Bareword rules?

cheekuperl has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi monks,
Are there any rules for bareword to string conversion? I am perplexed to see different behaviors as below:

$ perl -e 'print cat'   # Doesn't print anything. But 1 bareword is OK
$ perl -e 'print cat dog' #Doesnt like two barewords
Can't locate object method "cat" via package "dog" at -e line 1.
$ perl -e 'print reverse cat' #Prints cat. OK with one again.
cat$ perl -e 'print reverse cat dog' # Still hates two
Can't locate object method "cat" via package "dog" at -e line 1.
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