Part 4 · grammar — Chapter 11 · nouns

The words of the body

Phi names the body thoroughly, and everything else the body needs, states, sensations, healing, follows from grammar you already have. This section walks the whole of it.

From crown to sole

The head:

The trunk and limbs:

The living interior, and the whole:

The rest composes. The registry carries whalo thumai (the big finger, the thumb), mokura kesho (belly-middle, the navel), nolika whila (animal hair, fur), and mirae phialu (eye-water, tears). A breath is whunei's event noun, a cut is kati's, and possession is bare juxtaposition: lopia weloni (the child's body), mia korua (my heart).

States are worn

Bodily states that are adjectives predicate with nai, like any adjective: kumoli (hungry), kishu (thirsty), pelui (cold), shorui (weary), mokela (sick), towe (well).

mia kumoli nai.
1SG hungry be.
(I am hungry.)

wa thia mokela nai.
Q 2SG sick be.
(Are you sick?)

The caring question has a caring answer, and the imperative gives it:

no wei shia phialu loa.
IMP DAT 3SG water give.
(Give them water.)

Sensations are felt

Sensations and feelings that are nouns are objects of phaelo (feel): kipona (pain), shea (peace), nuhe (sadness). This is the same verb the journal practice of chapter 23 runs on, and the grammar is one pattern for the whole inner world:

mia kipona phaelo.
1SG pain feel.
(I feel pain.)

A body part locates the feeling with mua, standing where preposition phrases stand:

mia mua rokai kipona phaelo.
1SG LOC back pain feel.
(I feel pain in my back.)

So the healer's question is:

thia kua kipona phaelo.
2SG where pain feel.
(Where do you feel pain?)

One sentence Phi refuses: mia kipona nai, I am pain. The state you wear takes nai; the sensation passing through you takes phaelo; and a person has never been their pain.

The healing house

Healing has a family: nepha (medicine) is the general word, with heloa (remedy), thelai (balm), and wenu (tonic) beneath it; theala (heal) and talome (restore) are its verbs, and theama (care) and numelo (nurture) keep them company.

heloa mia theala.
remedy 1SG heal.
(The remedy heals me.)

Recovery ends where it began, in the ordinary words:

mia weloni therilu.
1SG body rest.
(My body rests.)

mia towe nai.
1SG well be.
(I am well.)

towe is the state, sunai (health) the condition beneath it, wolu (healthy) the description of whatever holds that condition, a person, a forest, a community.

Unwell, never bad

Phi has no generic bad, and the sickroom is where that refusal earns its keep. Things are harmful, broken, or unwell, each a specific, addressable condition. A sick person is mokela, a state like weather, not a verdict; the question is wa thia mokela nai, and the grammar itself expects the state to pass, the way mia mokela to nai (I was sick) already files it in the past.

Phi's bedside manner is built into its grammar. It asks where the pain is, hands water to the thirsty, and never once confuses the sick with their sickness.