[SCL] two comments

[Chris Menzel]

On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 11:20:26PM +0200, Tanel Tammet wrote:
> [pat wrote:]
> >First, as currently phrased the AS describes a lexicon as a collection 
> >of sets. I would prefer that we treat the AS as a purely abstract 
> >algebraic structure, in which the 'basic' items are considered to be 
> >grammatical categories - categories of expressions - rather than sets of 
> >syntactic entities. The makes no difference to the formal stuff but 
> >simplifies the AS and makes it more uniform, and avoids what is 
> >otherwise a potentially awkward set of issues concerning the 'status' of 
> >lexical items in some concrete SCL languages.
> >
> >A concrete SCL language is then obtained by providing a
> >'lexicalization' which provides for a set of wf expressions and a way
> >to parse any such expression into an SCL AS structure.  Now we can
> >distinguish two kinds of lexicalization: those in which the primitive
> >syntactic elements (the things in the 'lexicon') can be recognized in
> >isolation, and the others.  Call the first 'local' for now. 
> 
> When you speak about the "purely abstract algebraic structure"
> etc then I honestly do not understand what do you exactly mean.

Do you not think that the current spec in terms of syntactic function is
a specification of purely abstract structure, Tanel?

-chris

ps: Quick reminder -- no need to cc: people who are on the list.  Just
send the msg to scl.  (I think I broke this rule a minute ago myself...)