From 23e78dae95889ad12a1887466f895d7eaa11502b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alice BRENON <alice.brenon@ens-lyon.fr> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 18:19:24 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Finish the part about other schemes --- ICHLL_Brenon.md | 53 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/ICHLL_Brenon.md b/ICHLL_Brenon.md index 89c0a76..c9f2e28 100644 --- a/ICHLL_Brenon.md +++ b/ICHLL_Brenon.md @@ -118,9 +118,9 @@ Back to the "Encyclopédie" article we read that a dictionary remaining strictly at the language level, a vocabulary, can be seen as the empty frame required for an encyclopedic dictionary that will fill it with additional depth. Given how d'Alembert insists on the importance of brevity for a clear definition in the -"Dictionnaire de Langues" entry, it is clear that for the *encyclopédistes*, -encyclopedia aren't superior to dictionaries but really depart from them in -terms of purpose. +"Dictionnaire de Langues" entry, it is clear that the *encyclopédistes* did not +consider encyclopedias superior to dictionaries but really as a new subgenre +departing from them in terms of purpose. ## La Grande Encyclopédie @@ -787,14 +787,55 @@ and a half. ## Comparison to other approaches -Before deciding to give up on the *dictionaries* module and attempting to devise -or own encoding scheme, several scenarios have been considered and compared to -find the most compatible with our . +The above section about the structure of the *dictionaries* module and the +features found in encyclopedias follows quite closely our own journey trying to +encode first manually then by automatic means the articles of our corpus. This +back and forth between trying to find patterns in the graph which reflects the patterns +found in the text and questioning the relevance of the results explains the +choice we ended up making but also the alternatives we have considered. ### Bend the semantics +Several times, the issue of the semantics of some elements which posess the +properties we need came up. This is the case for instance of the `<sense/>` and +`<node/>` elements. It is very tempting to bend their documented semantics or to +consider that their inclusion properties is part of what defines them, and hence +justifies their ways in creative ways not directly recommended by the TEI +specifications. + +This is the approach followed by project Basnum[^Basnum] which studies and +provides a XML-TEI encoding of the *Dictionnaire Universel* by Furetière, or +rather its second edition edited by Basnage, an encyclopedic dictionary from the +very early 18\textsuperscript{th} century. In the articles encoded for this +project, `<note/>` elements are nested and used to structure the encyclopedic +developments that occur in the articles. + +We have chosen not to follow the same path in the name of the FAIR principles to +avoid the emergence of a custom usage differing from the documented one. + +[^Basnum]: [https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-18-CE38-0003](https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-18-CE38-0003) + ### Custom schema +The other major reason behind our choice was the inclusion rules which exist +between TEI elements and pushed us to look for different combinations. Another +valid approach would have consisted in changing the structure of the inclusion +graph itself, that is to say modify the rules. If `<entry/>` is the perfect +element to encode article themselves, all that is really missing is the ability +to accomodate nested structures with the `<div/>` element. Generating customized TEI +schemas is made really easy with tools like ROMA[^ROMA], which we used to +preview our change and suggest it to the TEI community. + +[^ROMA]: [https://roma.tei-c.org/](https://roma.tei-c.org/) + +Despite it not getting a wide adhesion, some suggested it could be used locally +within the scope of project DISCO-LGE. However we chose not to do so, partially +for the same reasons of interoperability as the previous scenario, but also for +reasons of sturdiness in front of future evolutions. Making sure the alternative +schema would remain useful entails to maintain it regenerating it should the +schema format evolve, with the possibility that the tools to edit it changes or +stop being maintained. + # Conclusion Despite long discussions and interesting proposals each with strong arguments both in -- GitLab