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Grammatical issue in 5.3.4/10 #369

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zygoloid opened this issue Aug 22, 2014 · 4 comments
Closed

Grammatical issue in 5.3.4/10 #369

zygoloid opened this issue Aug 22, 2014 · 4 comments

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@zygoloid
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DIS 14882:2014 NB comment JP 05:

The implementation may extend the allocation of a new-expression e1
to provide storage for a new-expression e2 if the following would
be true were the allocation not extended:

Is this sentence correct syntax? We are not sure whether the list of the descriptions is "positive" condition or "negative" condition. "Positive" means that if the condition is satisfied, then the allocation may extend. "Negative" means that if the condition is satisfied, then the allocation does not extend.

For example, the 4th description seems to be "positive". But the description above the list of conditions says that "if the following would be true were the allocation not extended"

Proposed change:

  • Make it correct and easy-to-understand description.
  • Purely grammatically, “if the following would be true were the allocation not extended” seems to lack “is” before “not”.
@zygoloid
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The second part of the proposed change is NAD; the rule is correct as written and adding "is" would not be grammatical.

All of the conditions given here are "positive"; the bulleted list is describing the prerequisites for performing this transformation.

@lichray
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lichray commented Sep 17, 2014

As a Chinese, I'm not familiar with this type of sentence structure either. I have no clue how the phrase "were the allocation not extended" can be attached after an "if" sub-clause...

@zygoloid
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The implementation may extend the allocation of a new-expression e1
to provide storage for a new-expression e2 if the following would
be true were the allocation not extended:

... is a more concise (and, to me, slightly more natural) way of writing this:

The implementation may extend the allocation of a new-expression e1
to provide storage for a new-expression e2 if the following would
be true if the allocation were not extended:

"were" is introducing a counterfactual conditional, whose meaning is this:

The implementation may extend the allocation of a new-expression e1
to provide storage for a new-expression e2 if the following are
true in a hypothetical world where the allocation is not extended:

... except that the latter phrasing seems even more unnatural because 'would be' and 'were' are more appropriate forms for talking about hypotheticals, rather than 'are' and 'is'.

If we can express this sentiment in a way that is both natural and avoids this complex grammatical construction, I'm happy to change it.

@lichray
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lichray commented Sep 17, 2014

I got it. Yet another nice use of subjunctive mood... Thank you for explaining it.

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