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

Sun Apr 17 19:40:38 EDT 2011

My point was that the examples suggest a narrower range for <floatingText>
than the formal definition. That is true of "enclosure," "attachment" or
"embedded story." Many users will pay more attention to the examples than
to the definition. So if we want to suggest that "coming from the outside"
is not a necessary condition of <floatingText>, there should be at least
one example  of <floatingText> that clearly does not come from the
outside, emanates from somewhere else, or whatever other phrase has been
used.

To use Laurent's language, I'm quite happy with the notion that
floatingText is the appropriate element for  "subtexts that whose internal
structure not match that of the encompassing document," "raisins in the
oatmeal" as Paul Schaffner calls it. But given that definition we
shouldn't muddy the water with a list of examples all of which are
"external" in one way or another. In order to make that point crystal
clear I'd suggest one further revision of the paragraph and say something
like:

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 presented as a discrete inclusion within the text. Such an
"inclusion" might consist of a text that is perceived as external to the
document, such as a letter, enclosure, or attachment. But it might equally
well
be the text of a "musical number" that is clearly set off from its
surrounding text in
the libretto of an opera but is equally clearly not perceived as external
to the document. 

On 4/17/11 4:50 PM, "Piotr Ba¨½ski" <bansp at o2.pl> wrote:

>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 ¨¤ 16:09, Martin Mueller a ¨¦crit :
>>>>
>>>>> 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.
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