[mamcx]

> I'm struggling to come up with a case where removing SELECT results in parsing ambiguity.

Oh! Is super-ambiguous! Make the parser and enjoy it!

Lets make this more concrete:

     city SELECT id
     city ORDER id
     city id <-- Order or select???

You could then "favor" projection as the most important than the others. Ok, so:

     city city city

Which is the table, or the field?

[tadfisher]

I didn't suggest removing ORDER or FROM. This still makes sense:

    id FROM city ORDER BY id

A plus is that sub-selects have more natural, expression-like syntax:

    id FROM (city WHERE elevation > 1000)

[jodrellblank]

How do you know if you are SELECTing or DELETEing?