From lojban-out@lojban.org Mon May 10 10:22:41 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 75847 invoked from network); 10 May 2004 17:22:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m23.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 10 May 2004 17:22:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 10 May 2004 17:22:39 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.31) id 1BNETo-0004hZ-8V for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 10 May 2004 10:22:16 -0700 Received: from dsl081-049-134.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([64.81.49.134] helo=chain.digitalkingdom.org) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.31) id 1BNETD-0004gr-Kb; Mon, 10 May 2004 10:21:39 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 10 May 2004 10:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.31) id 1BNET2-0004gc-NA for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 10 May 2004 10:21:28 -0700 Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 10:21:28 -0700 Message-ID: <20040510172128.GY5570@digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: <20040507193128.20639.qmail@web41903.mail.yahoo.com> <20040507185509.GN7020@digitalkingdom.org> <20040507193128.20639.qmail@web41903.mail.yahoo.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20040510074646.03350bd0@pop.east.cox.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040510074646.03350bd0@pop.east.cox.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i X-archive-position: 7743 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-list To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-From: Robin Lee Powell From: Robin Lee Powell Reply-To: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban] Re: My parser, SI, SA, and ZOI X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 22206 On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 07:50:27AM -0400, Bob LeChevalier wrote: > Lojban grammar was DESIGNED to be a slave to YACC restrictions, that > being a working definition of LALR1 for purposes of language design. > That it isn't a correct definition is irrelevant. We know, Bob. The discussion is about what follows from the definitions of the words, not what follows from the YACC, which we all pretty much understand. Or at least we thought we did; I turn out to have been wrong about ZO handling, as previously stated in this thread. > In answer to the question in this thread, I believe that the text > comment in the body of the grammar after the rule defining LohU 436 > addresses the intent for interactions between si and zo and zoi. Thanks for finding that, Bob. The next comment is general bitchiness and not specifically directed at you. Oh, my gosh, why didn't *I* think to look there? Apparently, pre-parser instructions are scattered about the landside in that file, instead of being confined to the section labelled as such. Oh well. Here's the text in question: It may be seen that any of the ZO/ZOI/LOhU trio of quotation markers may contain the powerful metalinguistic erasers. Since these quotations are not parsed internally, these operators are ignored within the quote. To erase a ZO, then, two SI's are needed after giving a quoted word of any type. ZOI takes four SI's, with the ENTIRE BODY OF THE QUOTE treated as a single 'word' since it is one selma'o. Thus one for the quote body, two for the single word delimiters, and one for the ZOI. In LOhU, the entire body is treated as a single word, so three SI's can erase it. At first I thought this was merely descriptive of the YACC grammar's way of handling things, and that is partly true, but not entirely, and it does answer at least some of our questions. In particular, it is *absolutely* clear that that SI is supposed to erase exactly one token, period. So having SI erase both terms of a ZO quote, for example, is not OK; that behaviour in my parser was due to my misreading the preparser instructions for ZO. It's also very clear that quote delimiters of various types are considered one word for this purpose. This is all perfectly fine, because it fits with the definition of SI, which is: erase the last Lojban word, treating non-Lojban text as a single word I am ashamed to say that I hadn't noticed the second half of the definition. I'd say that pretty much clears things up: deleting a ZOI clause completely with SI takes 4 SI. Unfortunately, this doesn't help with things like "zo broda zei broda", but I'm inclined to say that that's illegal because ZO acts first, leaving " zei broda", and a quote is not a single word. Opinions on that issue welcome, but it seems pretty clear that ZEI only acts on single words, and quotes are not single words. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** I'm a *male* Robin. "Many philosophical problems are caused by such things as the simple inability to shut up." -- David Stove, liberally paraphrased. http://www.lojban.org/ *** loi pimlu na srana .i ti rokci morsi