Phi practice Tense and aspect in Phi

Reading 4 of 12

Part 3

Looking forward: so

A friend is expected:

melu so kamo.

friend FUT arrive.

(The friend will arrive.)

so is to facing the other way. It places the event after the present moment, and like its partner, it carries nothing but the direction.

01A place, not a wish

The future is where plans, promises, predictions, and harvests all live, and so serves every one of them evenly:

mia lunei so nila.

1SG moon FUT see.

(I will see the moon.)

Whether that sentence is an astronomer's certainty or a hope spoken at a window, so settles only the timeline. When the sentence needs possibility, po joins the stack in the modality rank:

mia so po theo.

1SG FUT POT read.

(I may be able to read.)

The two particles do two jobs in one breath: so locates the reading ahead, po opens the question of ability. Keeping them separate is what lets Phi say a confident future, a doubtful one, and a merely possible one without ever bending the verb.

02The same openness

Everything part 2 said about to holds mirrored here. A future event can be about to begin, or already scheduled as a custom, or complete by some coming evening, and those views belong to the aspect rank:

thia so pa theo.

2SG FUT INCH read.

(You will begin to read.)

The beginning lies ahead. Change one particle and the same skeleton promises a finished book instead.

Practiceface forward

  1. You will come.
  2. We will see the water.
  3. I may be able to sing. Keep time and possibility in their own words.

Answers: 1 thia so shua. 2 lo mia phialu so nila. The plural marker builds we, and the water stands before the particles as objects always do. 3 mia so po meliho. so sets the direction, po opens the door, and neither does the other's work.