Hi Karen,

Your reference system makes sense to me: MS ID, folio no, line no. One
might add a separator which would allow the ID to be easily parsed,
ending up with something like this: "Cn 54.1_f57r_l5". So, when the
ideal <tei:line> enters the world, one might have:

<line n="1" xml:id="Cn 54.1_f57r_l5">...</line>

You said, "My other dilemma is, should I put n="5" because although it
is the first line of my text, it is the fifth line on that particular
page. And then do I restart the line numbering with each new page of my
manuscript? I will be using these transcriptions in Juxta, that
generates a critical apparatus based on the line number, hence my
wanting to start at line 1. My concern is to provide a clear-cut way for
scholars to be able to cite a particular line."

There are two reference systems: line of the MS and line of the text.
This kind of thing happens in other cases; I know it happens in biblical
citations (i.e. line on MS and book:chapter:verse) and have the notion
it happens in other fields too; e.g. Homeric citations (line on MS; line
of reference edition). For what it's worth, which is not much, I would
use IDs based on MS lines then use empty <milestone/>s to mark
transitions in the other reference system if the two systems do not have
the same transition points. If both systems do have the same transition
points then it is only necessary to say how to calculate one type of
reference from the other for each page. E.g., in the example you give,
say "ref. type A value = ref. type B value - 4." However, scribal
quirkiness is bound to make the latter approach a headache. (A scribe
might make two lines into one line, etc.)

One other thought. If you don't make any mistakes in the line markup
then the computer can calculate a "line of MS" citation for each line
given only the MS ID and folio reference, both of which could be grabbed
if you put them somewhere in the markup. You can therefore avoid typing
in an ID for each line (which is guaranteed to produce mistakes) by
making a reference on the fly or post-process to add them.

Best,

Tim Finney

On Tue, 2011-11-01 at 00:06 -0400, TEI-MS-SIG automatic digest system
wrote:
> Date:    Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:09:50 -0400
> From:    Karen Desmond <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: line numbers
> 
> Thanks to both - nice to get a straightforward answer.
> What are good ways to build a reference system, however? For instance
> if I want 
> scholars to be able to cite a passage in this diplomatic
> transcription, or to be able 
> to mark it as being similar to a passage in another source?
> 
>