Unusual VIF FIFO behaviour

[refractionpcsx2]

Sending a packet of nops to VIF1, QWC = 0x1E

Stall on first word nop of first QW results in
e000c02, VIF1QWC e VIF1MARK 0 VIF1CYCLE 404, FIFO is reduced by 2 from full

Stall on nop second word through fourth word of the first QW results in, FIFO count is reduced by 3 from full
d000c02, VIF1QWC e VIF1MARK 0 VIF1CYCLE 404

3 qwc worth seem to have been read from the FIFO once the second word is read in to the VIF

FIFO also doesn't read the next 8 qwc from the DMAC until it reads the 1st word on the 6th quadword of data.
Example
Stalling on the 1st word of QW 6 (Position 20 in the array)
VIF1STAT 9000c02, VIF1QWC e VIF1MARK 0 VIF1CYCLE 404
Stalling on the 2nd word of QW 6 (Position 21 in the array)
VIF1STAT 10000c02, VIF1QWC 6 VIF1MARK 0 VIF1CYCLE 404

What can we take away from this?

Speculation:
VIF has a 2QW buffer internally
VIF Commands are taken in 1 Word at a time from the FIFO buffer and the VIF1STAT_FQC counter only counts full QW's
DMAC will refuse to send more data to VIF unless there is space for at least 8QW's in the buffer (first transfer sends 16QW)