Since there is no flexion of the verboid, there is no need for special rules about the use of the verb-equivalent in oratio obliqua. There is no periphrastic passive— except in so far as verboid clusters formed with the operator gene (become, get) and an amplifier (e.g. gene thermo = become hot = get heat) are passive equivalents of verbs formed in the same way with date (give, confer) and are therefore causative (e.g. date thermo = confer heat or heat). The only permissible impersonal expressions are those in which it (re) refers to the whole situation e.g. re habe thermo = it is hot, or literally it has heat).

(e) Sentence-landscape

For ready recognition of the written word a language purged of flexional impedimenta can still benefit from two devices which bring into relief the component clusters of the fixed word-order pattern of Interglossa. These signposts of sentence-landscape are: (a) articles (p. 33); (b) terminals. The system of terminals is as follows:

(a) All verboids end in -e. The only other words that do so are the pseudonyms fe, pe and re (p. 82), the interrogative particle que (42) and the four prepositional amplifiers pre (72), tele (99), de (109) and vice (127).

(b) Substantives (as defined above) end in -a or -i. Exceptions are: geo (645) for earth; cardo (740) the international term for a hinge; acu (733) for nail or pin; occlu (765) for bolt or nut, and bureau (816) for a public office.

(c) Amplifiers end in -o. Among vocables given first choice, the exceptions to this rule are the time units (anni, di, hora, etc.) and some amplifiers with prepositional values, viz.: post (71), pre (72), tem (74), ad (75), contra (78), epi (81), ex (82), extra (83), in (85), inter (86), para (94), littora (95), peri (96), tele (99), trans (101), anti (103), de (109), minus (115), per (117), plus (118), syn (123), vice (127). As with geo, etc. above, the disadvantage of mutilating a familiar international stem or of unduly lengthening the word outweighs the objection to 32 exceptions in all out of a total of 404.

Both amplifiers and verboids may be elements of a substantive cluster equivalent to an adjective or to an abstract noun. We then recognize them as such by the possessive pseudonym or the article which labels the substantive cluster as such. In accordance with the word-order rules, we have

U phobo de theo = (The) fear of God
U tene de infanti = The custody of the child