[tei-council] Proposal <idno> coverage -SF 2493417

Lou Burnard lou.burnard at oucs.ox.ac.uk
Wed Jan 21 17:11:34 EST 2009


Peter Boot wrote:
>This does not involve, as Syd wrote on the TEI in Libraries 
> mailing list 
> (https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?A2=ind0901B&L=TEILIB-L&T=0&F=&S=&P=2774), 
> a ‘semantic shift’: <idno> would have the same meaning it always had, it 
> would just be applied to new elements.

That is *precisely* what I would consider to be a semantic shift!
We have an element called "persName" which has the semantics of "name 
applied to a person". If we redefine it to mean "name applied to a 
vegetable", it's still a name, but its semantics have changed.

Similarly the current meaning of <idno> is that it's "an identifier for 
a bibliographic item". Authors are not bibliographic items. They do not 
(usually) sit around on shelves, and you cannot ask for a copy of one! 
By all means let's expand its semantics to include authors (etc), if we 
want to do that, but let's not pretend we're not making a major change 
in the meaning of this element.




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