Re: Using ^ for insertions

Norm Tovey-Walsh writes:

> I’m happy to argue about the mark characters later, so I’m not trying to
> prevent the next draft from using “^” for insertions since that’s what
> we agreed. However, I realized that using “^” for insertions has another
> consequence: it leaves no mark that means “match and insert this”.

> ...
> But if we overload “^” for insertions, then the semantics of the
> previous rule change. It will only match “a” and it will produce
> <S>(a)</S>.

Any language in which the default behavior cannot be explicitly named
has a gap and is suspect.

I liked "+" as a signal for insertion, since it's a conventional
opposite of "-", and insertion is notionally opposite to suppression.

Michael


-- 
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Black Mesa Technologies LLC
http://blackmesatech.com

Received on Wednesday, 6 April 2022 16:14:51 UTC