The relativizer whu

01 Saying whu

One syllable, fully stressed. Round the lips and raise the back of the tongue as though for w, then send voiceless breath through the narrowing for wh. Hold that rounding and let the voice come on for u: /ˈʍu/. The movement is a pronunciation path, not a second grammar hidden inside the word.

02 Headed structure

A headed relative has this shape:

Everything after whu and before the head noun belongs to the description.

03 Why there is no closer

The complement frames tha ... tho, pha ... pho, and sha ... sho need an explicit closing word before the matrix predicate. A headed whu clause ends at its head noun. In whu mia to theo shelu, the relative predicate theo completes before shelu arrives as the book that was read.

Headless relatives still keep whu, but context supplies the missing head. Their noun-phrase position marks where the construction ends; Chapter 20 closes with that pattern.

04 The gap

The head noun is absent from one role inside the relative clause. A schematic gap makes the relation visible:

whu mia ___ to theo shelu.
REL 1SG [gap] PST read book.
"the book that I read" (noun phrase).

The gap occupies object position. In the next phrase it occupies subject position:

whu ___ nophi kealo miona.
REL [gap] story create person.
"the person who creates stories" (noun phrase).

whu does not change form according to the missing role.

If a preposition governs the gap, the preposition remains where Phi normally places it:

Inside the relative clause, mua still precedes the gap in its object position. The head shelira stands outside that clause and follows the whole description; it refers to the same place as the gap without becoming a postposed prepositional object.