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RE: Functional Paradigm popularity and Maths (Was: XML as a transition to s-expr)




   Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 18:09:17 -0800 (PST)
   From: Avi Bryant <avi@beta4.com>
   To: Tony Kimball <alk@pobox.com>
   cc: <David.Simmons@smallscript.net>, <anton@appsolutions.com>, 
<ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu>
   Subject: RE: Functional Paradigm popularity and Maths (Was: XML as a 
transition to s-expr)
   
   On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, Tony Kimball wrote:
   
   > :     add 2 3
   > :     2 add 3
   > :     3 add 2
   > :     2 3 add
   > :
   > : are all sensibly parsable constructs as a human being.
   >
   > In English imperative sentences, the verb comes first.
   
   Actually, unless the subject is obvious from context, it comes first (or
   sometimes last).  As in "Tony, pass me the salt" (Tony pass: me the:
   #salt).

Nice try---but, technically, in such a sentence, "Tony" is not
the subject but a vocative---a term of address, an attention-getter
---which is then followed by an imperative subject whose verb is
implicitly "you", the one to whom the sentence is spoken.  It's
kind of an interesting accident that these two functions combine
so as to make "Tony" look like a subject.
  
           The only argument I can see is that "self" should be
   omitted, since it can be taken as implied - both SmallScript and Self
   allow this.

Which tells us that "self" is short for "yourself", not "myself"!

--Guy