[tei-council] FR 3106829 on <quote> and <floatingText>

Sun Apr 17 17:50:10 EDT 2011

I also like Kevin's paragraph, and, Martin (Mueller) -- I'm not sure
about the point you were making about <floatingText>: in two messages,
you mentioned "emanating from somewhere" as being the necessary
condition for that element (<floatingText>), whereas it was supposed to
be such a condition for <quote>, *not* for <floatingText>. Either there
was a nuance in what you wrote that I failed to catch, in which case I
apologise for bringing this up, or in your perception of the proposed
change, the condition for <quote> shifted to <floatingText>, and that
was possibly at least a partial reason why you weren't absolutely happy
with this passage.

 (?)

  P.

On 17.04.2011 20:21, Martin Holmes wrote:
> I vote a hearty yes to Kevin's paragraph below.
> 
> I really think that getting any deeper into the "meaning" of 
> floatingText will take us further from consensus; there's endless scope 
> for disagreement, and we'll never satisfy everyone's intuitive sense of 
> what it ought to represent.
> 
> Cheers,
> Martin
> 
> On 11-04-17 09:21 AM, Kevin Hawkins wrote:
>> Perhaps we could compromise on this?
>>
>> It is important to distinguish the use of<floatingText>  and<quote>.
>> Whereas the semantics of<quote>  imply that its content emanates from
>> somewhere external to the current text,<floatingText>  does not imply
>> this. The<floatingText>  element is simply used whenever the richer
>> content model it provides is required to support mark up of a text or
>> part of a text which is presented as a discrete inclusion within the
>> text. Such an inclusion might resemble an enclosure or an attachment in
>> the source document or an embedded story within a framing narrative, or
>> it might simply appear as an explicit quotation. Hence the two elements
>> may be used in combination: a<floatingText>  may appear within a<quote>
>> (when a text wich rich internal structure is quoted at length), and
>> <floatingText>  may also include one or more<quote>  elements as part of
>> its own structure, just like any text.
>>
>> On 4/17/2011 10:55 AM, Laurent Romary wrote:
>>> I tend to agree with this. floatingText are sub-texts whose internal structure does not match that of the encompassing document. Call it syntaxic or not, I think we need to reflect this specificity without trying to make too much meaning of it.
>>> .
>>> Le 17 avr. 2011 à 16:09, Martin Mueller a écrit :
>>>
>>>> I am not sure whether this language really resolves the issues. How
>>>> floatingText relates to quote is one issue. But the deeper issue may be
>>>> when and whether to use floatingText in the first place. Is it a necessary
>>>> condition for floatingText that it "emanates from somewhere external to
>>>> the current text text" and what does "external" mean?
>>>>
>>>> Martin Holmes sidestepped the issue of "external" by saying that it was a
>>>> purely syntactic matter. Paul Schaffner in private correspondence talked
>>>> about "raisins in the oatmeal." Thus floatingText functions like the skin
>>>> of a raisin. Use it whenever you come across a raisin-like thing in your
>>>> text.
>>>>
>>>> Defining floatingText in such purely formal a manner suited me fine
>>>> because it solves a problem of encoding recurring patterns in
>>>> libretto-like texts, but I confessed to a "lingering sense" that this was
>>>> not quite right. I was comforted by Kevin's reassurance that nobody else
>>>> shared this lingering sense. But Lou seems to share it when he says that
>>>> "I don't like the implication that we cleanly distinguish 'semantic' and
>>>> 'syntactic' elements.
>>>>
>>>> Lou's revision postulates 'discrete inclusion' as a necessary condition
>>>> and the cited examples confirm that floatingText is something that comes
>>>> from the outside. If that is right, what do you do with textual "raisins"
>>>> that are not like enclosures or attachments but have a "rich internal
>>>> structure" that is not easily modeled within existing element rules?
>>>>
>>>> Let me return for a moment to an exchange from last October where I raised
>>>> the question how to encode something like the following, which is very
>>>> common in comic opera texts of the 18th century
>>>>
>>>> (Dialogue, unmarked)
>>>> A : I love you
>>>> B: I love you too
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Duet (with title and typographical changes to mark its special staus)
>>>> A: I will love you forever
>>>> B: I will cherish you forever
>>>> AB: We will love and cherish each other forever
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (Dialogue, unmarked)
>>>> A: Let's get married
>>>> B: Tomorrow
>>>>
>>>> Here the dialogue is the "oatmeal" and the duet is the "raisin." I
>>>> suggested three possible encodings, all of which parse:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1. Turning the dialogue and duet sections into distinct div children to
