Phi pamphlets — Pronouns and topic-drop in Phi

Say the three of them in a row: mia, thia, shia. The speaker, the addressee, the one spoken of, each handed a word of the same size, two syllables on the same open hiatus, and who you are in the sentence changes the consonant and nothing else. The same three words serve friend and stranger, elder and child, in every role a clause can offer, because in Phi the position does the grammar and the pronoun just brings the person. Add one particle for we, one small pair for self and each other, two pointing words for near and far, and the inventory is complete. Then comes the quiet skill this pamphlet ends on: once a conversation knows its people, an established subject can step out of the clause entirely and remain understood.

Manual chapter 13 owns the doctrine; this pamphlet is the practice ground. The drills follow one visit from the knock at the door to the easy talk of old friends, which is the natural history of these words: full names and full pronouns at the threshold, lighter and lighter sentences as the evening learns who is in it.

By the end of this pamphlet, you will be able to:

Use mia, thia, and shia in every role, one form throughout
Build we, you all, and they with the plural particle, and keep two plurals apart in one clause
Send an action back to its actor with miso and between actors with wiso
Point near and far with ha and ra, before a noun and standing alone
Drop an established subject cleanly, and restore it the moment two referents compete
Hear where a possessor reading needs structure, and where a bare pronoun is the subject

This pamphlet assumes the sentence patterns in manual chapter 10. Chapter 13 is its home ground; names, honorifics, and the vocative belong to the naming pamphlet, and subject drop around quotative and interrogative frames is practiced in the complementizers pamphlet.

Say who once, and let the sentences grow light.