From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Sep 30 11:31:03 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 30 Sep 2005 11:31:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1ELPea-0000Uy-L3 for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 30 Sep 2005 11:30:40 -0700 Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1ELPeZ-0000Uq-NM for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 30 Sep 2005 11:30:40 -0700 Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 11:30:39 -0700 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: other parsable languages Message-ID: <20050930183038.GA1749@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 10685 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 Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 02:26:04PM -0400, Matt Arnold wrote: > I know that Lojban is hailed as "parsable" by a computer, but does > this mean that it is merely parsed more easily? Or that no other > language has a complete YACC grammar? No spoken language has anything even vaguely approximating a complete YACC grammar. This, unfortunately, includes Lojban; however, the reasons for that are well-understood, and Lojban does, in fact, have various complete computer-based parsers. So far as I am aware, Lojban is the only spoken language on the planet that does. > Can someone offer a little more detail to someone who is not a > specialist? The issue is that spoken languages are ambiguous in ways unresolvable without context. "Time flies like an arrow" has three possible verbs, and forming a parse tree is impossible without knowing which one is the verb. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/ Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!" Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/ To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.