&gt; + means addition in general conversation, that&#x27;s basic math and English skills.
&gt;
&gt; That it&#x27;s integer addition is obvious from context, because we&#x27;re adding 1 to INT_MAX.<p>Well ... yeah, &quot;+&quot; usually means addition, sure. But there are so many types of addition that that&#x27;s not really specific enough for a language definition. And adding 1 to INT_MAX? Well, you could interpret &quot;INT_MAX&quot; to indicate C code, and thus &quot;+&quot; to be C&#x27;s addition operator. In which case, it&#x27;s not integer addition, at least not the kind that basic math and English skills would suggest: Adding two positive integers is always defined (and also never gives a value lower than either of the two operands), very much unlike &quot;+&quot; for &quot;int&quot;s in C.<p>&gt; There are architectures with normal integer add instructions that do not have twos-complement behavior. I&#x27;m just not aware of any such instructions on x86. Can you name one?<p>Sure, PADDSW, for example. At least if I understand your &quot;twos complement&quot; requirement correctly to mean a specific wraparound behaviour. Or, if you want to count that, DAA and AAA.