Re: use cases for <space>

A. The defense of <gap/> is quadripartite:

(1) Expedience.

In our limited tag set of about 60 elements, it was
the only one even vaguely appropriate (we lack <space/> 
and at the time lacked even <seg>)

(2) Versatility

As an empty tag with all-purpose @desc and @reason
attributes, alongside the rendition elements, it
could be used for all the likely variants, e.g.

<gap reason="politeElision" rend="*****"/>
<gap reason="formBlank" rend="_____">
<gap reason="tbd" rend="    ">

(3) Practical processing. Since we already had a
decent process for rendering other sorts of gaps
(music, maths, non-latin alphabets) by means of
the character strings stored in the @rend attribute,
it was easy to use the same for this different kind
of gap.

(4) Perverse rationalization. One could perversely 
justify using <gap/> to capture *every* sort of textual
feature. Start out by declaring that you intend to
capture this text by capturing none of it, and then
class the various features by means of the @reason
or @desc attributes of <gap/>, like this:

<l>
<gap reason="word" desc="name" rend="Mary"/>
<gap reason="word" desc="verb" rend="had"/>
<gap reason="word" desc="article" rend="a"/>
<gap reason="word" desc="adjective" rend="little"/>
<gap reason="word" desc="noun" rend="lamb"/>
<gap reason="punctuation" desc="full_stop" rend=".">
</l>

B. More legitimate options include:


1. Capture as literals

    Robert _____
    I, _____ _____
    Mr. B***** of M*****
  
2. Do the same, but use <g> mechanism to define special characters

3. Do (1) or (2) but wrap in <seg> or some equivalent noncommittal
element.

    Robert <seg type="leftBlank">_____</seg>
    I, <seg type="formBlank">_____</seg> <seg
    type="formBlank">_____</seg>
    Mr B<seg type="politeElision">*****</seg> of M<seg
    type="politeElision">*****</seg>
  
4. Use <space> and move the literal rendition into one of the @rend-type
attributes e.g.

   Robert <space type="tbd" rend="_____"/>
   I, <space type="fillable" rend="_____"/> <space type="fillable"
   rend="_____"/>
   Mr B<space type="elision" subtype="polite" rend="*****"/> of M<space
   type="elision" subtype="polite" rend="*****"/>
   
When the space is filled in, you could opt to

1. Put the space (however represented) and the addition into del 
   and add tags, which effectively says that to fill in a blank
   is implicitly to delete the blankness of it.
   
   I, 
     <subst>
       <del><space/></del>
       <add>Paul</add>
     </subst>
     <subst>
        <del><space/></del>
        <add>Schaffner</add>
     </subst>
     
2. Just use <add> and put everything else in attributes

   I, <add type="formFill" place="onBlank">Paul</add>
      <add type="formFill" place="onBlank">Schaffner</add>
      
   This does, however, make it difficult to describe the
   typographic form of the original 'blank'.
   
3. Use <choice> and <seg> rather than <subst> and <del><add>.

pfs   
      
      
-- 
Paul Schaffner  Digital Library Production Service
[email protected] | http://www.umich.edu/~pfs/