Parsing order for matrices

[Daniel J Sebald]

In trying to observe the 
whitespace-between-function-name-and-parenthesis I noticed the following 
behavior:

octave:27> zeros (1, 10)
ans =

   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0

octave:28> [zeros (1, 10)]
parse error:

  syntax error

> > > [zeros (1, 10)]
               ^

octave:28> [zeros(1, 10)]
ans =

   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0

Is it correct that the second case should be invalid and syntax error? 
I'm guessing that the parsing of the whole matrix comes before parsing 
of the elements, i.e., on the first pass Octave thinks the second case 
is ["zeros" "(1, 10)"].  Notice that Octave never gets to the stage of 
evaluating "zeros" otherwise that too would have been a syntax error.

It seems to me that the algorithm could be altered slightly to evaluate 
an individual element before proceeding to the next element.  I can't 
think of any ambiguity off hand.

Dan