Part 4: Word (ti)

ti marks knowledge that reached you through another person. It is the evidential of community (nothing a household knows stays first-hand for long) and the one with the most working parts, because passing knowledge along is a chain, and chains have joints. The doctrine is the manual's (ch16, and ch19 for reported speech); the joints are practiced here.

The plain relay

suliwa ti nai. siora mia shane.
snake REP be. siora 1SG tell.
(There is a snake — so I am told. siora told me.)

sulae's line from the primer is the complete pattern: claim marked ti, source named unmarked. Like ke's two-sentence habit, naming the source is not grammar: it is craft. A bare ti answers how do you know? with "someone said"; a sourced ti answers the next question before it comes.

Three tools, three jobs

Phi has three instruments for other people's words, and serious speakers keep them distinct:

shia to ti wepu.
3SG PST REP go.
(They left — I was told.)

sulae mena shia to wepu meno to haolu.
sulae DECL.COMP 3SG PST go DECL.COMP.CLOSE PST speak.
(sulae said that they left.)

sulae shola shia to wepu sholo to haolu.
sulae QUOT.COMP 3SG PST go QUOT.COMP.CLOSE PST speak.
(sulae said: "They left.")

The first is your claim, wearing its secondhand pedigree; the teller has left the sentence. The second reports the content of sulae's saying; the saying is the event. The third carries her exact words in the quotation frame. Moving between the three is the chapter's core drill: same fact, three commitments. Notice what shifts: in ti you assert the fact; in mena and shola you assert only the telling.

Layered knowing

The tools stack, and the stack stays honest at every level. The manual's speech chapter builds this sentence:

mia ti mena shia so wepu meno shemui.
1SG REP DECL.COMP 3SG FUT go DECL.COMP.CLOSE utter.
(I am told that they said they would go.)

Read it from the outside in: I pass along (ti) a report (mena…meno) of a departure that was future at the time of its telling (so, relative to the saying, per ch19's tense rule). Every remove from the event is visible on the page. Phi cannot stop a rumor, but it refuses to let a rumor dress as testimony.

The chain in practice

Retelling is where ti earns its keep. Follow one fact through the household:

mia suliwa hi nila.
1SG snake DIR see.
(the child, at the well: I saw the snake myself.)

suliwa ti nai.
snake REP be.
(sulae, told by the child: there is a snake — I hear.)

lopia mena suliwa mua phitura nai meno ti haolu.
child DECL.COMP snake LOC well be DECL.COMP.CLOSE REP speak.
(keruko, farther down the chain: the child says — I'm told — that a snake is at the well.)

Each speaker marks their own distance and no one else's. The child owes hi and pays it; sulae owes ti and pays it; keruko, who heard it about the child rather than from him, marks even the attribution as hearsay. The chain is long but nowhere does it lie.

When ti would insult the obvious

The manual is clear that general knowledge goes unmarked, and the boundary is social as much as grammatical. sorae phelo loa. (The sun gives light.) needs no ti, though someone once taught you. Marking the commonplace implies your listener might doubt it, or that you do. Save ti for the news, where the chain is short enough to matter.

Drill: keep the chain honest

You are the fourth link. thinoe saw the storm fell the old tree; she told the elder; the elder told you; now you tell sulae. Produce your sentence three ways: (a) plain relay with ti, (b) reporting the elder's telling with mena…meno, (c) the full layered form. One good set:

serao shiro to ti lepa.
old tree PST REP fall.
(a: The old tree fell — so I'm told.)

wheo mena kurisha serao shiro to ka lepa meno to haolu.
elder DECL.COMP storm old tree PST CAUS fall DECL.COMP.CLOSE PST speak.
(b: The elder said the storm felled the old tree.)

mia ti mena kurisha serao shiro to ka lepa meno hea.
1SG REP DECL.COMP storm old tree PST CAUS fall DECL.COMP.CLOSE hear.
(c: I hear — at some remove — that the storm felled the old tree.)

If version (a) came out of your mouth wearing hi, go back to Part 2 and reread what witnessing costs.