Phi manualPart VIMastery

Section 4 of 6

Chapter 22 The art of transmutation

Case study: transmuting a news article

News puts exact counts beside reported sources and absent actors. Material damage and financial estimates add their own burdens. Phi can carry some of this directly, while other details need a source record beside the passage.

"Officials report that last night's storm damaged 47 homes in the village; 214 residents were evacuated, and reconstruction is expected to cost $2.3 million."

What is the sentence doing?

This transmutation chooses four claims for its Phi account: a storm came, homes were damaged, people moved to safety, and repair is expected. The counts stay because they fit Phi's exact numeral range. The source identity and dollar estimate remain beside the passage because their exact forms matter.

The Phi concepts

  • The storm: kurisha. The night: shero.
  • "Damaged" is pukeri, an adverse change that may leave the thing standing and recognizable. It keeps this case apart from pukate (break), while sholu ma nai (not be complete) remains available when wholeness itself is the point.
  • The counts: 47 and 214 both fit Phi's exact range, as ta lau wi phoi wi and wi rei ta lau wi phoi wi shao ta. The source record also keeps the familiar decimal forms.
  • "Evacuated" becomes the reported event that people went to safety. The allative kau marks safety as their destination.
  • The reportative evidential ti says that each proposition came from another source. The source record keeps the report's reference to officials and its exact wording.
  • The dollar estimate remains outside Phi. The core lexicon deliberately has no money terms, while Phi can still discuss the labour, materials, and other resources involved in repair.

Rebuild

shero kurisha to ti shua.

night storm PST REP come.

(In the night a storm came, so it is reported.)

ta lau wi phoi wi womu to ti pukeri.

one twenty-seven-group two nine-group two home PST REP damage.

(Forty-seven homes were damaged, so it is reported.)

wi rei ta lau wi phoi wi shao ta himo miona kau shurano to ti wepu.

two eighty-one-group one twenty-seven-group two nine-group two three-group one HUM.CLF person ALL safe PST REP go.

(Two hundred fourteen people went to safety, so it is reported.)

lo womu so se ti shiroka.

PL home FUT PASS REP repair.

(The homes will be repaired, so it is reported.)

Every sentence keeps ti because every claim comes from the report. The passive in the last line preserves the source's absent repairer instead of inventing one. A later witnessed account could name who did the work and use hi; that would be another report about another moment.

What happened to the $2.3 million?

The Phi summary omitted it, and that omission is a choice rather than a recovery of all information. A budget reporter, aid coordinator, auditor, or resident may need the exact amount. Preserve that amount in the source record outside Phi while the Phi sentence identifies what the record reports.

Source record outside Phi: $2.3 million

ha sirami shiroka panuri thelima.

PROX record repair resource describe.

(This record describes repair resources.)

The Phi passage and the source record do different work. The first makes the reported events discussable in Phi. The second preserves the reference to officials, decimal notation, currency, and exact wording. Calling the first a transmutation keeps that division honest.