[I7-1316] [Mantis 1352] WI §14.2 recommends a turn of phrase that cannot conjugate correctly in the future tense, and one other minor infelicity

[curiousdannii-testing]

Reported by : pollux

Description :

Section 14.2 uses the following case to demonstrate the use of 'prior named object':

now the prior named object is the noun;
say "Oh, [are] [they]?"

and then goes on to claim that it "will produce 'Oh, is it?', 'Oh, are they?', or equivalents in other tenses" - but of course this is a falsehood, since in the future tense it yields (for example) the plainly incorrect "Oh, will be they?", as the second text substitution can't intrude into the middle of the first one as it ought. I can certainly imagine wanting subject-auxiliary inversion that works properly, but I also understand that this may be impractical; as long as it cannot be done, it seems like the documentation should point out the problem, or, at least, not actively walk into it.

Also, immediately afterwards, we see:

now the prior named object is nothing;
say "There [are] no room."

along with some text explaining that it's necessary "because 'There' in English is a sort of meaningless placeholder noun; it doesn't represent any object" - yet, only a few pages later, the [there] substitution is said to exist to solve the same problem. It seems best to remove the example about clearing the prior named object, or at least rewrite it, since it might give the impression that this is the best way to solve the dummy-pronoun problem to someone who happens to read this page and not the other.

Steps to reproduce :

(Less a reproduction than a demonstration of the problem, but even still.)
(After the usual preamble of title and room:)

When play begins:
    now the story tense is the future tense;
    say "Oh, [are] [we]?".

Additional information :

imported from: [Mantis 1352] WI §14.2 recommends a turn of phrase that cannot conjugate correctly in the future tense, and one other minor infelicity

• status: Closed
• resolution: Resolved
• resolved: 2022-04-07T04:57:29+10:00
• imported: 2022/01/10

[curiousdannii-testing]

557058:4c095ffd-6d6f-47ce-9e73-77c613347b86:

Comment by jmcgrew :
Closing all resolved issues from 2014 and earlier.

[curiousdannii-testing]

557058:4c095ffd-6d6f-47ce-9e73-77c613347b86:

Comment by graham :
I agree that the inversion is a red herring, and I've also removed the mention of "prior named object"; that bit of the documentation is a holdover from before the "[regarding ...]" text substitution was available.

[curiousdannii-testing]

557058:4c095ffd-6d6f-47ce-9e73-77c613347b86:

Comment by mattweiner :
To get subject-auxiliary inversion you can do something like this (with appropriate indentation):

To say had:
if the story tense is:
– future tense: say "will";
– past perfect tense: say "had";
– perfect tense: say "[adapt the verb have in present tense]";
– otherwise: say "[are]".

To say been:
if the story tense is:
– future tense: say " be";
– past perfect tense: say " been";
– perfect tense: say " been". [note that this prints nothing in the other tenses; it may need to be substituted with [run paragraph on] to avoid spacing issues in some cases. Note also the extra space before.]

Lab is a room.

When play begins:
now the story tense is the future tense;
say "Oh, [had] [we][been]?". [note that there is no space in "[we][been]" to avoid a spurious space in present and past tenses.]

It wouldn't be practical to make subject-auxiliary inversion happen without two separate text substitutions, because Inform would have know way of knowing where the main verb goes, or for that matter when to do it.

This doesn't affect the main bug; I agree that the example is infelicitous.

[curiousdannii-testing]

557058:4c095ffd-6d6f-47ce-9e73-77c613347b86:

Comment by mattweiner :
Well, you have to make sure that the regarded object is set properly, which I guess I didn't do. But you don't want to build [regarding the player] into the substitution for "had" because you might want to use it for things that aren't the player, as in the example from the text:

now the prior named object is the noun;
say "Oh, [had] [they][been]?"

And the example I gave should be:

When play begins:
now the story tense is the future tense; [or we could cycle through tenses and viewpoints randomly to check]
say "Oh, [regarding the player][had] [we][been]?".

[curiousdannii-testing]

557058:4c095ffd-6d6f-47ce-9e73-77c613347b86:

Comment by ChrisC :

-- perfect tense: say "[adapt the verb have in present tense]";
– otherwise: say "[are]".

Actually, that's not quite it; it produces responses like "Oh, has you?" and "Oh, is I?" from other narrative viewpoints.

I believe this handles all cases:

To say had: 

    if the story tense is:

        – future tense: say "will";

        – past perfect tense: say "had";

        – perfect tense: say "[if the story viewpoint is third person singular]has[otherwise]have[end if]";

        – otherwise: say "[regarding the player][are]".