The mechanics of whu

01The word itself

The relativizer whu announces that what follows is a descriptive clause. It's a complementizer, not a pronoun. This distinction matters: whu doesn't stand in for the noun or change form based on grammatical role. It simply marks the beginning of a relative clause.

Sound symbolism

Say it aloud: breath through rounded lips, then a vowel that keeps exactly the same rounding, gone almost before it starts. The mouth never changes shape from one end of the word to the other, which is a fair sound for a word that opens something and then waits. whu is the only bracket in Phi that never closes, and its vowel is the announcement: the three pairs end in -a or -o, and this one ends in neither, so no closer is coming. What whu opens is held open by grammar rather than by sound, until the head noun arrives to close it.

Gloss and category

In linguistic glosses, whu is abbreviated as REL (relativizer). It belongs to the complementizer category alongside:

• tha/tho (DECL.COMP/DECL.COMP.CLOSE): introduces embedded statements
• sha/sho (QUOT.COMP/QUOT.COMP.CLOSE): introduces direct quotation
• pha/pho (INT.COMP/INT.COMP.CLOSE): introduces embedded questions

All complementizers announce what kind of clause is coming. whu specifically announces: "a descriptive clause follows; wait for the noun to learn what it describes."

02Position and scope

Where whu appears

whu always appears at the very beginning of the relative clause:

There are no exceptions. Unlike English, where relative pronouns can sometimes be omitted ("the book I read" vs. "the book that I read"), whu is consistently present when a relative clause is explicitly marked.

What counts as "the clause"

Everything between whu and the head noun is part of the relative clause. This includes:

• The subject (if not gapped)
• The object (if not gapped)
• Tense and aspect particles
• Negation
• Adverbials and prepositional phrases
• Even embedded clauses within the relative clause

The scope of whu extends until the head noun appears. That noun closes the relative clause and receives all the preceding description.

The structural formula

[whu CLAUSE] NOUN MAIN-CLAUSE

Or more precisely:

[whu (subject) (object) (adverbials) VERB] NOUN (rest of sentence)

The noun can then serve any role in the main clause: subject, object, or part of a prepositional phrase.

03No closer needed

Comparison with other complementizers

Phi's other clause-embedding complementizers require closers:

• tha ... tho (DECL.COMP ... DECL.COMP.CLOSE): required pair for embedded statements
• pha ... pho (INT.COMP ... INT.COMP.CLOSE): required pair for embedded questions
• sha ... sho (QUOT.COMP ... QUOT.COMP.CLOSE): required pair for quotations

These closers exist because the embedded clause is followed by more material (the main verb), and without a boundary marker, the listener wouldn't know where the embedded clause ends.

But whu has no closer. Why not?

Pre-nominal position creates natural bounding

The answer lies in position. Embedded statements with tha are followed by the main verb:

Without tho, the sentence would be ambiguous: where does the embedded clause end? Which verb belongs to which clause?

Relative clauses with whu are followed by a noun:

The noun nophi ("story") itself signals that the relative clause has ended. Not every noun does this: a noun inside the clause is one of the clause's own arguments, as in whu nophi kealo miona (the person who creates stories), where nophi is the clause's object. The head is the noun that arrives after the clause is complete, the first noun after the clause's verb. That noun is the closer.

This is the advantage of pre-nominal relatives: they're self-delimiting. The structure has a built-in endpoint.

When the noun arrives

Train yourself to listen for the noun as a signal:

1. You hear whu: a description is starting
2. You hear clause material: subjects, objects, particles, the verb
3. You hear a noun after the clause's verb: the description is complete
4. That noun is what was being described

04The gap strategy

What is a gap?

In a relative clause, the head noun plays a role inside the clause's action. In "the book that I read," the book is what was read; in "the person who helped me," the person is the helper.

But the noun itself appears outside the clause, at the end. Inside the clause, there's a gap: an empty position where the noun would be if it were a normal sentence.

Think of it as a place laid at the table before the guest arrives. The clause sets everything around one empty seat, and the head noun, when it comes, sits down exactly there.

Gap in subject position

When the head noun is the subject of the relative clause's action:

whu ___ nophi kealo miona phue nai
REL [gap] story create person wise be
(The person who creates stories is wise.)

Analysis: - The gap is in subject position (before the object and verb) - The person is the one who creates stories - If this were a standalone sentence: "miona nophi kealo" (a person creates stories) - In the relative clause, the subject's seat stands empty, and miona waits outside as the head

More examples:

whu ___ to shua miona ha nai
REL [gap] PST come person PROX be
(The person who came is here.)

whu ___ mioru nai peloru thuroa
REL [gap] beautiful be flower grow
(The flower that is beautiful grows.)

Gap in object position

When the head noun is the object of the relative clause's action:

mia whu mia ___ to nila shelu lothea
1SG REL 1SG [gap] PST see book love
(I love the book that I saw.)

Analysis: - The gap is in object position (after subject, before tense+verb) - The book is what was seen - If this were a standalone sentence: "mia shelu to nila" (I saw a book) - In the relative clause, the object's seat stands empty, and shelu waits outside as the head

More examples:

whu thia ___ to kealo nophi mioru nai
REL 2SG [gap] PST create story beautiful be
(The story that you created is beautiful.)

mia whu shia ___ thumela lopia sano
1SG REL 3SG [gap] teach child know
(I know the child whom they teach.)

Gap in oblique position

When the head noun is part of a prepositional phrase inside the relative clause:

whu mia mua ___ to thalo shelira mioru nai
REL 1SG LOC [gap] PST walk forest beautiful be
(The forest that I walked in is beautiful.)

Analysis: - The gap is inside the locative phrase, where the object of mua would be - The forest is where the walking happened - The preposition mua (in/at) remains; its object is gapped

More examples:

whu shia wei ___ to haolu miona ha nai
REL 3SG DAT [gap] PST speak person PROX be
(The person whom they spoke to is here.)

No case marking

In languages like English, different relative pronouns indicate different roles: "who" vs. "whom," "which" vs. "whose." Phi doesn't do this. whu is invariant. The gap's position tells you the role.

This keeps the system simple but requires attention to structure. When you hear or read a relative clause, notice where something seems to be missing. That's the gap, and it tells you how the head noun relates to the clause's action.

Identifying the gap: practice

For each relative clause, ask: "If I turned this into a standalone sentence with the head noun inside, where would it go?"

whu shia lothea miona

→ "shia miona lothea" (they love a person) → gap is in object position → "the person whom they love"

whu to shua miona

→ "miona to shua" (a person came) → gap is in subject position → "the person who came"

whu mia mua shelira to nila ruela

→ "mia mua shelira ruela to nila" (I saw a path in the forest) → gap is in... wait, which noun is the head?

This last example shows that you must wait for the head noun to know what's gapped. The word ruela (path) at the end is the head, so the path is what was seen. The forest (shelira) is inside the clause, not gapped.

The rule of thumb: find the clause's verb, take the noun after it as the head, and ask which role inside the clause is empty.