[MUD-Dev] string parsing

[coder at ibm.net]

On 09/11/97 at 01:41 PM, cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris Gray)
said: >[JC:]

>:  > l
>:  You are in a street.  In front of you a wagon and team stands.  Bubba is
>:  in front of the team working with th reins.	It looks like Bernie is 
>:  crawling abouit under the wagon doing something with an axe.  You can just
>:  see Boffo standing on the far side of the wagon.
>:
>:The interesting point in that is the careful choice of the "on the far
>:side" prepositional phrase as vs "behind", as "behind" is ambiguous given
>:that the wagon has its own prepositional space which (can be) different
>:from its location's prepositional space.  Bubba's "in front" works there
>:because the language explicitly names the wagon's prepositional space.

>You've lost me on that one! Also, 'behind' seems clearer to me, since 'on
>the far side of' could mean literally standing on the side of the wagon.

Okay, lets reduce this to a diagram:


                  Far side of the street
   ----------------------<wall>------------------------------------

                        <Boffo>

                HHHHHHHHHH WWWWWWWWWWW
       <Bubba>  H horses H WW wagon WW  <Bluto>
                HHHHHHHHHH WWWWWWWWWWW

                         <you> 

While Boffo is behind the wagon (he's on the far side), Bluto can also be
described as behind the wagon (he's at the rear of the wagon).  In this
case there are two prepositional spaces in play.  There is the
prepositional space of the street,w hich defines where things are in
relation to each other and the viewpoint (<you>).  This is the simple one
which says that the wagon is in front of the wall which is on the far side
of the street.  There is also a prepositional space defined by the wagon. 
This is a more contextual thing which has its own meanings of "front",
"behind" etc as relative to the front and rear of the wagon, and not as
relative to their positioning in the street.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...