[tei-council] FR 2862151: allow certainty in gap and space

[James Cummings]

O'Donnell, Dan wrote:
> As always, I would ask whether there is a generalisable principle or 
> process here? Are we actually rethinking the semantics of glossLike? 

No, I think the semantics are the same... the members of model.glossLike 
all in some way describe or further refine our knowledge about the 
element that contains them. Providing it on <graphic/> and similar 
elements would only mean that we're able to describe that element (which 
is suitable enough for the use case I think).

What I didn't realise was that gloss is both a member of model.emphLike 
and model.glossLike ... some places get gloss not from model.glossLike 
but from model.limitedPhrase <- model.emphLike.  Maybe we should look 
again and see if the other model.glossLike members make sense wherever 
gloss is allowed?

> What other parallel situations are there?

That might want <desc>: span? anchor? graphic? cb/lb/pb/milestone? 
addSpan/damageSpan/delSpan? ptr? pause? caesura? etc. etc.(random 
sample) Basically, if one can argue that you might have a need to 
describe the element, or its certainty/precision, then many empty 
elements could be lacking model.glossLike.

<graphic/> is a clear and demonstrable use-case.  It is good practice to 
include alt text on your graphics when transformed to XHTML, and 
currently the TEI does not provide a convenient way to do this. (Because 
not all graphics are figures.)

> P.S. You're not allowed to characterise your own tickets as sensible  ;) 

I'm allowed to do whatever I want... now you might not *believe* me. ;-) 
  It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek comment.

-James

-- 
Dr James Cummings, Research Technology Service
Oxford University Computing Services
University of Oxford