This might just possibly be a case for concurrent structures.
 
Consider:
 
1. John
2. Peter
3. Steven   )
4. Mark     ) Peter's guests
5. Alex     )
6. Ethelred
7. Harald
8. Keith
9. Ulrich
 
The same document might have other lists without bracketed annotations,
so perhaps you don't want to use a radically different set of elements
for representing this list than for representing other lists, nor use a
more complicated structure for all the lists.
 
Also, the annotation doesn't really belong in the same ITEM as "Mark",
as some of the suggested solutions would suggest.
 
So my thought is that perhaps something like the following would be
good:
 
<LIST type=etc>
<ITEM>John</ITEM>
<ITEM>Peter</ITEM>
  <ANNOTATION type=etc>
  <ANNOTATION.TEXT>Peter's guests</ANNOTATION.TEXT>
<ITEM>Steven</ITEM>
<ITEM>Mark</ITEM>
<ITEM>Alex</ITEM>
  </ANNOTATION>
<ITEM>Ethelred</ITEM>
...
<ITEM>Ulrich</ITEM>
</LIST>
 
However, I don't claim that this is compatible with TEI.
 
Edmund
 
 
P.S. I have provisionally done the following for my "* * *" problem:
 
<!ENTITY THREESTARS "<P>* * *</P>">
...
<P>Text ...</P>
<P>Text ...</P>
&THREESTARS;
<P>Text ...</P>
<P>Text ...</P>
<P>Text ...</P>
...
 
There have as yet been no replies to my second and third "basic
questions", unfortunately.
 
 
P.P.S. I have taken the liberty of adjusting the spelling of the
Subject of this thread ...