"True" BP grammars are transformational grammars allowing the production and parsing of strings representing musical sequences. The formalism of true grammars is the one implemented in Bol Processor BP1 (Bel 1990b:33-66) for the study of drum improvisation, plus "remote contexts" (§4.12 supra).

A grammar successfully compiled by BP2 is a true BP grammar only if using neither of the following features:

• Erasing rules;

• Polymetric expressions (§4.10) and associated features;

• Substitutions SUB and SUB1 (§4.14);

• Programmed grammars (flags) (Quickstart §11);

• Destroying structures (§4.5);

• Production procedures in rules (§8.1);

• Dynamic weight assignment (§4.6) or weights controlled interactively (QuickStart §6);

• Metagrammars (§4.13);

When compiling a grammar, BP2 checks whether or not it is a true BP grammar. Nothing will happen at the time items are produced, but BP2 will refuse to analyse (parse) items if the current grammar is not "true BP".

A true BP grammar may be used to perform a membership test on arbitrary strings in order to check whether or not it might have been produced by the grammar. However, there are limitations for the validity of this test. These limitations are discussed in great detail in (Kippen & Bel 1992). (Also see Bel & Kippen 1992). Note for instance that the rewrite symbol "-->" is improper in BP grammars and should be replaced with "<-->" meaning that the rule is valid for both production and analysis. Thus, symbols
"-->" and "<--" indicate that a rule is used exclusively in production or analysis, respectively. Other restrictions of BP grammars deal with the order of rules in each subgrammar. The parsing algorithm takes rules in the opposite order of their occurrence in the subgrammar. Therefore, the last candidate rule in each subgrammar is the one that will first be used repeatedly (until it is no more candidate). As a consequence, its right argument should not be a substring of the right argument of a rule appearing higher in the subgrammar. (This is called the chunk rule, informally: large patterns are recognised first. )

To activate parsing, first generate templates ("Action" menu) and then select an item or a set of items in any text window. Select "Analyze" in the "Action" menu (or type cmd-j). BP2 will parse all items and return the resulting strings, whenever unsuccessful, in the "Trace" window.

If parsing was unsuccessful it may be important to see at what stage of the analysis an incorrect workstring was produced. Use "Step by step" and restart the analysis on this particular item. The "Repeat computation" button is inactive because parsing is deterministic.