Message-Id: <m0jxLt4-0001BKC@snark.thyrsus.com>
From: cowan (John Cowan)
Subject: Changes to grammar:  1-10
To: lojban-list
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 13:30:09 EDT
Status: RO

Change 1:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

Currently, logical connection of operands in the mekso grammar is allowed
using eks.  However, joiks are not usable in mekso.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Allow joiks as well as eks on the same grammatical level.

RATIONALE:

1) Operands are the formal analogues of sumti, and this change makes
operand connection formally identical to sumti connection, so that it
can be learned by analogy without a special exception.

2) Ranges ("from 3 to 10") can be easily expressed using selma'o BIhI
and GAhO, which are part of the JOIK system.  Currently, these can only
be expressed by a messy variation on left and right parentheses, which
doesn't work well because no separator is defined between the upper and
the lower bound.


Change 2:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

Only one EK_KE construction is allowed after a mekso operand.  You cannot
say "pa .a ke ri .e ci ke'e .a ke vo .e mu" to mean "1 or (2 and 3) or
(3 and 4).

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Allow more than one consecutive EK_KE construct.

RATIONALE:

1) same as 1) for Change 1.

2) This change amounts to changing an "operand_C" to an "operand_B".
The baselined version was created by incorrectly copying existing
text from the pre-baseline grammar, so this change is a "bug fix".


Change 3:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

In expressing intervals with explicit end-markers, the order is BIhI GAhO GAhO,
where the first GAhO is the left endpoint and the second one is the right
endpoint.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Put the first GAhO before the BIhI

RATIONALE:

Make this form more consistent with the logical connectives like "na.anai",
where the marker for the left connectand precedes the connector.


Change 4:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

mekso ranges are handled with GAhO operators attached to mathematical
parentheses.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Remove this capability.

RATIONALE:

See Change 1.  This capability was never correctly specified, because
only one expression can appear between parentheses, whereas ranges
require two expressions inherently.


Change 5:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

It is possible to specify either NA or SE before selma'o A, JA, GIhA, or ZIhA,
but they cannot both be specified unless -NAI follows.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Remove this restriction.

RATIONALE:

The intent of a previous change just before the baseline was to allow both
NA and SE (in that order) in all cases, not just those where -NAI followed.
This ability was accidentally omitted, so this is a "bug fix".


Change 6:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

Lexeme JOI can be converted with SE and negated with NAI like the logical
connectives, but the closely related selma'o BIhI cannot.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Allow conversion and negation of BIhI.

RATIONALE:

Converted ranges allow "se bi'o" which means "to...from..." and negated
ranges allow "bi'inai" which means "not between".


Change 7:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

KI can be used either on an origin specifier or on a time and/or space
tense to reset the scope or position of the origin.  KI by itself is
ungrammatical.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Allow KI by itself.  This returns the origin to the physical here and now.
Also allow KI after BAI to set a default aspect value; "BAI KI sumti" sets
the BAI aspect to the sumti, and "BAI KI KU" resets the aspect to its default.

RATIONALE:

This capability existed in the pre-baseline grammar, and was omitted in
error during the tense redesign.

Change 8:

*ANNULLED*


Change 9:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

GIhEK_KE constructs have lower priority than basic giheks.

PROPOSED CHANGE:

Place GIhEK_KE constructs at the highest priority among giheks.

RATIONALE:

This is the scheme used by sumti and operand connection, where eks have the
lowest priority (and are left-binding), EK_BOs have medium priority (and are
right-binding), and EK_KEs have highest priority (and are again left-binding).
During the split between Institute Loglan and Lojban, sumti were changed
to make EK_KEs highest priority (and operands followed when mekso was
redesigned) but bridi-tails were not changed.

Change 10:

*ANNULLED*