>>>> get a fully tesselated structure
>>>> 2. Using floatingText to encode the duet
>>>> 3. Using<q type="duet">   with some combination of<sp>   and<lg>   and
>>>> possibly<label>
>>>>
>>>> Lou said that using q was tag abuse and that the duet wasn't really a
>>>> separate text. I agree with both of these judgments. Lou then made a
>>>> proposal for a "speechgroup" element, which has languished so far on
>>>> SourceForge.  It provides a particular solution for a particular kind of
>>>> raisin, but it does not offer a general solution for the recurring
>>>> phenomenon of bits of text that that have a 'rich internal structure' but
>>>> do not come from the outside.
>>>>
>>>> Putting the definitions of q and floatingText next to each other
>>>> highlights some aspects of that problem. What is the difference between
>>>> floatingText, which "contains a single text of any kind, whether unitary
>>>> or composite, which interrupts the text containing it at any point and
>>>> after which the surrounding text resumes"  and q, which "contains material
>>>> which is marked as (ostensibly) being somehow different than the
>>>> surrounding text for any one of a variety of reason including but not
>>>> limit to direct speech."
>>>>
>>>> Coming back to my musical numbers problem, you can model them as either q
>>>> or floatingText in ways that quite accurately represent the structure of
>>>> the particular "raisins." But neither feels quite right, and my sense is
>>>> that there areas of textual articulation or "set-offness" that are not
>>>> well served by the current elements and their rules.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 4/16/11 8:13 PM, "Kevin Hawkins"<kevin.s.hawkins at ultraslavonic.info>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This is good, but I think "or appear within  an explicit quotation"
>>>>> should be "or simply appear as an explicit quotation".  I've posted my
>>>>> slightly revised version in the ticket in SF.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think if there are no further objections, this is ready for
>>>>> implementation!
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4/15/11 3:37 PM, Lou Burnard wrote:
>>>>>> I don't like the implication that we cleanly distinguish "semantic" and
>>>>>> "syntactic" elements. All elements are both in some sense. So here's my
>>>>>> revision...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The semantics of<quote>    imply that its content emanates from somewhere
>>>>>> external to the current text. The<floatingText>    element, on the other
>>>>>> hand, is used whenever the richer content model it provides is required
>>>>>> to support mark up of a  document or part of a document which is
>>>>>> presented as a discrete inclusion within the text. Such an inclusion
>>>>>> might resemble an enclosure or an attachment, or an embedded story
>>>>>> within a framing narrative, or appear within  an explicit quotation.
>>>>>> Hence the two elements may be used in combination: a<floatingText>    may
>>>>>> appear within a<quote>, and may also of course include a<quote>    as
>>>>>> part of its own structure.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12/04/11 14:29, Kevin Hawkins wrote:
>>>>>>> I've done some further revisions, so this is the latest version of the
>>>>>>> proposal for how to handle feature request 3106829.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ###
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Replace:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The floatingText element should only be used for complete texts which
>>>>>>> form a part of the text being encoded. Where a character in one
>>>>>>> narrative quotes from some other text or narrative, fully or in part,
>>>>>>> the quote element discussed in 3.3.3 Quotation should be used instead.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> with:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is important to distinguish the use of<floatingText>     and<quote>.
>>>>>>> <quote>     is a semantic element for a passage attributed to an external
>>>>>>> agent, whereas<floatingText>     is a syntactic element and is used to
>>>>>>> provide rich internal structure for a text or part of a text which is
>>>>>>> included within the main text, such as an enclosure or attachment or
>>>>>>> simply a story within a frame narrative.  These elements may be used in
>>>>>>> combination. In the case of an extended quotation,<floatingText>     may
>>>>>>> be
>>>>>>> used as a child of<quote>.  On the other hand, there may be cases where
>>>>>>> a<floatingText>     includes one or more<quote>     elements as part of its
>>>>>>> structure.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If there are no further comments in the next week, I can add this as a
>>>>>>> comment on the ticket.