WikiDiscuss

Definition: A magic word is any cmavo of selmaho ZO, ZOI, LOhU, LEhU, ZEI, BU, SI, SA, SU, BAhE or FAhO
Definition: Y is not a word.

The exeptionless rules for magic words would be as follows:

ZO: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it quotes the following word and, if it is a magic word, turns it off. If there is no following word, it gives an error.

ZOI: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it turns the following word into a delimiter and, if it is a magic word, turns it off.
Everything that follows is non-lojban-text until the delimiter is found again (turned off if it's a magic word). If there is no following word, or if the following word does not reappear to close the quote, it gives an error.

LOhU: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it quotes each following word until LEhU and, if it is a magic word, turns it off. If LEhU does not appear, it gives an error.

LEhU: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it closes a LOhU quote. If it's not turned off and there is no opened LOhU it gives an error.

ZEI: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it takes the previous word or magic word output, and joins it with the following word to make a tanru-unit. If the following word is a magic word, it turns it off. If there is no previous stuff, or if there is no following word, then it gives an error.

BU: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it takes the previous word or magic word output, and turns it into a lerfu.

SI: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it takes the previous word or magic word output and anihilates it. (i.e. now the previous stuff is the stuff before the one erased). If there is no previous stuff, it gives an error.

SA: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it deletes everything back up to and including the first word found of the selmaho of the word that follows (stuff processed by preceding magic words in general does not keep its original selmaho) or else if no such word is found, up to the beginning of text. If no word follows, it gives an error.

SU: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it deletes everything back up to the beginning of text. It never gives error.

BAhE: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it modifies the word that follows, and becomes invisible (i.e. it is not part of the previous stuff for following magic words). If what follows is a magic word, it does not turn it off. If no word follows, it gives an error.

FAhO: Unless it has been turned off by a preceding magic word, it terminates the text. If the utterance so far is not a valid text, it gives an error.

Those rules are exeptionless, and they don't require to define any special order of precedence. The order is simply first come, first served. In some cases we may want, for whatever reason, to deviate from the exceptionless rules. For example, if we wanted {si} to erase {bu}, or {zoi}, or {zei}, or even {zo} for that matter. But the price of any exception is complication of the rules and opening a can of worms, because usually exceptions require more exceptions to handle special cases. I propose we start from the exceptionless rules and analyse carefully any proposed exception to them.

mu'o mi'e xorxes