Modifiers

Despite / Notwithstanding

These modifiers frequently appear at the start of clauses.

§10 Beer taxes. The retail sale of beer shall be taxed at 6%.

§11 Sunday beer. Notwithstanding §10, on Sundays, the retail sale of beer shall be taxed at 9%.

We consider these modifiers to indicate a priority relation that resolves a conflict between two clauses by establishing a partial ordering. They can also be understood as an exception vs default: the exception has higher priority.

Usually, the ordering between clauses (functions) is limited to a subset of possibilities (the domain). If the override were total then what would be the point of giving the default?

Subject To

Sometimes as simple as a priority relation, indicating exceptions to a default -- the dual to "despite / notwithstanding".

More comprehensively, a monadic function that transforms the inputs and outputs of one function by another.

See this discussion with Claude: https://claude.ai/share/d0c10a0d-9402-4bbc-bd83-0b1c0e5db42a

§20 Wine taxes. Subject to §21, the retail sale of wine shall be taxed at 12%.

§21 Sunday wine. Subject to §22, on Sundays, the retail tax rate of wine shall be increased by one-half of the existing rate. For example, a 10% rate shall increase to 15%.

§22 Public Holidays. On public holidays, the retail sale of wine shall be untaxed.

The eagle-eyed will spot a conflict between clauses: what about a public holiday that does not fall on a Sunday?

Should we consider this a drafting error? To be remedied with a "Subject to §21 and §22"?

Or should we invoke the interpretation rules:

• Lex posterior derogat priori

• Lex specialis derogat legi generali

Our monadic "subject to" operator could also modify the inputs to the inner function, and also wrap the outputs.

§30 Liquor taxes. Subject to §31 and §32, the retail sale of liquor shall be taxed at 18%.

§31 Sunday wine. Subject to §32, on Sundays, the retail tax rate of liquor shall be increased by one-third of the existing rate. For example, a 12% rate shall increase by 4% to 16%.

§32 Public Holidays. On public holidays, the retail sale of liquor shall be subject to a cap of $36. For example, if a purchase of liquor were priced at $300, and taxed at 18%, the cap would reduce the tax payable from $54 to $36.

This is a common function-wrapper pattern which a Haskell programmer will recognize as essentially monadic.

See this conversation for details: https://claude.ai/share/703d98b0-e339-47ee-9eb5-416c74d272de