On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Clifford Heath wrote:

> Hugh Sasse wrote:
>> it's difficult to hold this state in one's, (or is that just my?),
>> head
>
> No, I agree. The reason is that the grammar rules are transformed
> first into simple rules each containing only *two* items. If you
> look into how that transformation is done, you'll know what's
> happening for a given grammar. The state is much more obvious then,
> because it's defined in terms of these atomic rules.
>
> For example, a rule A ::= B C D gets turned into two rules, either
> B_C ::= B C
> A ::= B_C D
> or
> C_D ::= C D
> A ::= B C_D
>
> depending on precedence. After processing all rules, there will
> normally be a number of duplicates, ambiguities and other problems,

And they'd be much easier to detect.  I like this model. Thank you.

> so there's about five more stages of checking and massaging until
> a parser can be generated. Unfortunately the individuals who are
> capable of implementing these processes are so adept at linguistics
> that they can't explain the processes in terms that we mortals can

Yes :-)  And when one considers the complexities possible in human
languages (cases, genders, 'moods'...) the scope for being esoteric
is certainly there...

> understand :-)... though I'm sure I almost understood it once... :-)
>
> Clifford.
>
         Thank you,
         Hugh

>