Henry Rich wrote (slightly re-ordered):
> Isn't it plain that you could define a conjunction !.. (rank mu lu ru)
> such that u!..n is the same as u, but with n used as the framing fill?
Frame filling during result assembly happens outside of a verb
working at its rank mlr. You simply cannot have your u!..n at the
same rank as u because it wouldn't stand a chance to look at "fill
space". It would have to be at rank _ _ _ .
> I wonder what he said. I remember his saying that the language has no
> way to specify the framing fill, but I don't see that it could not be
> extended to have one.
I proposed that, too. Just let me nroff that part of the original
article again.
"Steps 1/2/3" below refer to (1) argument disection into cells and
pairing/replication according to "II.B Agreement", (2) verb executions
at cell level, (3) re-assembly of the individual results into common
shape/frame, i.e. the filling we are talking about here.
What I would consider to be a step in the right direction is
having a conjunction at the level of the rank ". Just like
" gives control over argument dissection and cell pairings
prior to verb evaluation, it could allow for control of the
fill value for shape assimilation during the reassembly of
the intermediate results. Without compromising existing
behavior, the rank conjunction could accept a boxed pair
containing rank and fill specifications. For example:
> "(0; 9) 1 ; 2 3 ; 4 5 6
1 9 9
2 3 9
4 5 6
Details like the order of that boxed pair and the defaulting
of specifications are an issue left to the language lawyers
and designers. The important point is that it should really
be rank itself that should be extended. A separate, new
fill conjunction defined to control step 3 could not do the
job in concert with rank: applying both conjunctions to a
verb would result in nested verbs so that steps 1 and 3
would lie on different levels. No matter what the order of
the nesting were, there would never be anything to fill.
End of quote. The ranks of the proposed >"(0;9) notation would have
to be _ _ _ as they would have to be for your !.. notation.
I wouldn't stick this functionality onto !. because a rank change
not associated with this modifier otherwise.
Martin
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