pattern-matching in LISP?

I noticed that in the functional language ML there is a way to break a
function's input into various forms in the function header.
For instance:
split(a::b::c) (where :: is ML's equivalent of cons)
This also allows an interesting kind of function overloading where you can
contain several function definitions in a single declaration, each keyed by
the format of the input.
I attempted to do something similar in LISP, using:
defun ( split (cons A B) )

But it didn't appear to work. Does LISP have pattern-matching capabilities
as well?
I'd be sad if it didn't, because I like LISP a lot more than ML. :)


-==Kensu==-
.

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