5mia nuwera
Whose and where
Two questions get their grammar in this chapter: whose, and where. Whose costs nothing. Put the owner directly before the owned, and you are done: mia nuwera, my bed; lopia nuwera, the child's bed. Where costs one small word: mua, in, at, or on, which stands before the place the way every describing thing in Phi stands before what it describes. And the little ha from last chapter's door finally gets its name.
SceneI
lopia nuwera thiku nai.phao nuwera whalo nai.wheo nuwera welao nai.lopia nuwera welao nai.phao nuwera welao nai.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| nuwera | nu · we · ra | bed |
Three beds, three sizes of person, and all three beds good, because this is that kind of house. No word for "of," no marker, no apostrophe: the owner stands before the owned, and standing there is the whole grammar.
SceneII
misheko mua nuwera nulae.lohau mua ponu nulae.lopia mua thepalu thalo.wheo mua thepalu nai.phao mua womu nai.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| mua | mu · a | in, at, on |
| ponu | po · nu | door |
Everyone somewhere: the cat in a bed, the dog at the door, the child and the elder in the garden, the parent in the house. mua announces that a place is coming; the place arrives; then the sentence gets on with its verb.
SceneIII
sulopa mua tomi nai.tomi mua wonepa nai.nuora mua wonepa nai.lopia sulopa nuola.lohau mua wonepa nai.phaotua.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| sulopa | su · lo · pa | soup |
| tomi | to · mi | pot |
| wonepa | wo · ne · pa | table |
The soup is in the pot, the pot is on the table: one little mua covers in, at, and on, and the things themselves tell you which. The last reply is the parent speaking, and the dog understands it perfectly.
SceneIV
Now ha, here, and its twin ra, there.
lopiawa misheko ha nai.phaotua. misheko ra nai.lopiawa misheko mua thepalu nai.phaotua. misheko mua womu nai.lopiamisheko mua mia nuwera nulae.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| ha | ha | here |
| ra | ra | there |
Is the cat here? No, there. In the garden? No, in the house. The last line the child speaks with the flat voice of someone who has lived with a cat before: in my bed. Look at how the sentence builds: mua opens a place phrase, and that place is mia nuwera: possessor before possessed inside preposition before object. It is the deepest nesting in the primer so far, and every part keeps the order you already know.