Part 9: Exercises

Answers follow at the end. Where an exercise asks for judgment, the key gives the reasoning, not just the mark: check your why against it.

Part A: Name the source

For each situation, choose hi, ke, ti, ho, or no mark, and say the Phi sentence.

1. You watched sulae arrive this morning. Report her arrival.
2. Her basket is by the door; you have not seen her. Report her arrival.
3. siora told you she arrived. Report her arrival.
4. It is market day, and she always comes on market day. Report her arrival.
5. You are chatting about the weather while both of you stand in the rain.

Part B: Order the stack

Rebuild each scrambled particle set into a correct sentence. (All are past-tense claims about the elder going to the well.)

1. wheo / wepu / hi / to / kau phitura
2. wheo / wepu / ma / ti / to / kau phitura
3. wheo / wepu / ke / to / si / kau phitura

Part C: Translate into Phi

1. Rain fell; someone told me.
2. The child is probably asleep.
3. Did you yourself see the snake?
4. They did not leave; I watched them stay.
5. I am told that the elder said the well path took water.

Part D: Translate into English (with the evidential's force)

1. mia suliwa ruela to hi nila.
2. sulae so ho shua.
3. suliwa ke nai. mia ruela mua muila nila.
4. wa suliwa ti nai.

Part E: Repair the claim

Each item is grammatical. Decide whether it is also honest; if not, repair it.

1. pheralu to hi lepa.: said by someone who woke to wet ground.
2. suliwa ti nai.: said by the child who saw the snake.
3. thia siora phaelo.: said to a friend whose smile you have just noticed.
4. sorae ti phelo loa.: offered as a remark about the sun.

Part F: The braided week

Write six journal witness lines in the three-line form's first slot, one for each prompt, choosing marks honestly: (a) something you watched happen; (b) something you concluded from a trace; (c) something a household member told you; (d) something you expect but did not check; (e) a day with no kept image, honestly recorded; (f) rewrite line (b) as the two-sentence habit: claim plus evidence.

There is no key for Part F. Read your six lines aloud a day later; you will know.

Answer key

Part A.

1. sulae sui kelua to hi shua.: witnessed arrival, hi spent on the news of it.
2. sulae to ke shua. mia shia wiru mua ponu nila. The basket is a trace: claim marked, evidence bare.
3. sulae to ti shua. siora mia shane.: relay plus named source.
4. sulae so ho shua. (or past to ho shua if the market has closed): pattern, not evidence.
5. No mark: pheralu lepa. You are both in it; a pedigree would be comedy.

Part B.

1. wheo kau phitura to hi wepu.: S PP, then past, then witness, then verb.
2. wheo kau phitura to ti ma wepu. Tense, evidential, negation, verb: the told-of not-going.
3. wheo kau phitura to si ke wepu. Tense, aspect, evidential: was going, as I infer.

Part C.

1. pheralu to ti lepa.
2. lopia ho nulae.
3. wa thia suliwa hi nila.
4. shia to hi ma wepu.
5. mia ti mena phitura ruela phialu to howela meno hea. The layered form: report of a saying of a taking-of-water.

Part D.

1. "I saw the snake's trail myself.": the witness claim covers the trail, and only the trail.
2. "sulae will come, I expect.": pattern-based, open to correction.
3. "There is a snake; I infer. I see the trail in the earth.": the two-sentence habit, working.
4. "Is the snake just something people are saying?": a question about the chain, not the snake.

Part E.

1. Not honest as marked: wet ground is a trace. pheralu to ke lepa. muila lue phialu nai.
2. Under-claimed: the child is the witness and may say so. mia suliwa hi nila. Modesty about sourcing is a virtue, but false modesty garbles the chain for everyone downstream.
3. Trespass as marked, however kind. The smile is evidence: thia ke siora phaelo. Or, the better move entirely, wa thia siora phaelo.
4. The ti is technically defensible and socially strange: the sun's giving of light is settled knowledge, and marking it implies doubt where none exists. Unmarked is correct: sorae phelo loa.

A note on 19. It is the key's only under-marking repair, and worth a pause: evidentiality is not a humility contest. The system wants accuracy in both directions: claim no more than you know, and no less. The child who says ti about their own witnessing has not been humble; they have misfiled the household's only firsthand report.