Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!nosc!humu!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Perfect language features: how many languages?
Message-ID: <1566@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 88 15:38:03 GMT
References: <5028@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)
Lines: 12

From article <5028@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, by djsalomon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Daniel J. Salomon):
> ...
> But you have to admit that computer languages are more like
> natural languages than they are like vaccines.  That is all I said.

This is tangential, but natural languages are maybe something like
vaccines.  One current theory of syntax, arc pair grammar, describes
languages as sets of contraints (antibodies?) on sentence structure.
That is to say, a grammar characterizes the complement of the
permissible sentences.  (Good health is the absence of disease.)

	Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu