Re: TECH: PROPOSED GRAMMAR CHANGE X6: Simplification of compound tenses

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la lojbab cusku di'e

> Well, I;ll start by noting that half of your discussion deals with using
> tenses inside selbri (NOTE 2) which is NOT part of your X6 change.

Yes, I explicitly left that for another day, because that would indeed
constitute a change, as opposed to a simple extension.

> Second, you have mostly been making proposals that deal with things in the
> preparser/lexer, and these changes are VERY difficult to check out with
> any certainty.  The risk factor is high, even if we were sure the change is
> virtuous.  We cannot afford high risk changes at this point.

This change is very simple to check, as I'm sure John will agree. It
essentially gives ZAhO, ZEhA and TAhE the same grammar, except for
the NAI and PU attachments. The change is even easier to check for
preparsability than the current state. I would even go for blending
ZAhO and TAhE, since I don't really see why ZAhO NAI is not allowed.

> Third, this is now the 6th proposal you have made in less tha a month, when
> we managed to go almost 2 years with only a couple of proposals.

There is nothing new about any of my proposals. I mentioned all of them
(except perhaps X5, which is incompatible with some of the others) to
John when I was reviewing the grammar papers, and I'm sure I've discussed
some in the list in the last couple of years. I've certainly used often
the {ba'ibo}s.

The reason that I made the formal proposals now and not before is that
I was waiting for the publication of the dictionary. Up until very
recently, the dictionary was going to be the first publication. That's
what I understood was decided during Logfest. You had complained before
that you couldn't work on the dictionary while grammar changes were being
discussed, so I didn't want to add unnecessary noise. I always intended
to bring these matters up before the publication of the grammar, though.

Now suddenly you announce that the papers are going to be published
first, so I had to make the proposals now. They were not thought up
in a hurry. You will find talk about all of them in my correspondence
with John about his papers.

> If indeed
> the language was in such bad shape that it needed 6 change proposals in a
> month, then I would again retreat from having a baseline, and forego yet
> again the idea of getting a stable language.

Who says the language is in bad shape? All the proposals (except X5) are
only extensions. They don't let you say anything new, they only let you
say more easily things that can already be said in a more roundabout way.
If someone had started learning the language three years ago (as I did),
they would require zero relearning with this changes. They shouldn't even
be called changes, as they are only almost self-evident extensions.
John has proposed thirty something similar changes, most of which were
implemented. I understand that you will trust John's judgement of what
is necessary more than mine, but do give my proposals a chance. They are
not so outlandish as you seem to think. They do not affect at all anybody
who has learnt the language as it is.

> Do you REALLY think things
> are so broken as to warrant the volume of changes you are proposing?  Even if
>  they are"only" extensions, they are still changes.

I think they are warranted, yes, or I wouldn't have made the proposals.
X1 is really needed. X2, X3 and X4 are more a matter of completeness,
but I think they should be added. Compound tenses have not seen much
actual usage, but when and if they ever do, X6 will be adopted by default.
Notice that superficially you can already say {co'a ze'a broda}. My proposal
is to tell the parser that this means what humans will think it means,
a compound tense, and not {co'aku ze'a broda}, as the parser currently
believes.

> fourth.  Whta it appears you are doing in X6 is freeing up the grammar
> of tense as much as is possible, and doing so suppoosedly in the interest of
> "ease of teaching".

As much as it makes sense, not as much as possible. Besides, I'm not adding
anything new, as I explain in my proposal. You can currently fool the parser
by using {nana} glue. My proposal is to make this roundabout unnecessary,
so that I don't have to say {co'a nana ze'a broda} instead of {co'a ze'a
broda}

> Yet you have also proposed that we ADD structure to
> MEX quantifiers (PA-strings) for the same reason.

I have never proposed that. What I wrote about the substructure of PA
was never a grammar change proposal, it was just to help understand
how the combination of PAs work. It was very incomplete to be a serious
grammar proposal.

Besides, the two cases are clearly different. The new permitted tense
combinations are things that clearly make sense. Many of the free
PA combinations make no sense at all.

> Sow hich is easier to
> teach, more structure or less?

Sensible structure. More where it is needed, less where it is not.

> In the case of tense we were able to
> devise a YACCABLe grammar for tenses that allowed saying everything that pc
> said needed to be said with tense, and then some.

What is the problem with: {mi ta'e ze'u bajra} = "I usually run for long
times". How do you currently say it? Or is it that pc didn't say that it
needed to be said with tense? (I find that the argument "we have everything
that pc said we needed" is not really compelling. I really respect pc's
opinions, but he is not infallible, and neither is your interpretation of
what he says.)

> In the cas eof  MEX, there
> is no one person we could use as a standard for "all the things that need
> to be said".

Well, perhaps that's why the MEX part of the language is not really up to
the standard of the rest (in my opinion, of course).

> Fifth - you persist in proposing changes to the EBNF.  The language is
> defined by the YACC grammar and not the EBNF.  I do not really understand the
> EBNF (or rather I distrust it so that I have made little effort to understand
> it), and it is impossible to evaluate your changes unless they are phrased as
> YACC rules, so we can see if they will fly.

Ok, I will try to do that. I never really bothered to study the YACC rules
because the EBNF seems so much clear, but if that's what it takes...

Jorge