----- Original Message ---- From: Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I believe that completely specifying the syntactic character of all arbitrary J expressions involving adverbs and conjunctions is equivalent to solving the halting problem.
Not quite, there just needs to be one or 2 more exeptions to the rules: First, I assume not everyone knows that a J adverb or conjuncion can return an adverb or conjunction. The only way to do so, is with : (Explicit), or returning an adjective, which makes it straightforward to formulate another rule exception. Incidentally, higher order adverbs/conjunctions should probably be a distinctive form of speech, in addition to being avoided whenever possible due to compounding the complexity of J's main weakness: The readability of the expression 'a b c d e f g' 3 higher order adjectives: - + ( 2 : '2 : ''u''') 0 '' - - + ( 1 : '2 : ''u''') '' - - + ( 2 : '&') ] 1 -&1 A seemingly useful rule formulation for determining result of an expression: For expressions void of higher order adjectives (adjectives returning adjectives usually achieved through use of :), 3 rules with 2 exeptions, if the right most word (or parenthesized expression) is a noun, the expression will be a noun. if the right most word is a verb or adverb, the expression will be a verb. if the right most word is a conjunction, the expression will be an adverb. Exeptions: if the 2nd righmost word is a conjunction, then the 2 words together make/are an adverb If the rightmost word or pair of words are an adverb, then if all the other words resolve to adverbs (ie conjunction verb/noun pairs count as an adverb), then the whole expression is an adverb. Optional obvious rule or exception: If the expression is a single word, that is a conjunction, then the expression is a conjunction. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
