WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


Magic Words

posts: 14214

On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 10:39:15PM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
>
> --- Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > > {zo zo} works by order of appearance.
> > > {zoi zoi} works by order of appearance.
> > > {lo'u lo'u} works by order of appearance.
> >
> > Those do, yes.
> >
> > > {si si} works by order of appearance.
> >
> > No, it's a string that deletes the two previous words.
>
> The first {si} erases the previous word. Then comes the second,
> and erases its previous word, from what's left after the first
> {si} has acted.

Ah, OK. Fair.

> > > {bu bu} works by order of appearance, in a way.
> >
> > No, it's an error, at least by the beginning of text.
>
> That's beside the point. {zei zei} could be an error at the
> beginning of text too, since the first zei comes along and has
> nothing in front to grab. But they still act in order of
> appearance. The first {bu} changes the previous word into a lerfu,
> and then the second {bu} changes it into some other lerfu. If they
> didn't work by order of appearance, the second {bu} might turn the
> first into a lerfu and thus disable its function as a bu.

OK.

> > > How come {zei zei} is the exception?
> >
> > It's hardly the only one.
>
> It would be the only one as far as I can see.

Well, SA SA is another, but that's maybe a bit different.

> > The problem is, if you want to say "I said a zei lujvo", we
> > have:
> >
> > {mi pu cusku lo zei zei lujvo}
> >
> > or something.
> >
> > The problem is that if we take it by order of appearence, as you
> > say, the first zei grabs the lo and the second zei, so we end up
> > with "I was a speaker type-of lo type of zei type of lujvo".
>
> Right. So {zei zei lujvo} is not the right way to say "zei-lujvo".

Then what the hell is it useful for? Seriously?

> That's why {zo zei zei lujvo} would be useful.

I just wrote that it.

> But even if {zo zei zei} were not allowed, I see no reason to
> complicate ZEI by not letting it work by order of appearance, like
> everything else. It looks like an exception to me.

True.

I hate to bring this up, but right-grouping (which is what you're
talking about) is very hard in PEGs. I'm sure it's possible, but
I've had some troubles.

Bizarrely enough, some examples of valid Lojban reverse polish
notation stuff, the more complicated the better, would help with
this quite a lot.

-Robin