RE: [css3-text] line break opportunities are based on *syllable* boundaries?

I was also thinking to replace "not words" with something else given Kenny's feedback, but as I re-read the 5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries section[1] from the first paragraph, it looks like the "word" is pretty well defined within this context.

> For most scripts, in the absence of hyphenation
> a line break occurs only at word boundaries.
> Many writing systems use spaces or punctuation
> to explicitly separate words, and line break
> opportunities can be identified by these characters.
> Scripts such as Thai, Lao, and Khmer, however, do
> not use spaces or punctuation to separate words.
> Although the zero width space (U+200B) can be used
> as an explicit word delimiter in these scripts, this
> practice is not common. As a result, a lexical resource
> is needed to correctly identify break points in such texts. 
>
> In several other writing systems, (including Chinese,
> Japanese, Yi, and sometimes also Korean) a line break
> opportunities are based on syllable boundaries, not words.

So just changing "syllable" to "grapheme cluster" looks good enough to me.

What Kenny is asking is probably a generic definition of the "word" regardless of the context. I haven't come up with a good idea, I'd be happy to hear if any good way to do so. But at least for this portion of the text, I think the "word" is well defined.

[1] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text/#line-breaking



Regards,
Koji

-----Original Message-----
From: www-international-request@w3.org [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Koji Ishii
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 3:33 PM
To: Phillips, Addison; Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
Cc: WWW Style; WWW International
Subject: RE: [css3-text] line break opportunities are based on *syllable* boundaries?

I'm changing back to the original subject as you seem to be talking about the original topic, not the definition of "word".

What I needed here is an appropriate terminology that represents single character within this context:

> In several other writing systems, (including Chinese, Japanese, Yi, 
> and sometimes also Korean) a line break opportunities are based on
> *syllable* boundaries, not words.

I want "ソース" consists of three, so from what you said, it sounds like "grapheme cluster" is the right choice of words to use here.

I agree with you that the definition of "word" is different from grapheme cluster, and I guess answering to that question is even more difficult.


Regards,
Koji

-----Original Message-----
From: Phillips, Addison [mailto:addison@lab126.com]
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 2:22 PM
To: Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu; Koji Ishii
Cc: WWW Style; WWW International
Subject: RE: What's the definition of a word? (was: [css3-text] line break opportunities are based on *syllable* boundaries?)

The term "grapheme cluster" would be wrong for this context. A grapheme cluster is a sequence of logical characters that form a single visual unit of text (what is sometimes perceived as a "character" or "glyph"). This term is used for cases such as an Indic syllable followed by a combining vowel--in which a base character is combined with additional characters to form a single glyph on screen, rather than cases in which separate visual/logical units form a single "word" or "sound". It also applies to cases such as a base letter followed by a combining accent.

To help illustrate this, notice that the word "the" is not a grapheme cluster, although it is a single syllable. Notice too that "ソース" consists of *three* graphemes (grapheme clusters), but only two syllables.

The relationship of Han ideographs to both "words" and "syllables" is complex and depends both on the language (it is different for Japanese, for example) and on context. It is sometimes true that "ideograph == syllable" and sometimes also true that "ideograph == word".

In any case, the concept of "grapheme cluster" should most definitely not be consider to be synonymous with either "word" or "syllable". It is a distinct unit and may not be *either* in a given context. My understand was that languages written using Han ideographs could be broken anywhere except for certain prescriptive cases (which differ by language). While this might map to some other concept such as syllables, wouldn't it be better to refer specifically to language specific rules?

Unicode Standard Annex #14 [1] provides a useful description of line-breaking properties that may be helpful here.

Regards,

Addison

[1] http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr14/


Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect (Lab126)
Chair (W3C I18N, IETF IRI WGs)

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org [mailto:www-international- 
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
> Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 8:43 PM
> To: Koji Ishii
> Cc: WWW Style; WWW International
> Subject: What's the definition of a word? (was: [css3-text] line break 
> opportunities are based on *syllable* boundaries?)
> 
> > In Chinese, Yi, and Hangul, a character represents a syllable as
> far as I understand, but in Japanese, Kanji characters could have more 
> than one syllable, and also there are cases where multiple characters 
> represent single syllable (like Kana + prolonged sound mark).
> >
> > Although this part is not normative, it looks like we should
> replace "syllable" with "grapheme cluster".
> >
> > Please let me know if this change can be incorrect to any other
> writing systems listed here than Japanese.
> 
> The situation is similar for Chinese as far as I can tell.
> 
> Speaking about this, this is editorial but the last time I read the 
> spec, I got a little bit perplexed about the definition of "word".
> Is
> there a plan to briefly mention what a "word" is in the introduction 
> section? Or perhaps there should be a glossary that puts "word" and 
> "grapheme cluster" together? I doubt that there would be a consistent 
> and precise definition throughout the spec but a brief and non- 
> normative introduction seems helpful.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Kenny

Received on Friday, 28 January 2011 07:02:19 UTC