[SkyMarshal]

Does emacs have a consistent grammar like this?

I use vim, but have been interested in learning emacs too. However, every time I startup the emacs tutorial, I immediately start missing the vim's semantic grammar.

Have I just not gotten far enough into emacs to discover that yet?

[silentbicycle]

Not as such, though many commands can be prefixed by a "universal argument" count; "C-u 5 C-n" means "move forward 5 lines", just like "5j" does in vi.

In Emacs terminology, many vi commands can be followed by a movement command, in which case they act on the region from the current point to where the movement ends up. Instead of saying "dw" (delete forward-word), you'd use something like "C-space (mark position) M-f (forward-word) C-w (kill-region, AKA 'cut'). There are many semantic movement commands, acting on the space travelled just isn't automatic.