Part 5: Expectation (ho)

ho marks the claim you hold without evidence for this case: the one carried by pattern, habit, and reasonable presumption. It is the humblest of the four (manual ch16), and the one whose absence does the most quiet damage, because unmarked assumptions are how households and villages talk themselves into certainty.

The shape of an assumption

suliwa ho wepu. suliwa lo miona ma lothea.
snake ASSUM go. snake PL person NEG love.
(The snake has probably gone — snakes do not love crowds.)

The parent's line from the primer carries the whole craft: the assumption wears ho, and the pattern behind it follows unmarked: not evidence about this snake, but knowledge about snakes. Compare ke's two-sentence habit from Part 3: same architecture, different second sentence. Evidence is about the case; pattern is about the kind.

ke or ho: the boundary drilled

The manual draws the line (specific evidence versus general expectation), and daily speech walks it constantly:

shia to ke wepu. mia shia wiru ma nila.
3SG PST INFER go. 1SG 3SG basket NEG see.
(She has left — I infer. I do not see her basket.)

shia to ho wepu.
3SG PST ASSUM go.
(She has left — I expect. She usually leaves by now.)

Ask one question at the boundary: did I check anything? If your claim rests on something you observed about this occasion, you inferred. If it rests on how things usually go, you assumed. Neither is weaker speech (ho on a strong pattern can outperform ke on a thin trace), but they are different debts, and the particles keep the books.

ho or po: knowing softly versus possibly

Learners reach for ho where the possibility modal po belongs, and the reverse. They live in different slots and make different claims:

shia ho womu nai.
3SG ASSUM home be.
(They are home, I expect — a belief, held on pattern.)

shia po womu nai.
3SG POT home be.
(They can be home — a possibility, asserted about the world.)

ho says: I believe it, and here is how loosely I hold the belief. po says nothing about your belief at all; it speaks of what the world allows. The test is the question each answers. Where are they? takes ho. Could they be home by dark? takes po. And because Modality follows Evidentiality in the stack, the two can even meet (ho po), an assumption about a possibility, rare but perfectly legal.

Other minds

ho's finest work is on the sentences English lets you get away with. You're fine. She's happy. He doesn't mind. Phi can say these bare, but a bare claim about another's inner life asserts an access you do not have. The evidentials offer three honest postures:

thia ho shea nai.
2SG ASSUM peace be.
(You are at peace, I trust — said gently, claiming nothing.)

thia ke shorui nai.
2SG INFER weary be.
(You must be weary — your face says so, and I say only what I read.)

wa thia shea nai.
Q 2SG peace be.
(Are you at peace? — the most honest of all: asking.)

The courtesy scale runs from assumption through inference to the question. Notice the primer greeting sits at the top of it: wa thia shea nai. is how the household says hello. The language put the humblest form in everyone's mouth from chapter one.

Drill: check or expect

For each claim, decide ke or ho, and say the full sentence with its supporting line where one exists.

1. It will rain tomorrow (the clouds are heavy tonight).
2. It will rain tomorrow (it is the rain season).
3. The child is asleep (the house is silent).
4. The child is asleep (it is night, and children sleep at night).
5. sulae will come today (she comes every market day, and today is market day).

Answers: 1: ke, you read tonight's sky: pheralu so ke shua. lo neparu tumoa nai. 2: ho, season is pattern: pheralu so ho shua. 3: ke, the silence is this house's, tonight: lopia ke nulae. womu maeli nai. 4: ho, the pattern is about children, not this child: lopia ho nulae. 5: ho, habit, however reliable, is still pattern: sulae so ho shua. If 5 tempted you toward ke, note what you actually observed: a calendar, not a friend.