Phi practice Punctuation you can hear

Reading 6 of 13

Part 5

The clause commas

English uses commas at several kinds of clause boundary. Phi has no single clause-comma word. Each construction marks its own structure:

ConstructionAudible or visible boundary
realis or irrealis conditionlu or lu he, followed by a complete sentence and its period
adverbial dependent framepheo, phoe, whau, lao, shai, or lila before the dependent clause; its final predicate completes the frame
embedded complementmatched tha ... tho, pha ... pho, or sha ... sho
coordinationnela, thona, or sola between equal constituents
listnela at every boundary

01Conditions take a period

lu thia naphe. mia towe phaelo.

COND 2SG help. 1SG well feel.

(If you help, I feel well.)

The condition is one complete sentence and the consequence is another. English often writes a comma between them; Phi uses its one visible mark.

02Dependent frames come first

Each adverbial relator introduces material that modifies the main clause, so the complete dependent frame precedes it:

pheo mia to theo mia shea phaelo.

POST 1SG PST read 1SG peace feel.

(After I read, I feel peace.)

lila mia shonela mia theo.

PURP 1SG learn 1SG read.

(I read in order to learn.)

In the first sentence, pheo opens the earlier event and theo completes it before the main subject mia arrives. The purpose clause follows the same modifier-first rule: lila mia shonela comes before the reading it explains. No adverbial clause may move behind the main clause.

03Complement frames have closers

mia tha shia to wepu tho sano.

1SG DECL.COMP 3SG PST go DECL.COMP.CLOSE know.

(I know that they left.)

tha opens the proposition known, and required tho closes it before the outer sano. The closer, rather than a pause, tells the listener where the embedded material ends.

04Conjunctions stand between equals

sileta sulae nai nela howeli phaelu nai.

sun warm be COORD wind peaceful be.

(The sun is warm, and the wind is peaceful.)

The first predicate completes its clause, nela joins it to an equal clause, and the period waits until the coordination is complete. thona does the same structural work while marking contrast, and sola offers an alternative.

Lists repeat nela at every join:

shiro nela peloru nela whelina.

tree COORD flower COORD grass.

(Trees and flowers and grass.)

This repeated conjunction makes the grouping audible without importing English's choice between a serial comma and no serial comma.

05The splice that cannot happen

English's commonest punctuation error is the comma splice, two sentences joined by a mark too weak to hold them. Phi cannot commit it. Between two clauses there is either the full period or an audible conjunction, and nothing weaker exists to misuse. The semicolon, English's licensed splice, gets its own reckoning in Part 8.

Practicelocate the boundaries

For each line, locate the dependent frame, complement closer, conjunction, or sentence boundary. Explain which word or period makes it recoverable.

1. lao pheralu to nai lo peloru thuroa.
2. mia pha shia to wepu pho phaelo.
3. mia theo nela thia sheluo.
4. lu pheralu lepa. lo mia mua womu meilo.

Answers: 1. lao opens the reason, and the dependent predicate nai completes it before the main clause begins. 2. pha opens the embedded yes-or-no question and pho closes it before phaelo. 3. nela joins two complete clauses after theo. 4. lu opens the condition, and its period separates it from the consequence.