Author: larry Date: Wed Mar 14 12:12:20 2007 New Revision: 14349 Modified: doc/trunk/design/syn/S02.pod
Log: Clarify adverbial use where infix expected. Modified: doc/trunk/design/syn/S02.pod ============================================================================== --- doc/trunk/design/syn/S02.pod (original) +++ doc/trunk/design/syn/S02.pod Wed Mar 14 12:12:20 2007 @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Date: 10 Aug 2004 Last Modified: 14 Mar 2007 Number: 2 - Version: 97 + Version: 98 This document summarizes Apocalypse 2, which covers small-scale lexical items and typological issues. (These Synopses also contain @@ -1936,11 +1936,16 @@ Two or more adverbs can always be strung together without intervening punctuation anywhere a single adverb is acceptable. When used as -named arguments in an argument list, you may put comma between, +named arguments in an argument list, you I<may> put comma between, because they're just ordinary named arguments to the function, and -a fatarrow pair would work the same. When modifying an operator -(that is, when one occurs where an operator is expected), you may -not put commas between, and the fatarrow form is not allowd. See S06. +a fatarrow pair would work the same. However, this comma is allowed +only when the first pair occurs where a term is expected. Where an +infix operator is expected, the adverb is always taken as modifying +the nearest preceding operator that is not hidden within parentheses, +and if you string together multiple such pairs, you may not put commas +between, since that would cause subsequent pairs to look like terms. +(The fatarrow form is not allowed at all in operator position.) +See S06 for the use of adverbs as named arguments. The negated form (C<:!a>) and the sigiled forms (C<:$a>, C<:@a>, C<:%a>) never take an argument and don't care what the next character is.
