two questions about standard-class

[Sonya E. Keene <skeene@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

A class is considered initialized if its direct superclasses are known.
I don't understand this; how can a class be defined without stating what
its direct superclasses are?   

I was also confused about class-default-direct-superclasses.    I
understand what it is supposed to do (the method for standard-class
ensures that standard-object is included in the CPL).   The
documentation (page 3-14 on my draft) says if there are any supplied
superclasses, this method returns the list of supplied superclasses and
doesn't add standard-object to that list.    If there are no supplied
superclasses, this method returns a list containing standard object.

The goal of this approach seems to be not to require standard-object to
be a direct superclass of each class (otherwise the method would always
add standard-object to the list).   The assumption seems to be that if
there is a supplied superclass, it already has standard-object in its
CPL.  Does this really work?   What if you define a class and specify
T to be the only direct superclass?  

[Whatever the answer to the question, if I stated the goal of the
approach correctly, it should probably be written down in the
documentation.]