From: cbmvax!uunet!m2xenix!onion!tessi!loop!dont (Don Taylor)
Message-Id: <9105152246.AA01412@loop.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15 May 91 15:46:56 PDT
To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Cc: dont
Subject: Machine grammar and elidables
Status: RO


I would like to know how hard it would be to modify the ebnf grammar to
handle some or all of the elidables explicitly.

I suspect that either

	all the elidables are equivalently difficult to handle AND
	difficult to handle and the current grammar might not even
	be organized in a way that would make this feasible to do
or
	some of them are easier than others and at least the easy
	ones could be handled with small additions to the grammar.

I am very interested in how the grammar grows as these changes are made.
If each change doubles or quadruples the size of the grammar this tells
me something valuable.

I must admit that I don't have a lot of understanding about the grammar.
Would it be feasible for a person like myself to make such changes or is
the amount of knowledge of the language required beyond what I could do?
I have received short prose explanations that give a general idea of when
a word can be elided but these are not enough for me to use to turn into
formal grammar.

If I could not make the modifications is there someone else who would
assist me in doing this or would do this outright?


I have completed an ebnf to non-e bnf translator that accepts the notation
used by Cowan.  I am working on a parser for the language but held up at the
moment until I can see a copy of a thesis from 1968 to answer a question about
a detail of the parser.  I make no promises about availability of this work.

I watched the comments about software distribution, pricing, source
availability, etc.  I am not certain what to do with this work when it is
done.  I would be happy to listen to suggestions.

Thanks
Don Taylor
503-235-6853
loop!dont@tessi.UUCP
dont@loop.UUCP
tessi!loop!dont@nosun.west.sun.com