I would not characterize longer primitives as "subordinate" but as "multiply inflected", like "o with umlaut and accent grave", or something. Not sure if such things exist in natural orthography.
-Dan Please excuse typos; composed on a handheld device. -----Original Message----- From: Tracy Harms <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:19:51 To: Programming forum<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] The role of the . in J words I think of inflections as occurring to the right of characters other than whitespace. I consider null, newline, and tab to be whitespace, along with the space character. I don't see the count of characters as significant. Longer primaries such as ( {:: ) are not subordinate. On 1/12/10, Dan Bron <[email protected]> wrote: > It is better to think of "." and ":" as " ." and " :" respectively, and that > the interpreter is sometimes liberal (forgives you when you forget the > leading space in certain circumstances). > > The DoJ explictly says that space is considered a graphic or grapheme for > the purposes of spelling, and in the overwhelming number of cases in real J > programming, the leading > space is required. > > Or we can drop the "inflexion" nomenclature and accord . full status as a > letter, and consequently treat. . alone like a (single-lettered) word, just > like + . > But then how can I say ++ is 2 words, but .. is 1? Or that +. Is 1 > word but .+ is 2? > > Maybe . and : don't fit cleanly into any category. Are there any > languages where a diacritic mostly inflects a ketter, but sometimes is a > letter unto itself? If so, is there a (n English) linguistic term for such > beasts? > > -Dan > > > > Please excuse typos; composed on a handheld device. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Oleg Kobchenko <[email protected]> > Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:13:24 > To: Programming forum<[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] The role of the . in J words > > I concur, a *trailing* combination of "." and ":" are part of the Token: > > &. &: &.: for. for_varname. etc > > In the leading position they play a role of a regular symbol (such as + - > etc). > > > > >> From: Markus Schmidt-Gröttrup <[email protected]> >> >> The dictionary shows how the fullstop character (.) is used under >> Spelling. So B is the answer. >> >> Markus >> >> >> >> Sherlock, Ric schrieb: >> > I am working with the maintainer of GeSHi (syntax highlighter used on >> > Rosetta >> Code) to improve support for J. >> > >> > As part of that process I'm seeking clarification of the role of the >> > fullstop >> character (.) as it appears in J words, eg: (do.) (for.) (p.) (p..) (*.) >> (.) >> (.:) (..) >> > >> > Is the fullstop >> > A) a symbol to control language flow, >> > B) an integral part of the word, >> > C) some other better description? >> > >> > Or slightly differently: >> > Is the fullstop >> > A) syntax/punctuation, >> > B) spelling, >> > C) sometimes one, sometimes the other? >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > >> > >> >> -- >> >> Prof. Dr. M. Schmidt-Gröttrup >> Hochschule Ulm, >> Fakultät Grundlagen >> Prittwitzstr. 10, 89075 Ulm >> E-Mail: [email protected] >> Tel: +49 (0) 731 50 28036 >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
