Part 9: Exercises

Answers follow at the end. Where an exercise asks for judgment, the key gives the reasoning, not just the mark: check your why against it.

Part A: Name the word for the mark

For each English sentence, name the Phi word (or words) that will do its punctuation's work, then say the Phi.

1. "Are you coming?"
2. "Friend, sit."
3. The elder said: "The earth receives all."
4. "If it rains, we sit at home."
5. "trees, flowers, and grass"

Part B: Repair the page

Each line has been damaged by an English-trained hand. Fix it, and say what the damage was claiming.

1. wa thia shua?
2. kona lopia, kia.
3. Ne siora shua.
4. su theula towe nai!
5. mia mena shia shua sano.

Part C: Translate, keeping every mark audible

1. sulae asked: "Is the well water warm?"
2. "Child — what do you see?"
3. "Although it rained, the flowers grow."

Part D: The dictation test

With a partner, or with tomorrow-morning-you: compose a core message of eight to twelve words containing at least one wa, one shola … sholo pair, one ne, and one su. Speak it once at recitation pace. Write it from hearing alone, compare it with the source, and record every difference. There is no key for Part D: agreement supports this particular core-punctuation claim, while disagreement identifies something to investigate.

Answer key

Part A.

1. wa: wa thia shua. The mark moved from the end of the English to the front of the Phi, which is the whole system in one move.
2. kona, and no for the asking: kona melu. no meilo. Two little sentences; the comma became the period between them.
3. shola … sholo with a speaking-verb frame: wheo shola muila theula howela sholo to haolu. The colon and both quotation marks arrived as words.
4. lu, and the period: lu pheralu lepa. lo mia mua womu meilo. English's busiest comma is Phi's one silent mark, promoted.
5. nela, twice: shiro nela peloru nela whelina. Between every item, so the Oxford comma has nothing left to disambiguate.

Part B.

1. wa thia shua.: the ? was wa's work, already done at the first syllable.
2. kona lopia. kia.: the vocative is its own utterance; the comma was English notating a boundary Phi gives a period.
3. ne siora shua.: position earns no capital; ne was already the tallest thing a name gets.
4. su theula towe nai.: the wish was announced as a wish by su; the ! added volume to a sentence that carries hope, not volume.
5. mia mena shia shua meno sano. The damage here was an absence: without meno, two verbs collide and no one knows whose sentence ended. The only repair in this set that adds a word, because the missing mark was a word.

Part C.

1. ne sulae shola wa phitura phialu sulae nai sholo to thilou.: the frame verb is thilou (inquire), canon's frame for received questions; and enjoy the sentence asking whether phialu is sulae while ne sulae does the asking, one announcement keeps the person and the warmth from ever colliding.
2. kona lopia. thia hina nila.: the dash was kona's pause between utterances; the question mark was hina, sitting where the answer will.
3. shai pheralu to nai lo peloru thuroa. The fronted-clause comma dissolves: shai announced the concession going in, nai sealed it coming out, and the flowers grow with no mark between.