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Re: [engelang] reformulating the core grammar

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 8:00 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote: 

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?

No, nothing more than that.

 
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.

I am pretty sure that I understand you, but to me, a string is "grammatical" just if it's produced by a grammar.  If I felt that Xorban's grammar shouldn't produce a certain string, then I just would say that we ought to change the grammar in order to remove it from the language.  What you call an "ungrammatical sentence" to me is a grammatical sentence without a semantic value, or maybe one with a useless semantic value.

 
> 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.

What's on the Xorban grammar page is a complete (mathematically defined) formal grammar.  I agree that it says nothing about binding (it says nothing about semantics generally), but it does allow any variables to appear in any simple formula, regardless of preceding binders.  That's simply where we are at the moment, for better or worse.

We do have the option of changing the grammar to remove sentences that seem pointless.  We also have the option of changing the semantics to give those sentences a less pointless interpretation.  I think Jorge's idea of the implicit situational argument is one worth considering.

 
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.

A sentence is logically, essentially, definitionally a formula without free variables, and on that I think we are all compelled to agree.  The way to go about dealing with explicitly free variables -- whether by barring them or by interpreting them, and if the latter by what means -- is something that needs to be discussed further.

--
co ma'a mke

Xorban blog: Xorban.wordpress.com
My LL blog: Loglang.wordpress.com