[tei-council] Rationale for tagsDecl/namespace requirement?

[David Sewell]

Sorry not to have noted this before, but I'd like to raise a question
about something in chapter 2 of the Guidelines (the TEI Header), in
section 2.3.4, "The Tagging Declaration":

    A TEI conformant document is not required to contain a tagsDecl
    element, but if one is present, it must contain tagUsage elements
    for each distinct element marked in the associated text...

Now, a *valid* tagsDecl doesn't need to contain any tagUsage elements,
as the content model of <tagsDecl> is

  element tagsDecl { att.global.attributes, ( rendition*, namespace* ) }

(in P5, <tagUsage> elements are now children of <namespace>).

But I submit that the following ought to be considered both valid and
TEI conformant:

   . . . [in teiHeader] . . .
   <tagsDecl>
      <rendition xml:id="bigbold" scheme="css">font-family: "Comic Sans MS";
         font-weight: bold; font-size: larger;</rendition>
   </tagsDecl>
   . . . [later, somewhere inside TEI/text] . . .
   <p>It was a <emph rendition="#bigbold">very</emph> fine day.</p>

Imagine a text, say a contemporary short story, where the author uses a
particular quirky typography on a regular basis, like the one described
by 'bigbold' above. In tagging this text, I want to be able to use
the new P5 global @rendition to point to my formal CSS description of
the typographic practice. But I don't see why I'm then obligated to
figure out all the elements I'm using in the tagging and construct
a <namespace> element with a <tagUsage> for each one, when all I want
is a rigorous and consistent way of describing a particular rendition.

I'd propose that the relevant Guidelines language on tagsDecl/namespace
change "must" to "may" where applicable so that a practice like the
above is not deprecated.

David

-- 
David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager
ROTUNDA, The University of Virginia Press
PO Box 801079, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4318 USA
Courier: 310 Old Ivy Way, Suite 302, Charlottesville VA 22903
Email: dsewell at virginia.edu   Tel: +1 434 924 9973
Web: http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/