Return-Path: Return-Path: From: Guy Steele Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 13:02:05 EDT Message-Id: <9104171702.AA14226@ukko.think.com> To: cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan Cc: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com In-Reply-To: John Cowan's message of Tue, 16 Apr 91 11:29:43 EDT Subject: Uncertainties in (English) Notation Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Wed Apr 17 17:00:59 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!Think.COM!gls From: cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 11:29:43 EDT I wrote, in the EBNF grammar explanations: > The elidable terminators make the language unambiguous, but may often be > omitted without loss of ambiguity, especially when there is more than one > in a row. Doug Landauer rewrote this as: > The elidable terminators, when present, make the language > unambiguous. However, they may often be omitted without > making an utterance ambiguous, especially when there are > more than one in a row. That's more like it. "Loss of ambiguity" should have been just "ambiguity". In addition, the confusion over whether "elidable" was descriptive (as I intended) or defining (as Guy Steele assumed) made matters worse. Better, but I still find it problematical. The ET's, when present *in the language*, make the *language* ambiguous. The ET's, when present *in an utterance*, make the *utterance* unambiguous (because their inclusion in an utterance avoids the problem in the language). --Guy