Evidentiality in Phi

A practice companion to the manual

This pamphlet practices Phi's four evidential particles (hi, I witnessed it; ke, I infer it; ti, someone told me; ho, I assume it) until choosing among them is as unconscious as choosing a tense. The machinery is the manual's: chapter 16 owns the doctrine, and this pamphlet never restates what it can point to. What the manual cannot give you is volume, and volume is what turns a grammatical option into a habit of mind.

The primer's last grammar chapter ends on the sentence this pamphlet serves: Phi does not ask you to be certain. It asks you to be exact about how you are not. Exactness under uncertainty is a skill, and skills are built by repetition. Expect drills.

By the end of this pamphlet, you will:

• Hear the difference between the four sources before you finish hearing the sentence
• Place any evidential correctly in the Slot 1 stack without counting on your fingers
• Choose between hi and ke at the boundary where witnessing shades into reading signs
• Choose between ke and ho at the boundary where evidence shades into expectation
• Keep ti honest across chains of retelling, and layered under reported speech
• Say true things about other minds without trespassing on them
• Keep a journal in the three-line form, where evidentiality does its quietest work

This pamphlet assumes the particle system (manual ch9), tense and aspect (ch14), and the complementizers (ch19); the reportative chapter leans on that last one. It is a companion to manual Part IV, chapter 16.

Contents:

1. Four sources, one stack
2. Witness: hi
3. Signs: ke
4. Word: ti
5. Expectation: ho
6. Choosing and combining
7. The honest journal
8. Common errors
9. Exercises
10. Appendix: quick reference

"theula miona shewo haolu." Everyone spoke truly. Not everyone knew the same way; that is the point.