Subtle cough

Subtle cough is an esoteric programming language by User:ihope127 that can be defined as Unlambda with c as its only function primitive. That is, the set of Subtle cough programs is the set of Unlambda programs which use only the characters ` and c, and the Subtle cough programs do the same thing as these Unlambda programs.

There are only three nonequivalent expressions (and thus programs):
 * c
 * The Unlambda primitive.


 * `cc
 * Evaluating this in any continuation ends up returning that continuation to itself. The expressions `c`cc and ``ccc both have the same effect.


 * ``cc`cc
 * Never terminates. Neither does any expression containing it.

It follows that ` acts essentially as a simple ternary logic operator:

This language clearly has too little computational power to be used for programming.

Calculation of operator table
We will evaluate the expressions using Unlambda meta-notation. `cc = `c(*) = `(*)(*) = (*). `c`cc = `c(`c*)  (from above) = `(`c*)(*) = `c(*) = `(*)(*) = (*). ``ccc = `(`*c)c = `cc = (*). ``cc`cc = `(`*`cc)`cc = `(`*`cc)(`(`*`cc)*) = `(`(`*`cc)*)`cc = `(`*`cc)`cc  (circular, because (`(`*`cc)*) = (`*`cc)). `c``cc`cc evaluates the ``cc`cc. ``cc``cc`cc = `(`*``cc`cc)``cc`cc, at which point ``cc`cc is evaluated. ```cc`cc``cc`cc evaluates the first ``cc`cc.