[osis-core] proposal: <cite> for OT Quote in NT

Patrick Durusau osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org
Sat, 11 Oct 2003 14:12:44 -0400


Troy,

Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> Patrick,
>     Thank you for the comments.  I see your point regarding the changing 
> history of the use of " marks.  My response would be, yes, this is 
> probably accurate (as I trust you, but might find some examples for my 
> personal confirmation and use when explaining to others), but, I don't 
> think that justifies using an archaic practice in a time where it means 
> something very different.
> 
Sorry, took you down a rabbit trail unnecessarily.

The point was not the variantion on what it means to quote but to 
illustrate that they are all still quotes, albeit that we may wish to 
say something addition about those quotes.

In other words, say I quote (in the ancient sense, more of a paraphrase) 
some text from the OT. As the modern encoder, you "know" what I meant 
and want to make a reference to what we now consider to be the actual 
text that appears in your Bible.

If presentation is an issue, such as OT quotes in the NT, that is I want 
to display those differently, I don't see the problem with marking it 
using the <q> element, giving it an osisRef and either varying the 
presentation because it is a combination of a q plus osisRef that points 
to what I know is an OT passage or as I suggested we give it some other 
attribute on which to hang that change in presentation.

Not sure what difference Lockman would find between marking it as <q>, 
which by the way does not always mean '"' except by convention in some 
works, even in modern publishing, and varying presentation on the basis 
of the osisRef as against creating a new element just to conform to 
their presentation.

Maybe I am missing something here but it sounds like you are saying that 
because the Lockman presentation is small caps and not '"' that it is 
somehow different from a <q>. I think that is the part I am missing. 
They are all quotes, just some are rendered differently than others. (At 
least that is what I see at the moment.)

Does that help or am I still missing what you are saying?

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick



>     However, if an older English work used " marks in such way, I would 
> personally encode that text using <q>.  It would be a normal exegetical 
> practice for the reader to know that in that era, a " wasn't always to 
> be taken as exact words.
> 
> 
>     Now, to our current practice.  Lockman DID NOT feel it appropriate 
> to use ".  They used small caps, with an explanation of typography to 
> the reader in the introduction.
> 
>     Most all modern, literal translations use this, or some other 
> typology to signify these entities in the text.
> 
>     I feel my same argument applies from my previous post about 
> paragraph breaks:
> 
> 
>     We have an overwhelming number of extraneous elements for various 
> anomalies for commentaries, dictionaries, and many other things.  For 
> the mainstream literal translation Bibles that I wish to encode, I have 
> seen only a small, and consistent number of 'encoding' they have done 
> with typology.  If OSIS 1.0's goal is to provide THESE publishers with 
> mechanisms to encode their Bibles, I feel it would be naturally in line 
> with our self-mandate, to supply these very few elements as a starting 
> point.
> 
> 
> 
>     However, if Chris is correct in that <cite> is used differently in 
> XHTML, I agree that we should choose a different element name.  Having 
> researched it inadequately, I have found a few sites that both agree and 
> disagree with Chris' (and their own) conclusion:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-xhtml2-20030131/mod-text.html#edef_text_cite
> 
> The SPECIFICATION claims:
> 
> 8.4. The cite element
> 
> The cite element contains a citation or a reference to other sources.
> 
> Which would suggest my proposed OSIS usage is consistent with the XHTML 
> specification.  However, their examples, and the examples below, only 
> show it used to mark the SOURCE of the citation, which is unfortunate.
> 
> http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/xhtml/quickref/xhtml_cite.html
> http://www.zvon.org/xxl/xhtmlReference/Output/Strict/el_cite.html
> 
> 
> 
>     Further comments welcome,
>         -Troy.
> 
> Patrick Durusau wrote:
> 
>> Troy,
>>
>> I was just checking on the types for quotation and found that we have 
>> enumerated "block" for its type. Hmmm, bad joss! Any strong feelings 
>> on that?
>>
>> The reason I ask is that there appears to be a feeling that quotations 
>> are always accurate or correct. Whether intentional or not, I suspect 
>> a large number of quotations in early Church history bear little 
>> resemblance to what we would consider modern quotation practice.
>>
>> If I am going to quote you or Chris or Steve, you expect me to quote 
>> exactly what you said and hopefully with some context.
>>
>> That perception of literal quoting is a largely modern view. The early 
>> use of the KJV for example, was as a prompt and although someone might 
>> say they were quoting the KJV, they were not all that particular about 
>> using its exact words but used it to inform their own translation from 
>> the original languages. Apparently (as I only have reports of this 
>> behavior) they did not consider it odd or amiss to "quote" the KJV in 
>> this manner. Is it still a quote? Hmmm, I would say so but it is not a 
>> quote in the sense that I would quote someone on this list.
>>
>> Perhaps the better action would be to either add an attribute to quote 
>> or redo type to allow you to specify, if desired, some continum for 
>> the type of quote you have in mind. Is it literal? (in the modern 
>> sense), a Church Father's quote (probably a paraphrase), etc.
>>
>> Suggestions? Comments?
>>
>> Hope you are having a great day!
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>>
>>> Kirk, Thanks for the examples of other occurrences where we might use 
>>> an element that means to cite without claiming the exactly wording of 
>>> the original author.
>>>
>>> Everyone,
>>>
>>>     I would like to suggest that we add, e.g. <cite 
>>> osisRef="abednahr">text of the citation</cite>
>>>
>>>     This new element would designate to a segment of text: allusion 
>>> to or excerpt from, and assign credit to, a source, WITHOUT the libel 
>>> implications of, and asserting the author is claiming, a direct 
>>> quotation.
>>>
>>> Other support for this need:
>>>
>>>     When writing a research paper, many sources are cited 
>>> (traditionally designated with superscripts and endnotes).  Of these 
>>> citations, there are usually 2 distinct types: a) ones where the 
>>> author quotes the source directly, which he will use QUOTE (") to 
>>> designate; b) ones the author merely paraphrases and appeals to for 
>>> authority.
>>>
>>>     Also, note that I have not claimed <q> and <cite> to be mutually 
>>> exclusive for a segment of text.  I can imagine something like this:
>>>
>>> Todd claims, <cite osisRef="ToddT">SIL is bringing together a USFM 
>>> sample document that <q>represents complete usage</q> of the 
>>> specification.</cite>
>>>        I realize that I am proposing a change while holding a 
>>> minority share in the pool of people who have expressed preference, 
>>> to this point.  So, discussion and comments are very much welcome.
>>>
>>>     -Troy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Kirk Lowery wrote:
>>>
>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>>>>
>>>> Can I muddy the waters a bit further? :-)
>>>>
>>>> In the NT there have been identifications of Pauline allusions to and
>>>> even direct citation of Greek authors. And then there's the whole
>>>> business of Jude and the Assumption of Moses. Finally, in the OT we 
>>>> have
>>>> the direct extended citation of "`Abed-nahar" or "Transpotamian"
>>>> documents (the Persian Empire's name for their Palestinian province) in
>>>> the Aramaic language in Ezra. These documents are embedded in a larger
>>>> narrative and so it is critical that markup can distinguish them, even
>>>> in translation. And how about when the prophets or Psalms quote the
>>>> Torah, especially the Exodus account?
>>>>
>>>> What do we do about these? Is there at present a generic mechanism
>>>> whereby I can arbitrarily identify the source of quotations?
>>>>
>>>> Blessings,
>>>>
>>>> Kirk
>>>> - --
>>>> Kirk E. Lowery, Ph.D.
>>>> Director, Westminster Hebrew Institute
>>>> Adjunct Professor of Old Testament
>>>> Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
>>>>
>>>> Theorie ist, wenn man alles weiss und nichts klappt.
>>>> Praxis ist, wenn alles klappt und keiner weiss warum.
>>>> Bei uns sind Theorie und Praxis vereint:
>>>> nichts klappt und keiner weiss warum!
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>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
> 
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-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!