Raul Miller-4 wrote: > > [...] > > It appears that a verb phrase is something typically built > from adverbs and/or conjunctions,[...] > Well, according to "the left argument of an adverb or conjunction is the entire verb phrase that precedes it", why would not verb phrase just as well be a noun, like in:
1&f ? > [...] and that hooks and > forks are not verb phrases unless they are contained in > parenthesis. > That's an interesting observation. Let's follow it a bit: in the expression (u v)/ the verb phrase is indeed (u v). Nevertheless, the expression: (u v) being a hook, is not a verb phrase. That is a contradiction that can be rectified by claiming: hooks and forks are not verb phrases unless they are contained in parenthesis before a conjunction or an adverb. Now we can assemble the following definition of verb phrase: Verb phrase is: (i) a noun, or (ii) a verb that is not a train, or (iii) a train which is also the left argument of a conjunction or an adverb. According to this definition, which I think is a correct definition of verb phrase, we still cannot tell whether f, defined as f =: u v is a verb phrase or not. It all depends on context in which f appears, in contradistinction to (pro)verbs, (pro)nouns, etc, which we recognize from their definitions. So what? Is it really necessary to nitpick about definition of an auxiliary term from DoJ without which DoJ would have been just as precise as it is now? One reason that justifies the effort and makes verb phrases important in their own right is the following statement: Every tacit verb can be defined as a tacit verb phrase. Indeed, if we redefine f above as: f1 =: u`v`:6 then f1 is a verb phrase equivalent to f . Furthermore, nouns in trains such as: 'abc' u v 'abc' u v are represented through their "lifting" into verbs: 'abc'"_`u`v`:6 'abc'"_ u v This way one could stop using hooks and forks altogether and program only with verb phrases. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Adverb-and-conjunction-parsing-rules-tp27100488s24193p27113278.html Sent from the J Programming mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
