Re: LR(k) Lojban Grammar

["Carl D. Burke" <cburke@MITRE.ORG>]

>BTW the conflicts may not be actual ambiguities; they could be places where
>a more sophisticated parser would have no problem.

Well, conflicts ARE ambiguities to any LR(1) parser, since the grammar cannot
be unambiguously parsed using only the grammar rules.  Precedence is a hack;
it's used either to (1) make the grammar writer's job easier, or (2) allow
parsing of non-LR(1) (and possibly non-context-free) constructions.
Since LR(2) or higher parser generators aren't generally available (the
tables get really big really quick), and I don't know of any context-sensitive
parser generators, that leaves you with hacks or grammar changes.
[Recursive descent is equivalent in power to any other context-free
parsing method, so that won't help and makes lack of ambiguity harder
to demonstrate.]  If you're going to use precedence to resolve an otherwise
ambiguous grammar, that's OK, but it should be explicitly documented
for those who aren't using YACC workalikes.

That's still a lot easier to resolve than a natural language, since a
computer can make sense out of it easily, but the grammar per se isn't
unambiguous and shouldn't be advertised as such.

--
Carl