From cowan Mon May 20 10:28:09 1991 Return-Path: Message-Id: From: cowan (John Cowan) Subject: Re: Machine grammar and elidables To: lojban-list Date: Mon, 20 May 91 10:27:31 EDT In-Reply-To: <9105172021.AA02226@bigd.cray.com>; from "bigd.cray.com!dmb" at May 17, 91 3:21 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL13] Status: RO Dave Cortesi writes: > It was indeed the presence of the cu-included and cu-omitted but otherwise > identical rules that had lead to my conclusion. Is there any semantic > difference caused by the presence of the "cu". If not, why not eliminate > it entirely? In a word, pragmatics. "cu" is very powerful for sealing off complex 1st places; often the most complex places in a Lojban bridi are the first and last (indeed, often they are the only places). By inserting a "cu", one can often omit three or four other elidable terminators. -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban