Posted by Ben C on 11/30/07 11:44

On 2007-11-30, Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote:
[...]
> That's not the point. "validation" and "syntactic checking" are two
> different things, not two levels of the same thing. It's possible to
> use perfect syntax and still be invalid. Even "Furiously sleep ideas
> green colorless.", uses correct English syntax but is grammatically
> invalid.

No the syntax is pretty bad too. The accidence is about the only thing
correct about that sentence (but English has minimal accidence anyway).

Here is a version which also has incorrect accidence (as well as
incorrect syntax): "Furiousless sleep ideas green colorly".

"Accidence" is how you inflect words, "syntax" is how you put them
together in a sentence. This analysis doesn't apply to all languages,
but makes some sense wherever it's obvious what the difference between a
word and a sentence is and where there is some inflection.

"Grammar" is the union of the two, but may also include more general
requirements like using words intelligibly (which you might call
"semantics").

The point is that the rules or norms for correct use of a natural
language are not easy to write down. The word "grammar" is sometimes
used just to distinguish using the language incorrectly (in the most
general sense) from saying something that is false.

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