Forget the Bash man page (just temporarily, that is) and read this:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3...

The POSIX specification of the Shell Command Language.

Also, don't overlook that there is a GNU Info manual for Bash, not just the manual page:

https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.htm...