Part 4 · grammar — Chapter 12 · numbers
Conscious calculation
Phi does arithmetic in full sentences, with five verbs:
| Operation | Word | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| addition | sholei | gather together |
| subtraction | leiro | release from |
| multiplication | welura | spread by |
| division | phanoi | portion among |
| equals | kelai | becomes |
The pattern is the sentence pattern: operands first, operation verb last, result stated as its own clause.
wi ta shao sholei. ta shao wi kelai. — Two and three gather. Five becomes. (2 + 3 = 5)
ta phoi ta shao leiro. wi shao kelai. — From nine, three releases. Six becomes. (9 − 3 = 6)
ta shao wi welura. wi shao kelai. — Three spreads by two. Six becomes. (3 × 2 = 6)
ta phoi ta shao phanoi. ta shao kelai. — Nine portions among three. Three becomes. (9 ÷ 3 = 3)
When the operands are real things rather than pure numbers, both carry the same classifier (you cannot gather two people with three trees), and for bare mathematics the classifiers are simply omitted.
Notice what the verbs refuse to be: short. sholei, welura, phanoi take as long to say as any other Phi word, and that is the design: calculation at speaking pace, each step a sentence someone could hear and check. The language has no way to rattle off figures, which means it has no way to stop noticing what the figures are of.