Re: Tiny Grammar

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles <catty@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Date: Tuesday, March 16, 1999 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: Tiny Grammar
>>
>> "Yesterday" is a word that takes one argument, a sentence, and returns a
>> sentence.
>
>Very plausible, as was the suggestion that it modifies the verb.
>An adverb might also modify an adjective. In all three cases,
>the nice neat order-of-evaluation of predicates which SOV/RPN
>seemed to promise, vanishes. The parallel with machine language,
>where a programmer does "push arg1, push arg2, call(2) subroutine"
>does not seem to hold, because once the subroutine is called
>it can no longer be modifed; though its results can.
>
Fascinating point.  One I hadn't considered.  I suppose it would like
pushing a pointer to a function on the stack so the next function could
modify the first function.  Very poor programming practice, and probably not
a very clean way to do a conlang grammar either.

BTW: Expect some blunders on my part inasmuch as I'm strictly a
computer-type guy with no linguistics training at all.  I just happen to
love languages in general and conlangs in particular.

--Gary.