[I7-1197] [Mantis 1232] Some responses in the Standard Rules use [those] instead of [them]

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

Reported by : Juhana

Description :

Some rules in the Standard Rules use [those] when they should use [them]. This causes grammatical problems with the third person: "You can't drop he" etc.

The rules are the can't drop what's not held rule, can't wear what's not clothing rule, can't wear what what's not held rule, can't wear what's already worn rule, can't wave what's not held rule, block setting it to rule, and can't take what's already taken rule.

Steps to reproduce :

Petting zoo is a room.

The bunny is an animal. The player is carrying the bunny.

The pen is here. The pen is an open container.

Test me with "wear bunny/put bunny in pen/drop bunny/wave bunny/set bunny to 11".

Additional information :

Output from the example source:

>wear bunny
You can't wear he!

>put bunny in pen
You put the bunny into the pen.

>drop bunny
You haven't got he.

>wave bunny
But you aren't holding he.

>set bunny to 11
No, you can't set he to anything.

imported from: [Mantis 1232] Some responses in the Standard Rules use [those] instead of [them]
status: Closed
resolution: Resolved
resolved: 2022-04-07T04:56:27+10:00
imported: 2022/01/10

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

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

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

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

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

Comment by emshort :
See also further discussion of possible solutions here:

http://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13740&p=73314#p73314

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

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

Comment by graham :
Fixed, but given the discussion of this, and the lack of a perfect solution, it might be worth quoting the following draft note in the change log -

It was realised soon after the release of 6L02 that the text substitutions
"[those]" and "[Those]" were ambiguous, since if they're applied to an
object which is a man or woman then they would have to be different in the
accusative and nominative cases. Consider the two texts:

"But [we] [aren't] holding [regarding the noun][those]."
"But [regarding the noun][those] [aren't] available."

and suppose the noun is Andrew. Then "[those]" needs to expand as "him" in the
first case but as "he" in the second. To distinguish these,

"[those in the nominative]"
"[those in the accusative]"

and similarly for Those. But what should plain "[those]" and "[Those]" do?
We note that the Standard Rules used "[those]" in 7 responses, all accusative,
and "[Those]" in a further 12, all nominative. Accordingly, Inform now defines
"[those]" as equivalent to "[those in the accusative]" and "[Those]" as
"[Those in the nominative]". This fixes bug 0001232, and though it's not a
perfect solution, it's intended to be something we might revisit when Inform
has a better idea of noun cases (as it will need for, say, adaptive German).
Note that "nominative" and "accusative" are the two values of the kind
"grammatical case"; "nominative" existed in 6L02, but "accusative" is new in
this build.

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

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

Comment by zarf :
Confirmed. However, simply changing the pronoun to [them] will change the library behavior in the normal case.

Current: "You haven't got that." "You haven't got he."
With [them]: "You haven't got it." "You haven't got him."

curiousdannii-testing commented 2 years ago

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

Comment by zarf :
(and following posts in that thread)

curiousdannii-testing / inform7-imported-bugs