25se
The work gets done
Part V is about shaping a claim rather than adding to it, and it opens with a particle that quietly moves the furniture. se puts the one a doing happens to where the doer would stand, and lets the doer go unsaid. It lives in the verb's own cluster, after the time particles. A morning's work, already finished, with nobody named:
SceneI
moru to se shiroka.ponu to se phae.napa to se pilewa.sulopa to se pharelo.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| se | se | (in the verb cluster: the doing happens to the subject) |
The wall was repaired, the door opened, the bread made, the soup cooked. Four things done and not one doer in sight. The village knows who repairs walls; the sentence does not have to say so.
SceneII
wheo moru to shiroka.moru to se shiroka.phao napa to pilewa.napa to se pilewa.
The same two mornings, said twice each. First the elder and the parent do the work; then the work is simply done. Nothing is hidden in the second version, and nothing is added: the doer has stepped out of the sentence, and the thing done has stepped into the place they left.
SceneIII
lo powea to se pilu.nuora to se kolua.wonepa to se hiso ka kelu.mawha miona ha to nila.
| new word | say it | it means |
|---|---|---|
| ka | ka | (in the verb cluster: makes it happen; chapter twenty-six) |
The eggs were taken, the food carried, the table made clean, and nobody saw any of it. This is what se is for: a sentence about the work when the worker is beside the point, or unknown, or in the next room.
SceneIV
misheko to se ma nila.lohau to se nila.lohau to se nila. lohau ha to sano.
The cat was not seen. The dog was seen. The dog was seen, and the dog knows it. One particle, and the sentence arranges itself around whoever it is really about.