Re: [engelang] reformulating the core grammar

Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 02:22:38 -0400

Subject: Re: [engelang] reformulating the core grammar

To: engelang@yahoogroups.com

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 5:46 AM, selpa'i <seladwa@hidden.email> wrote:

Am 09.10.2012 02:09, schrieb Mike S.:
> I created a binary version of the syntax based on how I prefer to view
> the grammar here: http://loglang.wordpress.com/xorban/grammar/

Looks promising, though I haven't yet checked every rule. I do notice
that these syntactical phrases don't sound very traditional, but maybe
that is to be expected from an engelang.

Suggestions are welcome. It's not hard to recognize traditional syntactical phrases as they appear here and there (i.e. things that look much like adjectives, noun phrases, etc.), but it's hard to give traditional names to Xorban's very general constituents. I think that "modifier" is the best name so far for a constituent class encompassing everything from "not" to "happily" to "all cats" to "black" to "using a hammer". As far as "trees", I guess we *could* call them "coordinated modifier structures" or something, but "tree" is nicely succinct. (We could though use a general word for any left chunk of a formula that precedes a predication.)

I am going to abandon "term" and go back to "modifier". The way I have been using it doesn't quite match how it's used in logic.

> In my grammar that's been renamed a term, but it amounts to the same
> thing. I do think that it's very helpful to view {binary operator +
> first complement} as a meaningful constituent that behaves in a manner
> similar to a unary operator. It's a construction that has a fair number
> of reasonably close analogs in natural languages: objects/sumti,
> adjectives, adverbs, case tags. Two formulas in a row doesn't really
> have any constituent-like analog in natural languages.

Yes, I agree. It felt odd to join two formulae for no reason, and the
other direction is much more natural. I literally threw that tree
together in a few minutes just to hint at what I had in mind. Good.
This seems to be going somewhere.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

Xorban.wordpress.com

Loglang.wordpress.com