On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 06:47:13PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated:
> Nori Heikkinen wrote:
> >on Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:38:45PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated:
> ...
> >> of course, you can create various complex and ambiguous sentences in
> >>english, the point is that you can take few forms of sentences and
> >>have a working language (that's pretty much what BASIC (talking
> >>about programming language) is).
> >
> >you can do that in both languages.
>
> let's say you have a function called isRed(x) (returns true if x is
> red). Now how would you call this function in german? it would never
> be in agreement with all possible x (grammatically).
how so not?
istRot( dieGabel )
istRot( dasMesser )
istRot( derLoeffel )
how are any of those less grammatical than their english equivalents:
isRed( theFork )
isRed( theKnife )
isRed( theSpoon )
??
> not sure if this is the best example
nope, guess not. try again if you're trying to make a coherent
argument.
> - perhaps in this case it would be acceptable to use istRot,
> regardless of gender of x.
in fact, in german, adjectives only agree with nouns if they
IMMEDIATELY PRECEDE the noun. so you have "die Gabel ist rot" (the
fork is red), but "die rote Gabel" (the red fork) -- note that the
feminine "-e" only applies to the adjective "rot" in the case in which
it immediately precedes the noun.
now, think of an example in which you encounter anything remotely like
full sentence structure in code, and try to apply this. good luck.
</nori>
--
.~. nori @ sccs.swarthmore.edu
/V\ http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~nori/jnl/
// \\ @ maenad.net
/( )\ www.maenad.net
^`~'^
get my (*new*) key here:
http://www.maenad.net/geek/gpg/7ede5499.asc
(please *remove* old key 11e031f1!)
Attachment:
pgpgq8P7kGcIE.pgp
Description: PGP signature