Part 4: The three honorifics

The doctrine is manual ch21 §3, and its center holds in one line: Phi's honorifics encode relationship, not rank. Here is the working set, once:

kona ne sa sulae. pi wa thia towe nai.
VOC NAME HON.RESPECT sulae. POL Q 2SG well be.
(Honored sulae — are you well?)

kona ni moli. mia thia lothea.
VOC HON.INTIM moli. 1SG 2SG love.
(Dear moli — I love you.)

ne le siora so shua.
NAME HON.ROLE siora FUT come.
(siora, in their role, will come.)

Placement, and the warmth of brevity

The honorific stands immediately before the name, after ne when ne is present, and its presence makes ne optional, since an honorific already promises that a name follows. kona ne ni moli and kona ni moli are both correct; the manual calls the second slightly warmer for being briefer, which is worth a moment's thought. Dropping ne inside an honorific phrase is not laziness: it is the first taste of the register logic of Part 5, where closeness is measured in how little announcing a relationship still needs.

Relationship, not rank

A grandmother is ni to her grandchild and sa to her neighbor, and she has not changed height between the two sentences: the speakers have told two different truths about where they stand. This is why nothing in Phi can be omitted upward or demanded downward: there is no upward. An honorific is the speaker's own report, and like every report in this language it is subject to exactly one law.

The law is honesty

ni for someone you barely know is not friendliness; it is a claim you have not earned. sa for a peer is not courtesy; it is distance wearing courtesy's clothes. And no honorific at all (plain ne keruko) is always correct, always neutral, never cold. Hold onto that last clause; the whole system leans on it. Because the plain form is never rude, every honorific stays voluntary, and because every honorific is voluntary, each one still means something when you spend it.

Drill: say where you stand

Choose the address for each situation, and notice when more than one answer is true, because that is the drill actually working.

1. The teacher who has corrected your Phi for three years.
2. Your sibling.
3. A healer you have never met, arriving to help.
4. That same healer, years later, now your oldest friend, weeping at your table.
5. A peer you respect and do not know well.

Answers: 1 kona ne sa …: earned respect, announced. 2 kona ni …: and ne may rest. 3 kona ne le …: you know the role, not the person; say the truth you have. 4 kona ni …: both le and ni are true, but the night does not need the healer; it needs the friend. Which truth you announce is itself information. 5 kona ne …: nothing further, and nothing missing. If plain ne felt cold to you, reread the law above until it does not.