Most analyses focus on ambiguity/inconsistency of ,/and with other ways to read the same sentence, but I've found it interesting to focus merely on the grammar

Most analyses focus on ambiguity/inconsistency of ,/and with other ways to read the same sentence, but I've found it interesting to focus merely on the grammar of serial lists alone: b and c // binary operator a and b and c // associativity a, b and c // abbreviation of the first 'and' a, b, and c // thus, the ", and" is arguably redundant Starting with 'and' as a binary conjunction, the above have a sort of notational consistency in that the Oxford comma would be redundant. a, b, c // comma-separated list a, b, and c // the additional 'and' functioning as a kind of terminator/sentinel symbol, it is intentionally redundant. But starting with ',' to denote a proper sequence, the 'and' becomes redundant. It's not that redundancy is bad (redundancy can improve robustness against errors). But the above shows that even ignoring what a/b/c are children or cats or partial clauses, there are some interesting language questions to wonder about. Now I'm imagining flipping the lists around: a, and b, c, d, ... a and b, c, d, ... I find this curious..