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Partial Dependence of Syntax and Semantics
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Then the semantics must be not independent of the syntax...still, they can't be dependent, otherwise the situation would be causal.
- If you change the semantics without changing the syntax you can be wrong, your new semantics simply won't map correctly.
- The semantics can be partially constrained on the syntax.
- Dependent: Each choice among s1...sn alternatives is determines one result in σ1...σy, such as in a 1-to-1 mapping.
- Independent: Each choice among s1...sn alternatives has no effect, choose any σ1...σy
- Partial Constraint: Each choice among s1...sn constricts you to a subset of σ1...σn.
- A partial dependency among syntax and semantics is why syntax works!
- You can change the sign for dog to "spundukey-woowoo": but no-one will understand that word except yourself without you telling or showing
them how your new sign adheres to the real semantics of what used to be known as "dog".
- Syntax partially constitutes semantics - as addition in our programming language with numerals should function like it does with numbers.
- Constitute is an implementation word - x implements y if x is destroyed when you blow y up. This doesn't hold for representation.
- Classical logic is just the extreme case: the only choices in σ are 1 or 0, true or false.