Part 4 · grammar — Chapter 15 · voice possibility

The passive se

Every sentence puts someone at its center. Active voice centers the doer: I build the house. The passive particle se moves the receiver into that position instead:

mia womu lorima
1SG home build
"I build the house"

womu se lorima
home PASS build
"The house is built"

The builder has left the sentence entirely. What remains is the thing that was affected, promoted to subject, with se standing before the verb to mark the reversal.

When to reach for it

Three situations call for se, and they are worth telling apart.

When the doer is unknown or beside the point. Sometimes the outcome is the whole story:

peloru se thuroa
flower PASS grow
"The flowers were grown"

When naming the doer would turn a conversation into a trial. "The window was broken" discusses the window; "you broke the window" discusses the accused. Phi's passive lets a community talk about what happened before, or instead of, talking about who did it:

nophi se shonela
story PASS learn
"The lesson was learned"

This is not a dodge. Accountability can follow once the facts are shared; the passive just keeps the first sentence from being an accusation, because people who feel accused stop listening.

When the affected one deserves the center. This is the passive's quiet ethical work:

lopia se naphe
child PASS help
"The child was helped"

The sentence stays with the one who received the help. Whoever gave it can go unnamed, which is, often enough, how givers in Phi would prefer it.

se in the Slot 1 stack

se is a Slot 1 particle and keeps its fixed place in the order: tense, then aspect, then voice.

womu to se lorima — "The house was built"
womu so se lorima — "The house will be built"
womu to si se lorima — "The house was being built"
womu so ki se lorima — "The house will have been built"

Each particle adds its layer without disturbing the others. By the time the verb arrives, the listener knows when, how, and from whose side of the action the sentence is speaking.

One sentence, two centers available. Choosing which one to light is what se is for.