Part 2
Looking back: to
Yesterday there was a storm, and the primer's household slept through it:
pheralu to lepa.
rain PST fall.
to places the falling before the present moment. That is its entire job, and the smallness of the job is the thing to practice, because English past forms usually smuggle in more.
01When, and only when
A past event may have been completed, or still unfolding at the moment the story cares about, or just starting, or a custom of those days. to takes no position. It hands the clause to the past and leaves the view for aspect to choose:
mia to theo.
1SG PST read.
mia to si theo.
1SG PST IPFV read.
The first sentence is past and nothing more; the view stays open. The second adds si, and now the reading is caught mid-flow. Whenever an English past tense arrives with a shape attached, was reading, had read, used to read, the shape belongs to the aspect rank, and to supplies only the direction of the look.
02When, not how you know
to is also silent about the source of the claim. A memory, a record, and a neighbor's account all concern the past, and the sentence works with any of them:
shia to wepu.
3SG PST go.
When the source belongs in the sentence, an evidential particle joins the stack in its own rank, and the evidentiality pamphlet drills that choice. Here it is enough to hear the division of labor: to points backward, and everything else about the claim keeps its own word.
Practiceonly the direction
Translate, and mark only what each sentence actually claims.
- The wind came.
- I saw the sun.
- I was reading. Mark the flow.
Answers: 1 howeli to shua. 2 mia sileta to nila. The object stands before the particle and verb, and to stays beside the verb it serves. 3 mia to si theo. Tense first, then the view: the order inside Slot 1 never varies.