Yes, I saw all that. But, to my mind, there's something Humpty-Dumpty about it all...
If I input: foo=: +/ fie=: foo&99"_ fie f. foo=: i. 9 fie f. ...is foo now a pronoun, whereas it was hitherto a proverb? Or is it 'foo' that's the pronoun? After all, English grammar is all to do with words, not the things they (might conceivably) designate. Could we say that foo was always a pronoun and never was a proverb (although there was indeed a synonymous proverb... one that was erased to avoid a name clash)? I can think of cases where this sort of angel-balancing matters. ...In the above series of statements, one could argue. I've only just today met the J term: "pronoun". Hitherto I've been blithely calling foo (as in foo=: i.9) a "noun". Whereas in APL I would never have confused a variable, the name of the variable, and its (current) value. And in Dyalog APL (I vaguely recall) it's possible to create un-named objects having nameclass 9 --and make them do things. SNOBOL, I recall, made a meal of this issue. A dog's-dinner, indeed. Ian On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Dan Bron <[email protected]> wrote: > It means what you think: Something that stands for (pro-) a verb. The only J > entities capable of "standing for" (as opposed to just "being") in J are > names. Hence, a proverb is a name whose referent is a verb / a name which > has been assigned to a verb / a name with nameclass verb (3)*. > > This definition is difficult to find in the DoJ, but it's there [1]: > > "The word =: behaves like the copulas “is” and “are” in English, and is read > as such, as in “area is 3 times 4” for area=: 3*4 . The name area thus > assigned is a pronoun and, as in English, it plays the role of a noun. > Similar remarks apply to names assigned to verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions." > > -Dan > > > [1] DoJ §II : http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dict2.htm > > > * We need a better word for user assignable names like "area" to distinguish > them from system-defined names like "a." or "*" . Ideas anyone? > Please excuse typos; composed on a handheld device. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ian Clark <[email protected]> > Sender: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:19:58 > To: General forum<[email protected]> > Reply-To: General forum <[email protected]> > Subject: [Jgeneral] Pronoun and proverb? > > Could someone please define the J term "proverb" for me? > I've scanned: > >> << Ndx Usr Pri JfC LJ Phr Dic Rel Voc !: wd Help > but I'm still not sure. > > I can guess, but I want to know. > > Ian > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
