Counting in Phi: the ternary numerals and the four natures
A practice companion to the manual
Phi counts in threes, with three number-words and four group-words, and it counts nothing without noticing what kind of thing it counts. The doctrine belongs to the manual (chapter 12 owns the system, and documents/grammar/numeral_reference.md is the working inventory) so this pamphlet drills: volume, judgment, until reading wi phoi ta shao ta is as fast as reading 22, and choosing a classifier is as unconscious as choosing a pronoun.
Two skills interleave throughout. The first is mechanical: composing and decomposing quantities on the ternary scale, up the units and back down, at speaking pace. The second is the one Phi actually cares about: knowing when to stop. The system's center of gravity is the honest about (bare scale units, lau for many, rei for countless, henoi for enough) and a fluent counter in Phi is someone who can be exact and usually declines.
By the end of this pamphlet, you will:
- Read and produce any quantity to twenty-six without pausing, and step up a unit gracefully beyond
- Choose among
himo,lipha,themo, andnopheby the nature-now rule, including the edge cases - Say about, many, countless, enough, and know which precision would have been dishonest
- Mark position with
nu, date a journal, and order a story's days - Do arithmetic in full sentences, at speaking pace, with the five verbs
- Count a market day from eggs to ideas without once reducing a being to a number
This pamphlet assumes the particle system (manual ch9) and basic noun phrases (ch11). It is a companion to manual Part IV, chapter 12, and to the numeral reference.
Contents:
- Counting in threes
- Climbing the scale
- The four natures
- Position:
nu - The honest about
- Calculating aloud
- Market day
- Common errors
- Exercises
- Appendix: quick reference
The language has no way to rattle off figures, which means it has no way to stop noticing what the figures are of.