Oleg wrote: > =: Is > =. Seems Harvey responded: > "Seems" carries a connotation of possible unreality (that is, > appearance but not necessarily substance).
I agree. Same problem with "acts" (but we do have "Joe is the acting President" which could be expressed as "Joe =. President"). But we have a number of options: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_copulae (I never realized how many copulae English has!) > Perhaps "becomes" might be > closer to the intent: Trouble is, having "become" (=.), the subject attains the state of "is", identically to "=:". > Or another approach might be that "global" conceptually > encompasses more ("plural") than "local": > =: Are > =. Is I would say plurality maps more closely onto multiple indirect assignment as: Joe =: foo NB. Joe "is" foo 'Joe Bob' =: foo NB. Joe and Bob "are" foo 'Joe Bob' =: foo ; bar NB. Joe and Bob are foo and bar, respectively This applies regardless of whether we use =: or =. (and regardless of the type of multiple indirect assignment we use, e.g. (;:Joe Bob')=. ... ). But maybe there is a different word for ('`Joe Bob'=. gerund), because the gerund will be evoked. This is kind of a double, or symmetric, indirection (and also Joe and Bob could become any part of speech). -Dan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
