Re: Small correction to commit ae2463796f236b8ee2cef3b5e38bffa13abd2233

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:55:29 +0200 Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:25:20 +0300 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>>> From: Pedro Andres Aranda Gutierrez <paaguti@gmail.com>
>>> Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2024 09:02:18 +0200
>>>
>>> >evaluation cannot load any files, nor calls functions like
>>> >@code{posn-at-point} or @code{window-in-direction}, which themselves
>>> >+evaluate the mode line, as doing so could cause infinite recursion.
>>>
>>> Shouldn't that be 'cannot load any files nor call functions'?
>>
>> No, because "calls" refers to 'evaluation", which is singular, not
>> plural.
>
> The clause beginning with "nor" is a complement of "can", so the verb
> must be a bare infinitive, i.e. "call" and not "to call", but also not
> "calls", since that's not an infinitive form.  If you find "nor call
> functions" hard to parse, the more explicit "nor can it call functions"
> is an alternative.

After seeing your new rewording, I see that my "more explicit"
alternative phrasing is not good in the full sentence, which I didn't
see when I responded (a correct alternative is "nor that it can
call...", which sound somewhat stilted, or simply (and better) "and
cannot call...").  (Your new rewording is fine, though I think "neither
loads any files nor calls functions like..." might be understood to
imply nothing else is excluded from evaluation, while with "does not
load any files or call functions like..." that implication seems
weaker.)

Steve Berman