Well in the natural language the pronoun "he" sometimes can refer to Ian, and in other times refer to Ken, and in yet other times to Roger, right?
The analogy English grammar terms and J grammar terms is not watertight. You carry it out only as far as it's helpful. The main areas where the analogy is _very_ helpful is adverb and verb. In contrast, try explaining "operator" to a beginner, and (speaking of angel-balancing) try explaining the difference between an operator and a function. The first reference I can find of Ken's use of noun/verb in APL is in Chapter 1 of "Algebra: An Algorithmic Treatment", 1972 http://keiapl.org/anec/#algebra ----- Original Message ----- From: Ian Clark <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, October 24, 2010 10:40 Subject: Re: [Jgeneral] Pronoun and proverb? To: General forum <[email protected]> > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
