22 · rena

One word this chapter, and a game to learn it with. rena opens a describing-clause that stands before a noun, the way every describing thing in Phi stands before what it describes: rena [clause] noun. No closer needed: the noun itself shuts the door. The children invent a guessing game:

I

lopia: rena sulopa ro pilewa miona.
siora: phao.
lopia: lia.

The person who habitually makes soup? The parent. Correct. Look at the shape: rena sulopa ro pilewa is a whole little sentence missing its doer, and miona steps in at the end to be that doer. Clause first, noun after: chapter three's thiku pelori, grown up.

II

siora: rena mua luphore ro wishe nolika.
lopia: lohau.
siora: rena theula thimu nulae nolika.
lopia: misheko. misheko. misheko.

The animal who swims in the river; the animal who sleeps for all time. The second riddle is not a difficult riddle. The child answers it three times for the joy of it.

III

lopia: rena lo nophi shane miona.
siora: wheo.
siora: rena wei muila thinoe to loa miona.
lopia: ne thinoe.
wheo sheluo. wheo siora phaelo.

The one who tells the stories: the elder. Then the visiting child reaches back a whole chapter: the one who gave seeds to the earth, thinoe. The elder, listening from the doorway, feels joy (a word the household has been feeling all book and can finally say).

IV

siora: rena mia loamira to loa miona.
lopia: mia.
lo lopia hola.

The one who gave me a gift: you did (a flower, at the gate, five chapters ago). The children laugh. The game has quietly proven what games are for: every riddle in it was a memory, and every answer was someone loved.

A clause before a noun, and the noun completes it: rena is the whole apparatus, and you already knew where everything goes. Play the game yourself tonight: describe someone you know by what they habitually do, and let the noun arrive last.

The machinery, when you want it: relative clauses are the manual's Part V; the glossary's pre-nominal relative clause entry shows the anatomy.