BPFK Section: Formal Grammar

This page is imported from version 30 of the page BPFK Section: Formal Grammar from the lojban Tiki.

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For non-BPFK discussion of the formal grammar, see Grammar.

This section describes a proposed update to the Formal Grammar, defining the grammar in PEG rather than YACC. This section requires cleanup and a shepherd.

Proposed grammar changes

• Internal grammar of tags
• Move NAI to CAI
• Allow free modifiers anywhere
• Make sei more permissive
• Take away the official status of the YACC grammar, and instead make an official grammar in PEG
• Connectives + PU issues

Issues

• Trailing empty tags within a bridi-head forethought termset aren't absorbed into the following selbri as selbri tcita in Jbofi'e's output, while Camxes-pegjs seems to parse it correctly. Concrete example: nu'i ge do gi mi pu klama parses as { nu'i ge do gi mi pu KU NU'U CU klama VAU } in Jbofi'e, whereas it parses as { nu'i ge do NUhU gi mi NUhU CU pu klama VAU } in Camxes-pegjs.
• CLL 9.9, example 9.8: mi bai ke ge klama le zarci gi cadzu le bisli. Camxes' PEG sees this like mi bai ku ke ge klama le zarci gi cadzu le bisli. There doesn't appear to be a way to fill the tag in the gek-sentence production. Jbofihe and the official parser both get this right. Also relevant is example 18.15 from CLL 14.18: mi pu ge klama le zarci gi tervecnu lo cidja. Jbofihe and the official parser both fail on this. Camxes sees it as mi pu ku ge klama le zarci gi tervecnu lo cidja. Is this what is intended?
  • Good catch. I think what camxes does is the Right Thing™, and that the unreachable tag should just be eliminated from the grammar. mi'e xorxes
• Regular suffixing rules and regular rules for creating lujvo.
• more formal grammar stuffs
• more formal issues (re: tosmabru check)
• Clarity of assertion is necessary.
• Interaction of SE, NA, and JA.
• a proposal about cmevla and selma'o LA.
• A very old discussion about defaultquantifiersfor gadri.
• Blah about sumti raising (you can probably ignore this).
• A cu-like cmavo for terminators in general.
• Why x1 to the left?
• can we drop lerfu+namcu strings? At least, can we do that if we drop lots of mekso crap too? See that thread and the relevant bits of zasni gerna cenba vreji.
• The grammar has a difference between “operand” and “number” that probably isn't intentional; because of this, constructs like “mo'e zo'e” cannot be used where other numbers are allowed.