PUN-016 Hard constraint layer: sentence

Question mark only for direct questions

IF the sentence directly asks a question, THEN use a question mark; IF it reports a question, use statement punctuation ELSE retain.

Why the rule exists

Direct and reported questions have different grammatical force.

Condition

The rule fires when this evaluates true. Paths marked below must be present in the fact base; the engine reports the rest rather than guessing them.

ANY
- sentence.force eq "direct_question"
- sentence.force eq "indirect_question"

Facts this rule reads

Fact paths read by PUN-016 and whether the analyser derives them
Path	Source
`sentence.force`	Derived from text

Then

select — target sentence.terminal_mark

Else

retain — target current_text, No triggering condition is present.

LAKA

Smallest sufficient intervention

Yes

Primary axes

Sources

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation — Jane Straus; Lester Kaufman
Accessible grammar, punctuation, examples, and exercises.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves — Lynne Truss
Punctuation and the effect of marks on meaning.

The raw rule record

Verbatim from 08-punctuation-rules.json. Also available at /v1/rules/PUN-016.

{
  "id": "PUN-016",
  "name": "Question mark only for direct questions",
  "domain": "punctuation",
  "layer": "sentence",
  "strength": "hard_constraint",
  "human_logic": "IF the sentence directly asks a question, THEN use a question mark; IF it reports a question, use statement punctuation ELSE retain.",
  "when": {
    "any": [
      {
        "path": "sentence.force",
        "operator": "eq",
        "value": "direct_question"
      },
      {
        "path": "sentence.force",
        "operator": "eq",
        "value": "indirect_question"
      }
    ]
  },
  "then": [
    {
      "action": "select",
      "target": "sentence.terminal_mark",
      "map": {
        "direct_question": "?",
        "indirect_question": "."
      }
    }
  ],
  "else": [
    {
      "action": "retain",
      "target": "current_text",
      "reason": "No triggering condition is present."
    }
  ],
  "unless": [],
  "because": "Direct and reported questions have different grammatical force.",
  "diagnostics": [],
  "examples": {},
  "source_ids": [
    "BK-002",
    "BK-009"
  ],
  "laka": {
    "smallest_sufficient_intervention": true,
    "primary_axes": [
      "scope",
      "depth",
      "magnitude",
      "reversibility"
    ]
  }
}