20 · wela

Chapter four taught you to ask; this chapter teaches you to hold a question inside a sentence without asking it. wela … welo brackets an embedded yes-or-no question (whether) the way mena … meno brackets a statement. Same architecture, different doorway. The feast needs planning, and planning is mostly not-knowing:

I

lopia wela pheralu so lepa welo ma sano.
phao wela pheralu so lepa welo ma sano.
wheo waero nila.

Whether it will rain, nobody knows. The embedded question sits in its brackets with its own future particle, and the main verb outside is simply ma sano, not-know. Phi is precise about ignorance: you say exactly which question you do not have the answer to.

II

lopia: wa ne siora so shua.
sulae: lia. siora so shua.
nosa lopia mena siora so shua meno sano.

The embedded question and the plain question are cousins: to wonder whether is wela … welo; to ask outright is chapter four's wa. The child, being a child, skips the wondering, and what was a question becomes a known thing, filed with mena.

III

phao wela lo mia nekuma sola shalu pilewa welo remo.
phao sulae thilou.
sulae: shalu. mea.

Meat or fish. The parent thinks over the whether (an embedded question can hold a sola choice), then does the sensible thing and asks the guest. Fish. Thinking, wondering, asking: the whole engine of planning runs on these brackets.

IV

shero shua.
lopia wela wireo philo welao so nai welo remo.
lopia nulae.

The child falls asleep wondering whether tomorrow will be good, which is the correct thing to fall asleep wondering, at that age or any other.

Statements in one set of brackets, questions in another; knowing, not-knowing, and wondering all sayable now. The reader who counts will notice Phi gave you doubt and certainty with the same tool, differently labeled.

The machinery, when you want it: embedded questions share the manual's Part V, chapter 19.