James Cummings wrote:
> Martin Holmes wrote:
>> This is intriguing. I wonder, though: if the absence of <catchwords> is 
>> not to be read as implying the absence of catchwords in the document, 
>> how is the absence of @present on <catchwords> to be read?
> 
> To me, having <catchwords> without some mechanism like @present would be 
> the situation we currently have.  You would know that there is a 
> discussion of catchwords, but not whether there are any catchwords in 
> the document.

It seems to me that the addition of catchword tags where appropriate  is 
a step in the encoding of the TEI file. I'd opt for something like:

<encodingDesc> <note xml:id="catchwords-processed"/> </encodingDesc>
<encodingDesc> <note xml:id="catchwords-present"/> </encodingDesc>
<encodingDesc> <note xml:id="catchwords-absent"/> </encodingDesc>
<encodingDesc> <note xml:id="catchwords-unprocessed"/> </encodingDesc>

The selection would depend on the exact semantics you're trying to convey.

We have a system somewhat similar to this for page images in our texts. 
Using the xml:id attribute is very convenient, since most non-trivial 
XML processing already builds an index on xml:id (or, most of ours does, 
anyway).

Alternatively, if the addition of catchwords were a heavy-weight 
operation, you could use the <application> tag to record the details.

cheers
stuart
-- 
Stuart Yeates
http://www.nzetc.org/       New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/     Institutional Repository