[tei-council] TEI by example

[Paul F. Schaffner]

I do not know how this kind of thing can be avoided,
but it should at least be noted how much more powerful
examples can be than definitions, and therefore how
important to practice.

One of the more frustrating obstacles facing someone
contemplating conversion of existing documents from
P3/P4 to P5 lies not in explicit changes to the scheme
but in the substitution of one example for another in the
documentation, when the two examples point to
diametrically opposed semantics and wholly diverse practices.
It is difficult in such cases to judge whether the change
is a deliberate change in semantics or simply reflects
the (perhaps idiosyncratic) practice of the contributor
who supplied the new example, without necessarily excluding
the understanding expressed in the previous example.

For instance, though the definition of <signed> has
not changed appreciably (maybe at all) from P3 to P5,
the P3/P4 guidelines included this example:

<signed>Thine to command <name>Humph. Moseley</name></signed>

but the P5 guidelines this (contradictory) one:

<salute>Yours more than my own,</salute>
<signed>Clarissa Harlowe</signed>

The P3 example makes sense to me. It tells me to include
within <signed> all the phrases descriptive of, or placed
in apposition to, the signatory, hence

<signed>Roger Smith, Mayor of London</signed>
<signed>Your best friend, Roger Smith</signed>
<signed>A worm among men, but your friend, R.S.</signed>

It treats "R.S., thine forever" and "R.S., editor for life"
the same.

We have tagged a few hundred thousand signatures
following this rule.

The P5 example, on the other hand, tells me that
"your best friend" belongs in <salute>, as
perhaps does "(but) your friend", but "Mayor of
London" and perhaps "a worm among men" belong
in <signed>, without telling me what the principled
difference is between them.

At this point I do not know whether our practice
(extrapolated advisedly from the P3 example) is
wrong, or (if it is) what principle to apply in
divvying up such phrases between <salute> and <signed>
in future. Or is the P5 example itself wrong?

pfs
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Paul Schaffner | PFSchaffner at umich.edu | http://www.umich.edu/~pfs/
316-C Hatcher Library N, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1205
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