From sentto-44114-2028-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Sun Feb 20 02:02:49 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: shoulson-kli@meson.org Received: (qmail 7551 invoked from network); 20 Feb 2000 02:02:48 -0000 Received: from zash.lupine.org (205.186.156.18) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 20 Feb 2000 02:02:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 2522 invoked by uid 40001); 20 Feb 2000 02:05:50 -0000 Delivered-To: kli-mark@kli.org Received: (qmail 2519 invoked from network); 20 Feb 2000 02:05:48 -0000 Received: from ch.egroups.com (208.48.218.21) by zash.lupine.org with SMTP; 20 Feb 2000 02:05:48 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-2028-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.38] by ch.egroups.com with NNFMP; 20 Feb 2000 02:05:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 17829 invoked from network); 19 Feb 2000 19:52:01 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.10.38 with QMQP; 19 Feb 2000 19:52:01 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy.cais.net) (199.0.216.101) by mta1.onelist.com with SMTP; 19 Feb 2000 19:52:00 -0000 Received: from bob ([209.8.89.179]) by stmpy.cais.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA03624; Sat, 19 Feb 2000 14:51:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000219143851.00b69eb0@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.2 To: "Robert A. McIvor" , "Robert A. McIvor" Cc: loglanists@ucsd.edu, logli@ucsd.edu, lojban@onelist.com In-Reply-To: References: <4.2.2.20000218171638.00afc810@127.0.0.1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@onelist.com; contact lojban-owner@onelist.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@onelist.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 14:51:55 -0500 X-eGroups-From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" Subject: Re: [lojban] Dr. James Cooke Brown Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 11:32 AM 02/19/2000 -0500, Robert A. McIvor wrote: > >The posted YACC grammar does not include the lexer/preparser, which > >contains (or hides) a substantial amount of grammar. As of the last > >version I had access to (and Trial 80's comments suggest that this is > >true), I could write any random string of LWs (cmavo), precede it by a word > >for a number and omit the space, and the entirety becomes a number > >compound. Likewise for a tense and probably some other compounds. In > >effect it means that there is no number or tense grammar since not all > >spaces are lexemic pauses. I understand that you RAM have tried to do some > >work on this problem, but it seems to be a large problem with unknowable > >side effects until the result is seen. More than half of the Lojban > >grammar is the YACC-encoded lexer grammar and the MEX grammar which in our > >case is no longer primarily a lexer construct, and a large percentage of > >our changes during the years before baselining involved the working out of > >bugs in that grammar. > > It is true that the lexer has not been published. While it is a > state >grammar, it has not been put into a formal format and it was hand derived. >Spaces are irrelevant to Loglan cmavo and, in fact, the lexer begins by >removing all spaces between them. You would find the same behaviour if >you had left >the spaces in. This is then a significant change from Scott Layson's parsers (circa T55?). > The reason a number is concatenated with many other little words like >the PA (tense) lexeme, and the TAI (lettoral) lexeme as well as PO is that >such compounds are intentionally grammatical in Loglan. The grammar >concatenates any collection of cmavo that constitute >a single lexeme. I understand - but in the comments as I read them (and in reality in the Layson parser), cmavo of ANY lexeme that were concatenated to PA and TAI formed a valid compound, so that "patailenehue" would have been taken as a grammatical Loglan compound of PA, but of course with the words written separately it would be ungrammatical randomness. It sounds like this has changed, though the comments do not suggest it (pacenoina is considered PA2 but includes the ce noi which is not PA - clearly there is a hidden grammar here, since pacenoina is valid, but pananoice should not be - the (T55?) Layson parser did not have a problem with either. > It is true that we do not yet have a full MEX grammar. Again, it comes down to what you accept as a valid compound - if indeed the lexeme content of a MEX compound is limited that is an improvement over no content restrictions on compounds at all. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!) To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com