I'd say use Hippo's template of an SSCCE Re: Matching a string in a parenthesized block (regex help) to write some tests for This would certainly be beneficial for you too.

Other than that, |-or conditions with swallowing can prioritize areas, like "quoted" ones. demo 

  DB<132> $_ = 'phrase. "phrase1.phrase2" phrase. phrase'
0  'phrase. "phrase1.phrase2" phrase. phrase'

  DB<133> split /(".*?"|\.)/
0  'phrase'
1  '.'
2  ' '
3  '"phrase1.phrase2"'
4  ' phrase'
5  '.'
6  ' phrase'

  DB<134>

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In reply to Re^3: How to enforce match priority irrespective of string position by Takeshi Kovacs
in thread How to enforce match priority irrespective of string position by Polyglot

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