Terminology to be used with ITS markup

Dear all,

While working on the task to write an introduction to selection
(formerly know as "scoping") I made an observation related especially to
using ITS with XML instances. This observation led me to a question
related to the terminology we are currently using.

In what follows, I use the term "host vocabulary" (please suggest a
better one) to refer to the XML to which the ITS information is attached
(e.g. XHTML, DITA or DocBook).

Let's say I want to specify that all 'p' elements which are child
elements of the 'body' element should not be translated. From my
understanding, I could do this in at least three ways:

1. Value for "translate" _not_ in the host vocabulary _element_ to which
it pertains (rather in a different element, namely, the 'body' element)

<text>
	<head/>
	<body its:translate="no" its:translateSelector="./p">
		<p>xxxxx</p>
		<p>yyyyy</p> 
	</body>
</text>

2. Value for "translate" _in_ the host vocabulary _element_ to which it
pertains (namely, the 'p' element)

<text>
	<head/>
	<body its:translate="no">
		<p its:translate="no">xxxxx</p>
		<p its:translate="no">yyyyy</p> 
	</body>
</text>

3. Value for "translate" _not_ in the host vocabulary (rather in the ITS
vocabulary)

<text>
	<head>
		<its:documentRule its:translate="no"
its:translateSelector="//p"/>
	 </head> 
	</body>
		<p>xxxxx</p>
		<p>yyyyy</p> 
	</body>
</text>

The question which arises out of this is the following: At least to my
eye, the ITS in scenario 1.
is somewhat dislocated. Following this line of thought, I of course get
into trouble with our
definition of 'dislocated' (namely 'selector used with "documentRule"';
cf. http://www.w3.org/TR/its/#scope-dislocated).

I thus wonder, if alternative terms for talking about 1., 2., and 3. are
necessary or come to mind. One possibility which entered my mind is the
following:

1 = piggybacked/contingent (on host vocabulary) & ex situ ITS markup
2 = piggybacked/contingent (on host vocabulary) & in situ (in place) ITS
markup
3 = autonomous ITS markup (neither data category nor selector in start
tag of host vocabulary)

The contingent/autonomous distinction seems to be similar to CSS
(contingent=style attribute; autonomous=style element).

Best regards,
Christian

Received on Monday, 23 January 2006 11:04:38 UTC