:
melu lue nitho shua.
friend ABL north come.
mia wea sileta thorui thalo.
1SG TOWARD sun beginning walk.
Whose left
lawe (left) and kuri (right) name sides a body lends to the scene. Their distinct forms help, but the reference body still matters. Bare, they are the speaker's sides:
womu mua lawe nai.
home LOC left be.
A possessor re-anchors them: thia lawe is your left, keruko kuri is keruko's right. There is no unmarked absolute left in Phi. When the reference body is not obvious, the possessor says whose orientation governs the scene.
The household of relations
The spatial prepositions all place the relator before its landmark. Familiar mua locates an event in or at a place; it never marks a motion endpoint. The vertical set begins with:
neparu leo tomora nai.
cloud ABOVE mountain be.
shumu nia kerou thuroa.
moss ON stone grow.
lo shalu phou repha wepu.
PL fish BELOW bridge go.
The neighborhood: noe (behind), neo (in front of), sio (beside), thei (between two), thoa (among many), roa (around).
misheko noe tomi nulae.
cat BEHIND pot sleep.
womu thei wi shiro nai.
home BETWEEN two tree be.
lo lopia roa thero rotiku.
PL child AROUND fire dance.
The passage set is muo (into), mue (out of), thue (through), and phei (away from). They join the motion three you already know: kau (to, with arrival promised), lue (from), and wea (toward, promising nothing).
shalu thue phialu wepu.
fish THROUGH water go.
lohau phei thero thalo.
dog AWAY fire walk.
Near, far, and the natural ruler
pai (near) and woe (far) complete the set, and they carry no numbers:
shelira pai silawo nai.
forest NEAR village be.
tomora woe silawo nai.
mountain FAR village be.
Near and far are judgements. hirawo (distance) names the separation before either judgement is made:
shia thei wi silawo hirawo masue.
3SG BETWEEN two village distance measure.
A road is under no obligation to be tekari (straight). Straightness follows the road's shape; thenui (direct) asks whether its route reaches the destination without a detour. Its waleru (length) may grow when a bridge closes while the villages' hirawo stays put.
ha ruela tekari nai.
PROX path straight be.
Roundness spends no second root. sorui kire means circle shape, the ordinary nouns-describe rule doing its work:
noru sorui kire nai.
bowl circle shape be.
ponalu (size) names a thing's overall physical scale before anyone calls it large or small:
ha wi themo molu ponalu kolo nai.
PROX two THING.CLF container size equal be.
None of these words contains a metre, mile, kilogram, or litre. Phi keeps ruler and scale units outside, just as chapter 14 will keep clock units outside. It offers honest gauging instead. masue (measure) means comparing against a shared standard, not counting units:
shia sheo pelio wetha masue.
3SG THAN arm cloth measure.
Weight has a neutral noun too. pamolu names what is compared before either container is judged tumoa (heavy) or phelo (light):
shia ha molu pamolu masue.
3SG PROX container weight measure.
Where ranking is the honest point, sheo with mo ranks openly:
tomora sheo shiro mo raelu nai.
mountain THAN tree CMPR tall be.
Travel time can still describe the scale of a journey, one noun phrase describing another:
ruela wi philo thalo nai.
path two day walk be.
The neutral noun says what is being gauged. The adjectives make the judgement.
| Neutral noun | What it isolates | Judging words |
|---|---|---|
| ponalu (size) | overall physical scale | whalo large, thiku small |
| waleru (length) | end-to-end spatial extent | laeno long, teku short |
| hirawo (distance) | spatial separation | noshi near, wuero far |
| raeli (height) | vertical extent | raelu tall, mulu low |
| lonai (width) | side-to-side extent | losha wide, hieru narrow |
| nusho (depth) | extent below a surface or into a thing | nulo deep, saphei shallow |
| pamolu (weight) | force needed to lift or support | tumoa heavy, phelo light |
Area and volume keep the measured thing in view. leko ponalu is surface size, lokue ponalu the size of a place, and tholu ponalu the size of a space. Scientific mass keeps its source distinction when it must be separated from ordinary weight.
The road stays whole rather than being sliced into metres, just as the day stays whole rather than being sliced into minutes. An arm, a day's walk, or a balance can provide a shared comparison in ordinary speech. When repair, health, science, testimony, or shared work needs an exact value, its source record stands beside the Phi sentence that identifies and discusses it.