Chapter 14 Verbs and time
The words of time
This chapter has given you time's grammar: to and so place a clause in the past or future, and the five aspects shape how an event sits there. It has not yet given you time's vocabulary: the words for morning, for winter, for how old you are. Phi has them, and they form a system worth seeing whole: a clock read from the sky, a calendar of natural units, and a handful of compositions where other languages coin.
The natural clock
Phi divides the day into eight stations of light:
| Phi | Gloss | The station |
|---|---|---|
| horathe | dawn | first light |
| kelua | morning | the early daylight span |
| thaeso | midday | the sun at its height |
| lorui | afternoon | the span after midday |
| howai | evening | the day settling |
| norawhi | dusk | last light |
| shero | night | the dark span |
| phoemu | midnight | the still point |
These are ordinary nouns, and the ordinary prepositions locate you among them: sui (during), tei (until), mua (in, at).
mia sui kelua theo.
1SG DUR morning read.
lopia tei norawhi wile.
child UNTIL dusk play.
mia mua shero sheluo.
1SG LOC night listen.
Phi keeps eight natural stations and has no internal words for hour, minute, second, or clock time. This is a preference for shared, embodied reference, not a claim that natural stations meet every coordination need. When an exact time matters for travel, care, accessibility, testimony, or interoperability, the complete source time stays outside the Phi passage: the precision remains exact and its source status remains explicit.
The calendar
Above the day, the units are the ones the sky and the ground already keep: philo (day), phaeno (week), lunoa (month), meluna (season), torua (year), and for the long view noruwa (generation). The seasons are wirae (spring), keloi (summer), muero (autumn), shila (winter).
lo peloru mua wirae thuroa.
PL flower LOC spring grow.
Counted time takes nophe, and the classifier is optional, as classifiers always are: ta nophe philo or ta philo (one day), wi nophe lunoa (two months).
mia sui wi philo thalo.
1SG DUR two day walk.
Every span, whatever its size, has thorui (beginning), kesho (middle), and lumae (end). At the small end of the scale sit shemu (moment) and tiroe (instant): a moment is brief but lived in, an instant has no width at all.
Yesterday, tomorrow, and the distance between
The near days compose from words you already know: ha philo (today), luera philo (yesterday), wireo philo (tomorrow). The primer's journal chapter dates its entries this way, and the compounds keep the tense system visible every time they are said.
For distances beyond a day, pheo and phoe do the work. Chapter 19 will teach them as subordinators over clauses; with counted time phrases, they occupy the ordinary preposition-phrase position after the subject and before the object.
mia pheo wi philo so shua.
1SG POST two day FUT come.
melu phoe wi philo to kamo.
friend ANT two day PST arrive.
The missing machinery matters: there is no separate word for "ago" and none for "in ... from now." The preposition gives the distance and the tense particle gives the direction: pheo with so looks forward from now, phoe with to looks back. Two small words agree, and English's special machinery turns out to be unnecessary.
Time as a thing, time as a place
luera (past), nomi (present), wireo (future), nosa (now), and thimu (time) are nouns. The tense particles place your clause in time; the nouns let time itself be what the clause is about.
wheo luera halemu.
elder past remember.
mia nosa thole.
1SG now practice.
The first sentence talks about time. The second stands in it. Phi keeps the two jobs in different word classes, so neither ever pretends to be the other.
The turning words
Five nouns keep repetition and change apart. nuri (cycle) returns to a comparable starting condition. telui (rhythm) is perceived recurrence in breath, footfall, song, or another changing medium. kaero (phase) is one segment of a cycle or process. mosha (period) is a bounded span that need not recur. nuwoe (stage) is a position in a development whose direction matters.
lo meluna nuri nai.
PL season cycle be.
Age
Age is a count of years, and Phi says it with the ordinary possession sentence (mia lohau phelu, I have a dog): subject, the count, torua, and phelu (hold).
mia wi phoi ta shao torua phelu.
1SG two nine-group one three-group year hold.
lopia ta shao wi torua phelu.
child one three-group two year hold.
English says you are your age; Phi says you carry it. The years are a count you hold, and next year you will hold one more. The classifier, optional as always, is nophe.
How often
Frequency needs no adverbs; a quantifier over moments already says it. The registry carries five: sheloi shemu (often, many moments), phina shemu (rarely, few moments), soli shemu (sometimes, some moments), theula thimu (always, all time), mawha thimu (never, no time). The pattern is productive (any quantifier may count shemu or claim thimu), and the phrase stands in the adverbial slot, after the subject.
mia sheloi shemu thalo.
1SG MANY moment walk.
lopia theula thimu wile.
child UNIV time play.
The middle of the frequency range quantifies shemu, moments. Its ends quantify thimu, time entire, because "always" and "never" make claims about the whole relevant span.
The day, lived
The journal practice of chapter 23 uses these words, and the evidentiality pamphlet's journal of sources uses them too:
lopia sui philo to wile.
child DUR day PST play.
The sentence locates play during the day and in the past. Provenance stays unmarked, so a witnessed journal entry would add hi if witnesshood mattered. Natural time and evidential source remain two separate decisions on the page.