XML : XQuery FLWOR loop variable getting lost

I have a very strange problem with a FLWOR loop that works one way but not another. The goal is to take a string of any length, and break it into XML nodes that can only hold 80 chars each. So, first whack, this works great:

      for $noteLine in $noteLineArr      where $noteLine != ''        return      if (fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) < 80) then (      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 1, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>        ) else if (fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) > 80 and fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) <= 160) then (      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 1, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>,      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 81, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>      ) else if (fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) > 160 and fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) <= 240) then (      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 1, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>,      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 81, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>,      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 161, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>      ) else()                

So, I get it in my head that this isn't very elegant. I try to clean it up by moving the first element out of the if, since it should always get used, right? Less code that way? So here is what I tried:

  for $noteLine in $noteLineArr  where $noteLine != ''    return        <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 1, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>,       if (fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) > 80 and fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) <= 160) then (      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 81, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>      ) else if (fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) > 160 and fn:string-length(fn:normalize-space($noteLine)) <= 240) then (      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 81, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>,      <NTE>          <NoteRefCd>WHI</NoteRefCd>          <Descr>{fn:substring(fn:normalize-space($noteLine), 161, 80)}</Descr>      </NTE>      ) else()        

And the parser is now telling me "undefined variable at noteLine" pointing to the first "if" line. What am I missing here? (note that yes, I do have other ideas of how to clean this up even more, but this was the first simple step and when it failed miserably, I panicked).