From cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Thu Apr 2 02:31:08 1992 Return-Path: Date: Thu Apr 2 02:31:08 1992 Message-Id: <9204012229.AA14422@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!otago.ac.nz!chandley Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Handley Subject: MEX X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: RO >Yet another of those appeals to the Lojbani masses (or the net-aware >masses, anyhow) about a fine point in Lojban mathematical expression >(mekso). This one involves how Lojban manages the precedence of its >operators. "Precedence" is the property of an operator that decides whether >it is to be applied before or after other operators. For example, in >normal mathematics > >1) 3 + 4 x 5 > >means 23, because multiplication has precedence over addition. If addition >had precedence, the result would be 35. > >The Lojban parser does not assign precedence to the various built-in and ad >hoc operators: all of them are equal, and grouping is left to right, as in >most parts of the language. So the straight translation of Example 1 is: > >2) ci su'i vo pi'i mu > >and this does mean 35, because of left-grouping. This result violates the >general design goal of making mekso "spoken mathematics", which requires >matching the conventions of mathematics as much as possible. > > Typically in English we have an elaborate system of pauses to disambiguate the above. Conventionally most would say 3 +