Changes to grammar: summary

[cowan (John Cowan)]

The following is an explanation of the set of grammar changes
to the initial baseline.  The changes are described only.  Send a message to
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com if you want a diff listing showing the actual
changes to the YACC grammar.

All of these changes are extremely minor.  They were found in the effort to
develop the EBNF description and then to produce a working Lojban parser.
This process picked up a few errors and inconsistencies that were missed by
less systematic analysis.  The last few changes reflect discussions of
semantics that picked up "holes in the system".

Nearly all of these changes are additions to the language that do not
take away from the set of utterances that are legal.  A couple will change
the grouping of such sentences in complex situations.

This set of changes was baselined at LogFest '91.  No further grammar
changes will be entertained until the textbook is complete.

Each change is explained in a three-part format: CURRENT LANGUAGE;
PROPOSED CHANGE; RATIONALE.

Executive Summary:

1       Joik connection between operands
2       Multiple EK_KEs between operands
3       Reorder BIhI GAhO GAhO to GAhO BIhI GAhO
4       Remove GAhOs in parentheses
5       NA SE without NAI in afterthought connectives
6       Negation/conversion of BIhI
7       KI by itself and after BAI
8       *ANNULLED*
9       GIhEK_KE priority change
10      *ANNULLED*
11      Attach freemods to tense_modal, not PU_mod
12      Allow ZI PU and VI FAhA
13      Change utterance ordinals to free modifiers
14      Allow only one NAhE before tense
15      *ANNULLED*
16      *ANNULLED*
17      Allow forethought joiks
18      Allow BU to suffix any word to produce a BY
19      Remove mekso relations
20      Allow stand-alone ZAhO in tenses
21      *ANNULLED*
22      Make CU optional rather than elidable
23      Change purpose of FAhO; make it a universal end-of-input
24      *ANNULLED*
25      Make PEhO (Polish notation flag) optional
26      Allow directional and non-directional tense intervals
27      Allow full mekso in subscripts and quantifier selbri
28      Add flag for modal conversions