Phi practice Pronouns and topic-drop in Phi

Reading 5 of 11

Part 4

Back to yourself: miso

Some actions turn around and land on their own actor. miso stands in the object position and sends the verb home:

mia miso nila.

1SG REFL see.

(I see myself.)

thia miso sano.

2SG REFL know.

(You know yourself.)

The subject supplies the person and the number, so miso itself never changes:

lo mia miso theala.

PL 1SG REFL heal.

(We heal ourselves.)

With a plural subject, the action returns to each acting member: each of us heals ourself. What passes between the members is a different claim, and part 5 gives it its own word.

01Why the seat matters

miso earns its keep in the transitive clauses where subject and object could be different people:

mia thia naphe.

1SG 2SG help.

(I help you.)

mia miso naphe.

1SG REFL help.

(I help myself.)

One object word apart, and the help changes hands. The reflexive is Phi's way of filling the object seat honestly when the object is the actor again: no seat stands empty, and no listener is left to guess who received the action.

02Where no object is needed

An intransitive verb carries no object seat to fill. shia shonela. is complete: they learn. The reflexive appears when a genuinely transitive verb turns inward, as thumela, teach, does:

shia miso thumela.

3SG REFL teach.

(They teach themselves.)

Teaching takes a learner; here the learner is the teacher, and miso says so in the ordinary object position, no new grammar required.

Practiceturn it home

  1. I heal myself.
  2. You see yourself.
  3. They thank themselves.
  4. We teach ourselves. Each member, their own teacher.

Answers: 1 mia miso theala. 2 thia miso nila. 3 shia miso whaline. 4 lo mia miso thumela. The subject changed four times; miso never did. One small word, always in the object seat, always pointing back.