Mistakes and Ambiguities in the Deenition of Standard Ml Structure of the Paper

The Deenition of Standard ML contains several errors and ambiguities. Some of them have already been published in the Commentary on Standard ML, but the list given there is incomplete. The paper lists all errors known to me today, including the errors listed in the Commentary. On most of the others I came across when writing the semantics of Extended ML. Most errors are supplied with an explanation \what goes wrong" and with a suggested correction. I understand \error" in a very broad sense | ranging from typos to serious aws in the rules. Some of the problems I mention are originated by a certain tension between formal deenitions and informal explanations , e.g. overloading is informally explained though impossible in the given formal setting. Some parts of the paper are diicult to understand without prior knowledge of the Deenition and the Commentary, because I rely on the notation and jargon introduced in these books. However, the nature of this paper has it that the various sections do not depend on each other, making it possible for somebody not familiar with the entrails of SML to read the less technical sections on their own. I have divided the errors into the classes \Errors Listed in the Commentary" and \Further Errors". This is by no means a conceptual distinction. It simply gives a quicker answer to the question \What's new?" for the lucky owners of the Commentary. Here and in the following, the \Deenition" always refers to MTH90], the \Commentary" to MT91]. Within the two parts, the errors are listed in the same order as they appear in the Deenition. References of the form \line-n" refer to the nth line from the bottom of the corresponding page or section.