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Re: [engelang] Xorban: Termsets

Termset situation.

For And Rosta et al.

1. Termsets got renamed "term lists" and then ended up getting generalized as "term trees", because there is no constraint on the number of terms that a given sequence may contain, and because sequences may contain coordinators and branch like a tree.  A term list is still a useful word.  It's just the special case of a term tree without coordinators.  An example of a term tree with coordinators:

John, a radio to Alice [he] or to Bob [he] if-and-only-if a book to Charles [he] or to Denise [he], gave.

...which is a rewriting of four formulas coordinated as "jo ja Fa Fb ja Fc Fd", each having the same predication "gave".

2. A single core formula can be modified by multiple term trees.  Multiple term trees are understood to be coordinated implicitly by "je".  Thus "la mlta he la grka he xkra" means "the cat _and_ the dog are black."

3. Each branch of a term tree is positively terminated by "he", a word in its own syntactic category.  This particle is a basically a place holder for the trailing "core" formula and is mandatory.  A term tree is a bunch of terms and ordinary coordinators terminated by one or more "he" which then can be used to modify a core formula. 

4. The grammar with term trees requires a novel constituent class that we are calling a "core formula".  A core formula is simply a formula containing no trees.

5. We are working on a means of putting trees after core formulas (terminated by a different particle "hi"), but we have a problem with the parenthetical.  I don't know what the resolution is.  The "forethought term trees" are called "foretrees" and the afterthought ones are called "aftertrees".

6. We have a way to coordinate binders in their own construct too, but I don't know what Jorge thinks about the idea that I cooked up.


In summary:

A. Foretrees work and are ready to be added to the grammar.
B. Aftertrees have a problem with parentheticals.
C. Binder coordination is under review.