[tei-council] the "key" attribute

[Sebastian Rahtz]

Lou Burnard wrote:
> How do we feel about pos tagging? At present the Guiidelines say you 
> have to do things like
> <w ana="#NOUN">bum</w>
>
> and point off stage to some definition for noun (an <interp> or a <fs> 
> or something).
>
> But why shouldn't I do
>
> <w key="NOUN">bum</w>
>
> meaning "Everyone knows what a NOUN is, but if you insist on finding 
> out use this magic string 'NOUN' and some mechanism external to this 
> document will enlighten you"
If <name target="#Napoleon">Boney</name> is right, I assume your example 
should be <w target="#NOUN"> by
the same argument.

It is a slippery (and seductive) slope if we appear to let ID/IDREF back 
in, which is what
will happen if we allow key="NOUN", cos people will use it to point to 
that <interp>,
instead of "the universe".

I am fairly sure we should switch all the @keys on objects to @target 
forthwith,
and then consider separately whether to allow @key back in.


-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      

Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
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