[tei-council] multiple lem in TEI

Wed Jun 12 07:20:41 EDT 2013

You're right about reg of course; I wasn't thinking clearly.

Re your first objection, though: I don't think this is a problem because 
I still don't think that the role <lem> plays is strictly to indicate 
the regular spelling: rather it indicates the edition's preferred 
reading (which may be "the spelling I think the author actually used" 
not "the one she *should have* used").

I do see however that the lem within all rdgGrps is neat, if we made it 
clear that the preferred reading is not just "the lem in this app", but 
"the lem that is either a direct child of the app or the child of a 
lemGrp". (I'm not sure how much I like inventing a new element to solve 
this problem rather than typing the rdgs, but it would be more 
consistent/neat. And much better than nesting another app inside a lem, 
which is how I've seen other people handle this.)

G

On 2013-06-12 12:06, Marjorie Burghart wrote:
> Yes, maybe we should:
> - authorize only 1 lem within only one rdgGrp in an app
> - use sthg else than lem in other rdgGrp to indicate the regular spelling
> But... in this case
> - we would use a different mechanism (lem in the 1sr rdgGrp, sthg else
> in others) to express the same thing
> - I would not use reg to note the preferred spelling in a rdgGrp, since
> it would mean that this form has been regularized by the editor, instead
> of being borne by a witness
>
>
> On Wednesday, 12 June 2013, Gabriel Bodard <gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk
> <mailto:gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk>> wrote:
>  > That's fair enough, yes. I can't help but think, though, that that's
> not the real distinction between lem and rdg though, is it? (At least,
> obviously that *may* be the rationale for preferring one reading over
> another, but it may just as well not be.) The lem may be preferred by
> the principle of lectio dificilior, for example, rather than being a
> "better" reading.
>  >
>  > If we want to make the distinction between regularised and less
> regular readings, mightn't we either type the rdgs, or embed reg/orig
> within them?
>  >
>  > G
>  >
>  > On 2013-06-12 10:50, Marjorie Burghart wrote:
>  >>
>  >> Hi Gabriel!
>  >> Your example is less confusing indeed, and it would work to build a
>  >> "main text". But it still lacks a mechanism if you want to express that,
>  >> within each or some groups of readings, one of them is to be considered
>  >> the standard, regular spelling and the others are subvariants.
>  >> Cheers, Marjorie
>  >>
>  >>
>  >> On 12 June 2013 11:36, Gabriel Bodard <gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk
> <mailto:gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk>
>  >> <mailto:gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk <mailto:gabriel.bodard at kcl.ac.uk>>>
> wrote:
>  >>
>  >>     lemGrp is not a terrible idea, as unintuitive as it may sound. On
>  >>     the other hand, if Marjorie is right about what the example in the
>  >>     GLs means, then shouldn't it perhaps be something like:
>  >>
>  >>     <app>
>  >>        <rdgGrp>
>  >>          <lem/>
>  >>          <rdg/>
>  >>        </rdgGrp>
>  >>        <rdgGrp>
>  >>          <rdg/>
>  >>          <rdg/>
>  >>        </rdgGrp>
>  >>        <rdgGrp>
>  >>          <rdg/>
>  >>          <rdg/>
>  >>        </rdgGrp>
>  >>     </app>
>  >>
>  >>     so that there is one "preferred" reading for someone who wants to
>  >>     generate a "good text" from this, and all of the variants are still
>  >>     available to someone wanting to generate a dynamic view of all the
>  >>     witnesses? The schematron rule would therefore stand...
>  >>
>  >>     G
>  >>
>  >>     On 2013-06-12 09:20, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>  >>
>  >>
>  >>         Marjorie has sent a helpful discussion of the invalid example,
>  >>         but it confuses me even further about which way we should go
>  >>         with this.
>  >>
>  >>         More input needed: is the example or the constraint wrong?
>  >>
>  >>         Begin forwarded message:
>  >>
>  >>         From: Marjorie Burghart <marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr
> <mailto:marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr>
>  >>         <mailto:marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr
> <mailto:marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr>><__mailto:marjorie.burghart@
> <mailto:marjorie.burghart@>__ehess.fr <http://ehess.fr>
>  >>         <mailto:marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr
> <mailto:marjorie.burghart at ehess.fr>>>>
>  >>
>  >>
>  >>         It's indeed an awkward example... If I understand correctly, its
>  >>         problem is not so much that it has several <lem> as that it does
>  >>         NOT really have one.
>  >>         If you look at the example above the last one, you see that
>  >>         "Experience" is the lemma, and "Experiment" and "Eryment" are
>  >>         rejected readings - which is very fine: one and only one lemma,
>  >>         1 or more readings.
>  >>         The last example, as I understand it, expands on the previous
>  >>         one: it notes orthographic variants in <rdg>s, grouped with the
>  >>         main word they are subvariants in <rdgGrp>s. As a side note, in
>  >>         the area of philology with which I am familiar (Latin language,
>  >>         "literary" religious texts) minor orthographic variants are not
>  >>         considered significant in the history of the transmission of the
>  >>         text, and most philologists do not bother with them (they just
>  >>         announce in the introduction a list of words that have been
>  >>         given a standard spelling, usually). It is quite different
>  >>         though with people editing vernacular texts, so it all depends.
>  >>         But noting the orthographic variants can of course be useful if
>  >>         you are preparing an edition with links to digital facsimile of
>  >>         the witnesses.
>  >>         In this case, <rdgGrp> comes in handy, but it seems that <lem>
>  >>         has a different meaning within a rdgGrp: apparently it does not
>  >>         mean that this is the reading of choice to retain in the main
>  >>         text, but the canonical spelling of the word. Therefore, in the
>  >>         last example, I do NOT see any real lemma, and I would be really
>  >>         bothered if I had to build a "main text". There should be
>  >>         something somewhere to note that the first <rdgGrp> containing
>  >>         "Experience" and its minor orthographic variants IS the actual
>  >>         lemma of this <app>.
>  >>
>  >>         Should there be a <lemGrp> then? :)
>  >>

-- 
Dr Gabriel BODARD
Researcher in Digital Epigraphy

Digital Humanities
King's College London
Boris Karloff Building
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London WC2B 5RL

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