LC 795: HTM 1.3.3 and word order

<comment>
How to Meet Success Criterion 1.3.3 contains the following text: "A 
sequence is meaningful if the order of content in the sequence cannot be 
changed without affecting its meaning. The order of words in sentences and 
sentences in paragraphs, for instance, is always meaningful."
The reviewer points out: "Not in free-word-order languages, though many of 
those do tend to converge on certain preferred word orders."
</comment>


<discussion>
We were probably thinking of English when we wrote that, but that is not 
mentioned there. English has a fixed word order (for examples where word 
order affects meaning, see 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005JulSep/0600.html), but 
other languages have a free or relatively free word order. This category 
includes such genetically diverse languages as Basque, Hungarian, Russian, 
Estonian, Japanese, Salish, Turkish and Walpiri. Even in so-called free 
word order languages, word order is never entirely free.
</discussion>


<older_issues>
Issue 1609 (http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1609), but 
this issue is not relevant to language-specific topics.
Issue 1789 was about the level of the SC.
</older_issues>


<proposed_response>
[ACCEPT]
@@Change the beginning of the second paragraph of How to Meet Success 
Criterion 1.3.3 to: "A sequence is meaningful if the order of content in 
the sequence cannot be changed without affecting its meaning. The order of 
words in sentences and sentences in paragraphs <ins>in English</ins>, for 
instance, is always meaningful. <ins>(A number of other languages have a 
free or relatively free word order.)</ins>"
</proposed_response>


Regards,
Christophe


-- 
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group on 
Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/

Received on Monday, 19 June 2006 20:25:11 UTC