[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[lojban] Re: Is Lojban a CFG? (was Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: Enumerating in Lojban)
On 7/13/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 11:09:49AM -0300, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> If that's correct, then what Jonathan wants (a CFG for Lojban) is
> compatible with what Robin wants (a PEG for Lojban).
Not really. What I want is something that parses Lojban as it's
currently defined. I care not at all what formalism does so, as
long as there is a pure formalism for it.
Ok, then substitute "what Robin wants" with "what Jorge wants".
I want a PEG, because I see that one strong point of PEGs is
guaranteed and easy to understand unambiguity, but I also see
at least one strong point of CFGs that not all PEGs have.
I don't particularly want to keep the current definition just because
it is the current definition. (Indeed I think it needs to be cleaned up
in a few places, irrespective of CFGs.)
BTW, if what you want is Lojban as defined in CLL, you would have
to give up some of the improvements that were possible thanks to the
use of a PEG anyway.
> At least in principle, because maybe the required PEG might be way
> too complicated to write. Or maybe not, we can at least try.
Erm. camxes is a PEG that parses Lojban as currently defined. You
helped build it... Perhaps you meant CFG there?
camxes parses Lojban as defined by camxes. It is not a perfect match
for Lojban as defined in CLL, even though it's pretty close. (And some things
were actually left undefined by CLL, such as the SA mess.) I meant that
redefining it to make it coincide with a CFG might be too complicated (it
might also be undesirable for other reasons).
> But I don't know how hard it would be to modify the whole PEG so
> that it fully corresponds to a CFG.
I don't see the point of doing so; if we're going to make a CFG, we
should use CFGs to do so, no make a CFG-alike PEG.
But then we wouldn't have unambiguity in a straightforward way. A reasonable
question is why not have both if we could have both. Maybe there are good
reasons not to do it (and I suspect there are some) but at least for me "that's
just the way it is" is not a very convincing reason.
I just don't see
the point of butchering Lojban to make a CFG that encodes a language
that is almost, but not quite, Lojban.
It wouldn't be butchering it, just extending it.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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.