19.268 many taxonomies

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 268.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
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   [1] From: Pat Galloway <galloway_at_ischool.utexas.edu> (4)
         Subject: Re: 19.249 many taxonomies

   [2] From: Dino Buzzetti <buzzetti_at_philo.unibo.it> (43)
         Subject: Re: 19.252 many taxonomies

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 08:00:16 +0100
         From: Pat Galloway <galloway_at_ischool.utexas.edu>
         Subject: Re: 19.249 many taxonomies

It's markup all the way down.

Pat Galloway
School of Information
University of Texas at Austin

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 08:03:32 +0100
         From: Dino Buzzetti <buzzetti_at_philo.unibo.it>
         Subject: Re: 19.252 many taxonomies

About markup ambiguity, Ryan Deschamps observes:

> The confusing part is that it is a jeckyl-hyde sort of
>thing. It looks like text (and is therefore description) when
>viewed with one set of spectacles, and it is mere accent to language
>using another.

Precisely, one couldn't say it better. And yes indeed, I agree
that this fact won't
> matter to the average
>reader of internet text ,

but my concern was not so much about a human to *read* a digital
text, as about a machine to *process* it. And you won't have an
adequate text analysis tool unless you tackle this problem.
I must admit I share Willard's dream, when he says

>I know I am dreaming, but is this a dream worth attempting to implement?

So, as Willard goes on, "what tools" ? As to that, I agree also
with his surmise:

>I envision something like a cross between textual markup and
>relational database design -- i.e. something designed *from the
>get-go* for the functionality that would appear to lie between those
>two kinds.

As a good point to start, I would recommend a paper by Manfred
Thaller, "Text as a Datatype", at the ALLC-ACH'96 in Bergen--
apparently not yet accessible, as to now, at their website
          http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/allc-ach96.html .

I, personally, would see the problem as the following: how
to relate a structuring of the text's expression, achievable
through markup, to a structuring of its content, achievable
through a database--not necessarily a "relational" one? and
I am dreaming about a *dynamical* way of doing it.

I have tried to address this problem, although at a purely
conceptual level, in the following paper
    http://dobc.unipv.it/dipslamm/pubtel/Atti2000/dino_buzzetti.htm
which can be read also in English in _Augmenting Comprehension_,
Office for Humanities Communication Publications, no. 18, see
    http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/ohc/books.html .

But it's a long way to implementation...

Yours, -dino buzzetti

-- 
Dino Buzzetti                    <buzzetti_at_philo.unibo.it>
Department of Philosophy
University of Bologna             tel.    +39 051 209 8357
via Zamboni, 38                   fax             209 8355
I-40126 Bologna BO