Part 8: The interaction tables
The system is consistent but its combinations live scattered: ruled here, attested there, nowhere gathered. These tables are the gathering: every pairing the machine permits, refuses, or has honestly never needed. Three kinds of cell, marked plainly: ruled (canon says), attested (the corpus does), empty (never yet needed, listed, not legislated). The empty cells are not gaps; they are the language being exact about how it has not yet spoken.
Table 1: Slot 0 with Slot 0
| Pairing | Status | Reading |
|---|---|---|
pi wa / pi no / pi su | ruled, attested | politeness first, wrapping the speech-act |
pi lu | empty | no one has yet needed a polite if |
lu he | ruled | the irrealis; he exists only here |
wa+no, wa+su, any two intents | empty, by design | one speech-act per sentence; only pi dresses another |
Table 2: inside the Slot 1 stack
| Pairing | Status | Reading |
|---|---|---|
tense × aspect (to ki, to si, to ro, so ki, so si, so ro, to pa, to te, …) | ruled, attested | fully compositional; ki completes at the tense's reference time |
tense/aspect × voice (to se, to ka, si ka, ki ka) | attested | the deed's time and shape, then who acts |
se ka | ruled | the one same-rank pairing: passive of a causative, that order only |
voice × evidential (se ke, …) | attested lightly | the deed restructured, the knowing marked |
voice × modality (ka na, ka po) | ruled | must-make, can-make, the modal scopes the caused event |
evidential × modality (ke po, ho+…) | attested | as I infer, it can…; the two speaker-layers, in order |
po ma | ruled | cannot, the possibility denied |
na ma | ruled | must not, the necessity is to refrain |
ka ma | ruled | the causation denied, authorship withdrawn, the deed untouched |
any rank doubled (ki si, hi ti, po na) | refused | one per rank; two sources are two sentences, two modals two clauses |
| "need not" by reordering | refused | the freedom periphrasis instead: thia lila wepu ralu nai. |
Table 3: Slot 0 over Slot 1
| Pairing | Status | Reading |
|---|---|---|
wa + evidentials | attested | questions about the chain itself: wa suliwa ti nai. — is the snake just something people are saying? |
wa + any stack | attested | questions dress any claim |
su + so | attested | a hope aimed forward: su shea so shua. |
su + evidentials | empty, by nature | a wish claims nothing a source could back; the corpus never sources a hope |
no + ma | empty | the corpus has never issued a negative command: the household warns with teo. or states the harm. If the cell ever fills, it will be by ruling, not by accident |
lu clauses | attested | conditions take full stacks on both sides |
How to read the empty cells
Three of them repay attention. No polite if and no sourced wish are empty because the combinations barely mean: frames already do what the addition would claim. No negative command is different: it is a real thing languages do that Phi has, so far, done otherwise: warning, stating harm, wishing away (su mawha…, the metta text's whole sixth verse). Whether Phi ever wants no … ma is a decision for canon on the day a text needs it. Until then the cell stands open, and this table says so out loud, which is this language's way with everything it does not know.
Drill: cite or refuse
For each, say legal and what it means, or refused and why:
so ki2.hi ke3.pi su4.ka po5.po ka6.se ka7.ka se8.to ro
Answers: 1 legal: will have done. 2 refused: two sources, two sentences. 3 legal: a polite wish, politeness outermost. 4 legal: can make; voice before modality. 5 refused: modality may not precede voice. 6 legal: is made to; the one pairing. 7 refused: the pairing has one order. 8 legal: used to; the habit held, then.