Re: What's the intent for ":"?

A quick follow-up, since I just connected two dots that seem natural (ha!).

In cases where one insists on a literal override, it may be a healthy
practice to shift the concept name that would have been used from a main
intent, into the property slot, so that the information isn't completely
lost, only "demoted".

So in the cases of forcing "for" or "to" English literal for a ratio
concept, it may be even better to use

<mo intent="_to:ratio">:</mo>
<mo intent="_for:ratio">:</mo>

And similarly for <mo intent="_:time">:</mo>.

That property information may rarely (or never) get spoken or presented to
readers, but could still provide informative context for AT disambiguation.

Something to consider?

Deyan

On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 2:06 AM Deyan Ginev <deyan.ginev@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Neil,
>
> I'm focusing on the single "ratio" in the latter half of your email. As
> you say, the legal concept annotation is intent="ratio".
> Selecting explicit English prepositions should be done via a literal, i.e.
> intent="_to" or intent="_for". Similarly the empty literal override for
> time would be intent="_".
> In those cases we could enforce speech, but will lose the concept
> information.
>
> Similarly for Bulgarian prepositions: one can choose between the literals
> intent="_към" or intent="_за", but the concept is still intent="ratio",
> which is localized intent="съотношение", with a possible alias name
> "отношение".
>
> I think being disciplined about the distinction between (mathematical)
> concepts and (language) literals is one of the lifelines we have available
> in making these decisions, while retaining a clear naming scheme.
>
> Some additions:
> 1. The wikipedia page on ratio[1] suggests that one can also encounter the
> notation "a to b" directly, where one would assume an <mtext>to</mtext> in
> MathML, possibly with wrapping spaces.  So a Braille reader may also
> encounter the "to" word directly as text.
>
> 2. Wikipedia also provides an alternative readout of a ratio when the
> context is a "proportion", i.e. an equality between two ratios. In "a:b =
> c:d" the left-hand side "a:b" can be narrated "a is to b", where the "c:d"
> right-hand side can also be narrated "c is to d", with the connecting "="
> read "as".
>
> In an AT that wants to provide specialized readings for proportion, one
> could imagine recognizing a wrapping mrow property <mrow
> intent=":proportion">.
> Or alternatively, having a pattern that recognizes infix use of "=" where
> both arguments can be identified as ratios.
> On the argument level, AT can either try to detect the infix use of <mo
> intent="ratio">:</mo>, or cases where the argument is wrapped with a
> property, as in <mrow intent=":ratio">.
> The wrapping mrow could be a helpful technique for something harder to
> detect such as the n-ary ratio "2 : 4 : 8 : 16".
>
> I think embracing the "progressive enhancement" spirit could be healthy in
> this kind of ladder of ever increasing annotation burden. Does the
> completely raw MathML get narrated well? If yes, leave as-is. If not,
> annotate the innermost nodes that encounter issues. If the speech remains
> unnatural at places, gradually climb up the subtrees, depositing properties
> and compound intent expressions, until the desired outcome is achieved.
>
> Greetings,
> Deyan
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratio
>
> On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 9:30 PM Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> I think everyone would agree that ":" is ambiguous. It's one of the few
>> cases where the braille Nemeth code (but not UEB) cares about the meaning.
>>
>> Here's a case I came across:  3:30
>>
>> It certainly could be a ratio. Or it could be a time. In normal use,
>> there might be more context to help (3:30 = 1:10 or 3:30pm). However, when
>> standing alone, there is no way to know.
>>
>> I think both ratio and time are common enough to be in core. Probably
>> also function definition (f: x → y) is in core along with "such that"
>> ({x: x>0}).
>>
>> As per the discussion today (and times in the past), the intent should be
>> on ":" when possible. However, ":" is a case where it doesn't work out
>> well. One can force the speech (e.g., "intent='to' for ratio or intent=' '
>> for time). But how does the braille know that 'to' means it is a ratio and
>> should output the braille for ratios instead of the braille for a
>> punctuation ":"?
>>
>> Aside: listening to Khan Academy, "to" is used in something like "3:2"
>> but "for" or "for every" is used in the videos when there are
>> quantities/units given as in "3 dogs : 2 cats". So here you would use
>> intent="for" -- so saying AT should know that "to" used on ":" means ratio
>> is not going to work.
>>
>> I think this is a case where pushing intent to the operator doesn't work
>> despite it being an infix operator and it needs to be on the mrow. Being in
>> core, an intent value of "ratio" could be spoken as "to" by AT, but still
>> recognized easily when generating braille.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>>     Neil
>>
>>