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Mike S., On 03/10/2012 00:44:
As a side note, I'd say there's really no such thing as an incomplete or ungrammatical sentence.
Can you elaborate? Do you mean anything more than that an incomplete sentence is not (yet) a sentence and that an "ungrammatical sentence" is not a sentence? If not, then I (of course) agree with you, tho I hope we can also agree that the terms "incomplete sentence" and "ungrammatical sentence" are still useful and understood.
As far as free variables, right now the grammar allows them in sentences,
If by "the grammar" you mean what is on the Xorban grammar page, that is clearly incomplete, because it has no rules for syntactic binding. Hence it's inaccurate to say the grammar allows free variables -- it simply has nothing whatever to say about variables and binding. If by "the grammar" you mean the grammar that we mutually understand and have consensus on then it was my understanding that we had consensus on a core grammar in which everything is explicitly bound, and recognition that there may be a separate batch of rules, on which there currently is no consensus, about what to do with structures without explicit binding. By either interpretation of "the grammar", it does not allow free variables. --And.