\documentclass{mlcennote}
\title{MetaLex CEN Workshop: Semantic Interpretation of Citation}
\author{Emile de Maat}
\institute{\defaultaffiliation}
\runningauthor{Emile de Maat}
\correspondingauthor{Emile de Maat}
\email{e.demaat@uva.nl}
\Leibnizreportdate{november 2007}
\abstract{
Informative only: explains why the structure of citations is \textbf{not} defined by the standard.
}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
The semantic interpretation is fraught with difficulties. We discuss it here for purely informational purposes. A reference with a single target (e.g. \emph{article 1 of the Income Tax Law or article 15.3}) is easy to mark up, for instance with an element named \texttt{}, for instance according to the following model:
\begin{verbatim}
article x
\end{verbatim}
The entire referring text can be marked, and it should be linked to the one concept that is being referred to. This can be either a work or an expression, depending on whether or not version information is specified or hinted at.
References with multiple targets are more complex to mark, as we now have several concepts to link to (i.e. \emph{article 5 and 6 of the Income Tax Law}). An important problem is where to anchor these links. Old MetaLex practice (i.e. up to 1.3.1) is to put tags around the leaves of the reference tree:
\begin{verbatim}
articles 5 and 6 of the
Income Tax Law
\end{verbatim}
A disadvantage of this method is that the cite elements do not contain anything resembling a reference.
Next are the references to ranges, such as \emph{articles 5-10 of the Income Tax Law}, which can be marked up in a similar way, with the addition that it is noted that this is a range:
\begin{verbatim}
articles 5-10 of the
Income Tax Law
\end{verbatim}
In this case, the problem is not the mark up, but the target. This reference will have several targets, and without studying the target document we cannot determine the exact target locations. It might be \emph{{article 5, article 6, article 7, article 8, article 9, article 10}} or \emph{{article 5, article 6, article 7, article 7a, article 7b, article 8, article 10}} or even \emph{{article 5, article 10}}. The exact targets should not be included in the document, as they cannot be derived from the information present. In addition, the targets may change depending on the version being referred to.
Ranges get even more complex when exceptions are involved, such as \emph{articles 5-10 with the exception of article 9}. Following the current line of mark up, we would get something like:
\begin{verbatim}
articles 5-10
with the exception of article 9
\end{verbatim}
An interesting variation occurs when an exception is made to something other than a range: \emph{article 5 with the exception of the first member}. This implicitely turns article 5 into a range of \emph{member 1, [..] member n}.
A final format for references is the each time: \emph{articles 10, 12, 15 and 16, each time the first member}. In this case, the articles should be marked with cite elements (just as in a regular reference with multiple targets). The links, however, should not be to the articles but to the first member of each article. The each time clause should not, in principle, receive any special markup. It is easy to see that first member cannot be a reference to something here. The advantage of special markup, however, it that it would be a hint to (less refined) parsers that discover and markup references that this one has already been discovered, interpreted, and discarded. Maybe a \texttt{} (for: this is definitely not a citation) element is useful.
Each of these complications show the same pattern: there is a difference between the entities explicitly cited in the text, and the ones it refers to. In some cases an element must be explicitly cited to convey the information that it is \emph{not} being referred to!
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