[tei-council] certainty revised

[Lou Burnard]

Martin Holmes wrote:
> Here's my couple of cents on the first part -- I haven't had time to get 
> through it all yet:
>   
Hope you havent been too dispirited to continue...
> ---------------------
>
> QUOTE:
>
> [one]
> the note element defined in section 3.8 Notes, Annotation, and Indexing 
> may be used with a value of certainty for its type  attribute.
>
> [two (example)]
> <persName>Elizabeth</persName> went to <placeName>Essex</placeName>. She 
> had always liked <placeName>Essex</placeName>.
> <note type="uncertainty" resp="#MSM">It is not
> clear here whether <mentioned>Essex</mentioned>
> refers to the place or to the nobleman. -MSM</note>
>
> COMMENT:
>
> The text says type="certainty", the example shows type="uncertainty".
>   

Well spotted. Fixed.

> ---------------------
>
> QUOTE:
>
> @match  	supplies an arbitrary XPath expression identifying a set of 
> nodes, selected within the context identified by the target attribute if 
> this is supplied, or by the parent element if it is not.
>
> COMMENT:
>
> This was at the heart of the previous discussion, and for me it's still 
> not absolutely clear at this point in the text. The parent element of 
> what? Later we learn that it's the parent of the <certainty>, 
> <precision> or <respons> element bearing the @match attribute, but I 
> think it would help to specify it here.
>
> ---------------------
>
>   

Um yes. "by the context of the element bearing the attribute, i.e. its 
parent" .
I think.



> QUOTE:
>
> [one]
> The certainty element is designed to encode the following sorts:
> [...]
>      * the content of an element is uncertain, perhaps because it is 
> hard to read or hard to hear, or for some other reason.
>
> [two (just below)]
> The following types of uncertainty are not indicated with the certainty 
> element:
> [...]
>      * the document being transcribed may be read in different ways (for 
> this use the transcriptional elements such as unclear, discussed in 
> chapter 11 Representation of Primary Sources)
>
> COMMENT:
>
> These seem in direct contradiction: the first is saying "use <certainty> 
> where the text is uncertain because it's hard to read", and the second 
> is saying "don't use <certainty where the text may be read in different 
> ways because it's unclear". If this isn't a contradiction, then I think 
> it needs more detailed explanation.
>
> ---------------------
>
>   

There is a problem here, certainly :-) . I think the first means "use 
certainty when you don't know what the unknowns are" and the second 
means "you know what the unknowns are but you dont know which you want", 
and will try to rephrase accordingly. But it's a rather nebulous 
distinction... and maybe in fact we should do better to be honest and 
say we have two rather different mechanisms and you can choose whichever 
you like.



> QUOTE:
>
> locus  	indicates more exactly the aspect concerning which uncertainty 
> is being expressed: for example, whether the markup is correctly 
> located, whether the right element or attribute name has been used, 
> whether the content of the element or attribute is correct, etc.
>
> COMMENT:
>
> Since @locus is constrained to one of five fixed values (according to 
> <http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-certainty.html>, 
> I think it would be best to specify that here. As it reads now, you 
> might get the impression that anything goes.
>
>
>   

Good point. Will adapt accordingly.

> Hope this helps,
>   

Very much so.

tx