[lojban] Re: Official parser problem?

[Robin Lee Powell <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 05:39:58PM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 08:34:09PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> > Robin Lee Powell scripsit:
> > 
> > > To parse: "lo'u mi le'u si lo'u mi le'u"       
> > > 
> > > You do step "c" of the preprocessing                         
> > > 
> > > LOhU any_words_697{mi} LEhU si LOhU any_words_697{mi} LEhU   
> > > 
> > > 
> > > LOhU any_words_697{mi} LOhU any_words_697{mi} LEhU           
> > 
> > So far so good.  But this is ungrammatical, because between LOhU and
> > LEhU you have three tokens, and only one is permitted, which must be
> > an any_words_697.
> > 
> > > Now, theoretically this is one big, long lo'u...le'u string.
> > 
> > Nope.  It's OK for a "lo'u...le'u" string to contain a "lo'u"
> > *word*, but what you have here is a "lo'u" *token*.
> > 
> > > But the grammar as writen will not accomodate it.
> > 
> > Rightly so.
> 
> .o'onaisai
> 
> You're glorifying an accident of the technology that was used to make
> the grammar!
> 
> No actual Lojban speaker would go, "Gee, I seem to have a lo'u token in
> my input, not a lo'u word.  I better give up.".
> 
> Quite frankly, I'm stunned that you are actually supporting such an
> asinine position.

Ahem.

Let me be more precise in my ranting.

John is saying one of two things:

1.  You are wrong in your reading of the grammar.  That sentence
definately fails because [explanation].

2.  You are wrong in your reading of the grammar.  That sentence
definately fails because [explanation].  This is a good thing.

Because of the 'Rightly so.', I was assuming the latter.

It may be that John was just describing the current reality, and not
assigning a value judgement at all, in which case I hope he will accept
my apology for freaking out.

If John is, in fact, *supporting* this particular mis-feature as
appropriate behaviour, my rant stands unaltered.

-Robin

-- 
Me: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/  ***   I'm a *male* Robin.
"Constant neocortex override is the only thing that stops us all
from running out and eating all the cookies."  -- Eliezer Yudkowsky
http://www.lojban.org/             ***              .i cimo'o prali .ui