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<div dir="auto">Dear Christian,<br>
<br>
<span style="color:var(--textColor);background-color:var(--backgroundColor)">How about X{YC|CY}?</span></div>
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From Hong Kong,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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<div name="messageReplySection">On 20 Dec 2020, 6:23 PM +0800, Christian Lehmann , wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-color: grey; border-left-width: thin; border-left-style: solid; margin: 5px 5px;padding-left: 10px;">
<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>Guillermo González Campos and I are garnishing our (future) Cabecar grammar with formulas of syntactic structure. Each representation layer (like "structural", "semantic", ...) is one-dimensional. The structural layer involves symbols representing significative
components plus indexed brackets. Some constructions comprise a component <font color="#990000">
C</font> which is obligatory, but may occur in different positions. Sometimes a "basic" position may be identified, of which other positions are optional permutations. If so, I can provide a formula for the basic position and add a prose sentence on the variation.
Now suppose there is no such basic position. A possibility of representing such a state of affairs is to provide a construction formula for each of the variants, like:</p>
<p>X <font color="#990000">C</font> Y</p>
<p>X Y <font color="#990000">C</font></p>
<p>Rather space-consuming and less than elegant. Is there a notation which allows one to write something like</p>
<p>X <font color="#990000">C</font> Y <font color="#990000">C</font></p>
<p>to mean that <font color="#990000">C</font> can and must occupy either of the two positions? (Ordinary parentheses would not work, in my view, as they imply optionality.)<br>
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<p>Thanks for advice,</p>
<p>Christian<br>
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<div class="moz-signature">--<br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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