xquery typeswitch introduces spaces? - xquery

Question

I’m having a small issue with extra spaces in the output of typeswitch (eXist 5.3) that I don’t know how to solve. Given this small example:
xquery version "3.1";
declare namespace tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0";
declare function local:test($nodes as node()*)
{
for $node in $nodes
return
typeswitch ($node)
case element (test) return
local:test($node/(node()|text()))
case element (tei:seg) return
local:test($node/(node()|text()))
case element (tei:num) return
local:test($node/(node()|text()))
case element (tei:w) return
local:test($node/(node()|text()))
case element (tei:gap) return
"[...]"
case text() return
$node/string()
default return
local:test($node/(node()|text()))
};
let $node :=
<test>
<seg xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" n="1" type="unite" xml:id="cat_agr_s1_u1">
<seg type="title" resp="#apocryphe">
<num value="1"> I</num>. <w xml:id="w_cato_agr_2" lemma="quomodo">Quomodo</w>
<w xml:id="w_cato_agr_3" lemma="ager">agrum</w>
<w xml:id="w_cato_agr_4" lemma="emo">emi</w> ,
<w xml:id="w_cato_agr_5" lemma="pararique">pararique</w>
<w xml:id="w_cato_agr_6" lemma="oporteo">oporteat</w>.
</seg>
<gap reason="editorial" unit="word" quantity="182"> </gap>
</seg>
</test>
return
<p>{local:test($node)}</p>
I get this output:
<p> I . Quomodo agrum emi ,
pararique oporteat .
[...]</p>
But what I am looking for is the following - where the punctutation is not separated by a space from the text:
<p> I. Quomodo agrum emi, pararique oporteat. [...]</p>
Bear in mind that in production the content inside <p> may be mixed in final html output.