Markup: footnotes and apparatus, cont. (129)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Tue, 7 Mar 89 19:22:13 EST
Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 685. Tuesday, 7 Mar 1989.
(1) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 89 21:22:07 EST (36 lines)
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: Markup: footnotes and apparatus (238)
(2) Date: Monday, 6 March 1989 2104-EST (73 lines)
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: Textual Variants
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 89 21:22:07 EST
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: Markup: footnotes and apparatus (238)
Michael Sperberg-McQueen has obviously put a lot of thought
into what was launched originally as a response from a query
from one of my colleagues in classics. It turns out, in fact,
that he has a new TLG tape that he wants to read, essentially
separating text and apparatus into two separate files. I do
not know enough about either TLG or UNIX capabilities to advise
him.
But returning to the SGML schema outlined by Michael, as a mythical
end user, I want to be able to search and analyze (1) text alone
(2) apparatus alone (3) both together (4) any given MS or edition.
I think that in the long run we have to look at hypertext editions
as the real solution, where at any point in the text we can move
into any of the MSS or editions which either underlie or parallel
the text at that point. No symbols are necessary in the text,
although there obviously has to be some mechanism to keep the
text and witnesses in sync. Then one can add in editorial
notes, source notes, etc., which could in fact be marked by
the nestle symbol. And at the same time this could all be
keyed to a standard dictionary of the language.
I don't know enough about the Dartmouth Dante project to
say whether all these features are available, but it seems
to me that it would probably serve as a point of departure.
Charles B. Faulhaber
Department of Spanish
UC Berkeley CA 94720
bitnet: ked@ucbgarne
internet: cbf@faulhaber.berkeley.edu
telephone: (415) 642-2107
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------76----
Date: Monday, 6 March 1989 2104-EST
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: Textual Variants
How to handle author's footnotes (usually supplementary
materials applicable to a definite and unique textual
location) electronically may well require widely different
treatment from textcritical matters -- especially where
the latter abound. At CCAT, we have had a lot of experience
with floods of overlapping textual variants in our quest
to encode the textual apparatuses to the Old Greek Bible.
In the approach we are using, here is how Michael Sperberg
McQueen's short example would appear (more or less):
~a"poem"b"214"c"[abbrev]"y1
I
taste
a
liquor
never
brewed
--]
: , SDR
~y2
From
Tankards]
: tankards SDR
scooped
in
Pearl]
: pearl SDR
--]
: ; SDR
~y3
Not
all] > SDR
the] > SDR
Frankfort]
: Vats ms-alt
+ upon ms-alt
+ the ms-alt
Berries]
: berries SDR
: Rhine ms-alt
+ yield ~SDR
+ the
+ sense
~y4
Yield] > ~SDR
such]
: Such SDR
an]
: a SDR
Alcohol]
: delerious SDR
+ whirl SDR
!]
: . SDR
>From such a base, we feel that we can recapture, reshape,
organize, represent, etc., the significant information, and
can even browse the text in place without too much
interference. The symbols will be mostly obvious --
+ for plusses, > for minuses, : for substitutions, and ~ to
warn that something transpositional is happening. Variants
within variants can also be managed (with occasional problems)
in similar ways. Although the flow of variant units is often
broken in artificial ways (e.g. "Vats upon the Rhine"), it
can usually be restored fairly easily by scanning the
alternatives offered. What it would look like in SGML tagging
may be more forboding....
Bob Kraft (CCAT)