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Sender: Joshua Choi <rbysamppi@gmail.com>
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From: Joshua Choi <joshua@choi.name>
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Subject: The /.../ operator in the Lojban EBNF grammar
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 21:59:10 -0700
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I'm perusing the Lojban EBNF grammar. I know little about YACC but do =20=

understand EBNF=97at least, standard EBNFs, and I'd like to try whipping =
=20
up a Lojban parser in the future. I'm puzzling over the usage =20
of /.../, which is defined to enclose "an elidable terminator, which =20
may be omitted (without change of meaning) if no grammatical ambiguity =20=

results." What does that really mean? I understand what it indicates =20
superficially, but, rigorously, it's pretty vague. Does it have a =20
consistent syntactic meaning across the grammar, or is it really case-=20=

by-case? Can it be converted into a more standard EBNF syntax?=