Re: [jats-list] Markup for linguistics (glossed text)

[Nikos Markantonatos <nikos@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Michael,

The question that arises of course out of the "semantically reasonable" 
encoding of such difficult pieces of text is why you need it. Are you 
planning to draw some logic across different types of such linguistic 
representations? In that case, JATS alone will hardly offer you a 
solution. JATS often resorts to other known standards for the 
representation of "tough" textual pieces, such as mathematical equations 
(MathML) and tables (XHTML, OASIS). If there was a corresponding XML 
encoding standard for linguistic representations, one could make the 
case for embedding it into JATS.

Otherwise, you are left to choose between the encoding options suggested 
by Debbie, or to capture it as an image (my favorite option), or even 
attempt to represent it in TeX/LaTeX or MathML.

Best regards,
Nikos Markantonatos
Atypon


On 11/19/2013 11:47 PM, Debbie Lapeyre wrote:
> Dear Michael--
>
> Ouch! No you are not overlooking anything obvious. The problem
> is that, although you ask for "semantically reasonable", you
> really want presentation markup. JATS does not do presentation,
> by design or very well.
>
>   - My first thought is a table, which this certainly looks like
>     to me. But I do see your problem.
>
>   - If it has to present EXACTLY this way, another obvious
>     (but less than perfect) choice is <preformat>. That would
>      - force this into a monofont (sorry about that)
>      - preserve all your alignments and whitespace
>      - let you include the italics, bold, and stuff.
>
>   - Another possibility (not in NLM 3.0, but in the brand new
>     JATS 1.1d1) is using <ruby>, which has a base (<rb>) and a
>     ruby text annotation (rt) traditionally displayed atop the
>     base (rt), or inside parenthesis after the base for browsers
>     that cannot handle Ruby. Ruby is part of HTML5, as well as
>     part of JATS. Ruby markup is intended for textual annotation,
>     and might fit this case very well.
>
> But I've got to tell you, I found this example incredibly hard to
> human parse and be sure what went with what and why were these 2
> clusters parallel and that one all alone? When the top line and the
> bottom line both had values, I was fine, but sometimes... Whatever
> you decide, a few horizontal lines or just more white space between
> the lines and/or less between the line and its gloss, would help
> me to separate.
>
> --Debbie
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2013, at 4:17 PM, Michael Boudreau <mboudreau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Has anyone tackled the problem of marking up textual illustrations that
> > require multiple points of vertical alignment--the sort of thing for which
> > you9d set tab stops on a typewriter or word processor?
> >
> > I9m working on a linguistics journal that has lots of glossed text
> > illustrations that are typeset like the items labeled (3) and (4) on this
> > page image:
> >
> >    http://mss.uchicago.edu:81/mrb/linguistics.png
> >
> > We9re using the NLM Journal Publishing 3.0 DTD, and I9m at a loss for a
> > markup solution that seems semantically reasonable and illustrates the
> > relationships between the chunks of text that the typesetting makes
> > obvious. I9ve considered table markup, but I don9t want to break a single
> > sentence or other unit of meaning into multiple table cells across a row.
> > When I consider how our online host would convert XML into HTML, I see
> > only the same bad option.
> >
> > Am I overlooking something obvious?
> >
> > --
> > Michael R. Boudreau
> > Electronic Publishing Technology Manager
> > The University of Chicago Press
> > 1427 E. 60th Street
> > Chicago, IL 60637
> > (773) 753-3298
> > www.journals.uchicago.edu
>
>
> ================================================================
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