From - Mon Mar 10 09:59:42 1997
Reply-To: Geoffrey Hacker <geoffreyhacker@MSN.COM>
Date: Mon Mar 10 09:59:42 1997
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Geoffrey Hacker <geoffreyhacker@MSN.COM>
Subject:      le nanmu ku joi le ninmu
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To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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Message-ID: <GZ2PG4W1BdJ.A.GmH.Hz0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>


coi rodo

I object to having to put what is normally an elidable terminator, "ku", in
between "le nanmu" and "joi le ninmu" just because the parser is too stupid to
realise that if a "le" follows the "joi" then "joi" must be connecting two
sumti, not two tanru components. Surely it cannot be difficult to write a
parsing program using the algorithm:

1. If a descriptor follows the JOI cmavo, then the cmavo is joining two sumti.
2. If a brivla follows the JOI cmavo, then the cmavo is joining two components
of a tanru.

and so on, for all the other grammatical things that can follow a "joi". There
is no reason why a parsing error should have to result in reading what is, IN
PRINCIPLE, an unambiguous phrase. So I will just have to formally object to
the Lojban formal grammar in this instance. People should be aided, not
restrained, by machines.

co'omi'e djef