From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxz!ihnp4!ihuxr!lew Newsgroups: net.lang Title: postfix, infix, and recursive English Article-I.D.: ihuxr.370 Posted: Wed Mar 23 13:02:54 1983 Received: Thu Mar 24 21:34:27 1983 Reply-To: lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) A noun clause can be substituted for a noun. If the predicate nominative of the noun clause is replaced by another noun clause, we have an example of the recursive application of noun clauses. The cheese stands alone. The cheese the cat takes stands alone. (standard English) The cheese the cat the dog takes takes stands alone. (recursive, nonstandard) These noun clauses are like polish postfix expressions, with the verb as the operator. However, we can form the English analogue of infix while retaining the recursive property. The cheese which is taken by the cat which is taken by the dog stands alone. (This does seem closer to standard English.) This is like: cheese + cat + dog = alone The iterative example (the dog takes the cat etc.) is more like: dog += cat cat += cheese cheese = alone The iterative version only uses "statement ::= variable op variable". The recursive versions use "statement ::= expr op expr" and "expr ::= expr op expr || variable". That is, they use the recursive definition of an expression (or noun clause.) Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew