12 Critical Apparatus
Table of contents
Scholarly editions of texts, especially texts of great antiquity or importance, often record some or all of the known variations among different witnesses to the text. Witnesses to a text may include authorial or other manuscripts, printed editions of the work, early translations, or quotations of a work in other texts. Information concerning variant readings of a text may be accumulated in highly structured form in a critical apparatus of variants. This chapter defines a module for use in encoding such an apparatus of variants, which may be used in conjunction with any of the modules defined in these Guidelines. It also defines an element class which provides extra attributes for some elements of the core tag set when this module is selected.
Information about variant readings (whether or not represented by a critical apparatus in the source text) may be recorded in a series of apparatus entries, each entry documenting one variation, or set of readings, in the text. Elements for the apparatus entry and readings, and for the documentation of the witnesses whose readings are included in the apparatus, are described in section 12.1 The Apparatus Entry, Readings, and Witnesses. Special tags for fragmentary witnesses are described in section 12.1.5 Fragmentary Witnesses. The available methods for embedding the apparatus in the rest of the text, or for linking an external apparatus to the base text, are described in section 12.2 Linking the Apparatus to the Text. Finally, several extra attributes for some tags of the core tag set, made available when the additional tag set for text criticism is selected, are documented in section 11.3.1.1 Core elements for Transcriptional Work.
Many examples given in this chapter refer to the following texts of the opening (usually just line 1) of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue, as it appears in each of the four different manuscripts
- Ellesmere, Huntingdon Library 26.C.9 (El)
- Hengwrt, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Peniarth 392D (Hg)
- British Library Lansdowne 851 (La)
- Bodleian Library Rawlinson Poetic 149 (Ra2)
TEI: The Apparatus Entry, Readings, and Witnesses¶12.1 The Apparatus Entry, Readings, and Witnesses
This section introduces the fundamental markup methods used to encode textual variations:
- the app element for entries in the critical apparatus: see section 12.1.1 The Apparatus Entry.
- elements for identifying individual readings: see section 12.1.2 Readings.
- ways of grouping readings together: see section 12.1.3 Indicating Subvariation in Apparatus Entries.
- methods of identifying which witnesses support a particular reading, and for describing the witnesses included in the apparatus: see section 12.1.4 Witness Information.
- elements for indicating which portions of a text are covered by fragmentary witnesses: see section 12.1.5 Fragmentary Witnesses.
The app element is in one sense a more sophisticated and complex version of the choice element introduced in 3.4.1 Apparent Errors as a way of marking points where the encoding of a passage in a single source may be carried out in more than one way. Unlike choice, however, the app element allows for the representation of many different versions of the same passage taken from different sources.
TEI: The Apparatus Entry¶12.1.1 The Apparatus Entry
Individual textual variations are encoded using the app element, which groups together all the readings constituting the variation. The identification of discrete textual variations or apparatus entries is not a purely mechanical process; different editors may group readings differently. No rules are given here as to how to group readings into apparatus entries; the tags given here may be used to group readings in whatever way the editor finds most perspicuous or useful.
The individual apparatus entry is encoded with the app element:
- app (apparatus entry) contains one entry in a critical apparatus, with an optional lemma and usually one or more reading or a note on the relevant passage.
type classifies the variation contained in this element according to some convenient typology. from identifies the beginning of the lemma in the base text. to identifies the endpoint of the lemma in the base text. loc (location) indicates the location of the variation, when the location-referenced method of apparatus markup is used.
The attributes loc, from, and to, are used to link the apparatus entry to the base text, if present. In such cases, several methods may be used for such linkage, each involving a slightly different usage for these attributes. Linkage between text and apparatus is described below in section 12.2 Linking the Apparatus to the Text. For the use of the app element without a base text, see 12.2.3 The Parallel Segmentation Method.
<rdg wit="#El">Experience though noon Auctoritee</rdg>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment thouh noon Auctoritee</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment though none auctorite</rdg>
</app>
TEI: Readings¶12.1.2 Readings
Individual readings are the crucial elements in any critical apparatus of variants. The following elements should be used to tag individual readings within an apparatus entry:
- lem (lemma) contains the lemma, or base text, of a textual variation.
- rdg (reading) contains a single reading within a textual variation.
N.B. the term lemma is used here in the text-critical sense of ‘the reading accepted as that of the original or of the base text’. This sense differs from that in which the word is used elsewhere in the Guidelines, for example as in the attribute lemma where the intended sense is ‘the root form of an inflected word’, or ‘the heading of an entry in a reference book, especially a dictionary’.
In recording readings within an apparatus entry, the rdg element may always be used; each app must contain at least one rdg.
The lem element may also be used, under some circumstances, to record the base text of the source edition, to mark the readings of a base witness, to indicate the preference of an editor or encoder for a particular reading, or to make clear, in cases of ambiguity, precisely which portion of the main text the variation applies to. Those who prefer to work without the notion of a base text may prefer not to use it at all. How it is used depends in part on the method chosen for linking the apparatus to the text; for more information, see section 12.2 Linking the Apparatus to the Text.
Readings may be encoded individually, or grouped for perspicuity using the rdgGrp element described in section 12.1.3 Indicating Subvariation in Apparatus Entries.
As members of the attribute classes att.witnessed and att.textCritical, both of these elements inherit the following attributes.
- att.witnessed supplies the attribute used to identify the witnesses supporting a particular reading in a critical apparatus.
wit (witness or witnesses) contains a list of one or more pointers indicating the witnesses which attest to a given reading. - att.textCritical defines a set of attributes common to all elements representing variant readings in text critical work.
type classifies the reading according to some useful typology. cause classifies the cause for the variant reading, according to any appropriate typology of possible origins. varSeq (variant sequence) provides a number indicating the position of this reading in a sequence, when there is reason to presume a sequence to the variants on any one lemma. hand signifies the hand responsible for a particular reading in the witness.
The att.textCritical class also inherits the following attributes from the att.responsibility class:
- att.responsibility provides attributes indicating who is responsible for something asserted by the markup and the degree of certainty associated with it.
resp (responsible party) indicates the agency responsible for the intervention or interpretation, for example an editor or transcriber. cert (certainty) signifies the degree of certainty associated with the intervention or interpretation.
As elsewhere, these attributes may be used to indicate the person responsible for the editorial decision being recorded, and also the degree of certainty associated with that decision by the person carrying out the encoding.
The wit attribute identifies the witnesses which have the reading in question. It is required if the apparatus gathers together readings from different witnesses, but may be omitted in an apparatus recording the readings of only one witness, e.g. substitutions, divergent opinions on what is in the witness or on how to expand abbreviations, etc. Even in such a one-witness apparatus, however, the wit attribute may still be useful when it is desired to record the occurrence of a particular reading in some other witness. For other methods of identifying the witnesses to a reading, see section 12.1.4 Witness Information.
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La" type="substantive">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2" type="substantive">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<lem wit="#El #Ra2">though</lem>
<rdg wit="#La" type="orthographic">thouh</rdg>
</app>
<rdg wit="#La" varSeq="1">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2" cause="abbreviation_loss" varSeq="2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<l>daz sint alle megede,</l>
<l>die wellent ân man</l>
<l>
<app>
<rdg wit="#Mu" varSeq="1" hand="#m1">alle</rdg>
<rdg
wit="#Mu"
cause="nachgetragen"
varSeq="2"
hand="#m2">allen</rdg>
</app>
disen sumer gân.
</l>
<app>
<rdg wit="#Kl">hea(um) h(æþ)e</rdg>
<rdg wit="#ms" resp="#Z">heaðo hlæwe</rdg>
<rdg wit="#ms" resp="#Cha">heaum hope</rdg>
</app>
</l>
<l>hord beweotode,</l>
The hand and resp attributes are intelligible only on an element recording a reading from a single witness, and should not be used if more than one witness is given on the same rdg or lem element. If more than one witness is given for the reading, they are undefined. To convey this information when the witness is one among several, the witDetail element should be used; see section 12.1.4 Witness Information.
Where there is a greater weight of editorial discussion and interpretation than can conveniently be expressed through the attributes provided on these elements (for example where there are multiple witnesses for a single reading or multiple editorial responsibility for an emendation) this information can be attached to the apparatus in a note, or recorded in the feature structure notation defined in chapter 18 Feature Structures. In particular, such recurring text-critical situations as palaeographic confusion of particular letters, or homœoarchy or homœoteleuton involving specific character groups, may lend themselves to feature structure treatment. Information concerning these recurrent situations may be encoded into database-like fragments within the text which would then be available to sophisticated computer-assisted analysis. Further work remains to be done on such mechanisms, however, and so no examples are given here of the use of feature structures in text-critical apparatus.
<note resp="#Kl" place="app">Fol. 179a <mentioned>beowulfe</mentioned>.
Folio 179, with the last page (Fol. 198b), is the worst part of the
entire MS. It has been freshened up by a later hand, but not always
correctly. Information on doubtful readings is in the notes of
Zupitza and Chambers.</note>
</l>
<l n="2207b">brade rice</l>
Encoders should be aware of the distinct fields of use of the attribute values wit, hand, and resp. Broadly, wit identifies the physical entity in which the reading is found (manuscript, clay tablet, papyrus, printed edition); hand refers to the agent responsible for inscribing that reading in that physical entity (scribe, author, inscriber, hand 1, hand 2); resp indicates the scholar responsible for asserting the existence of that reading in that physical entity. In some cases, the categories may blur: a scholar may produce an edition introducing readings for which he or she is responsible; that edition may itself become a witness in a later critical apparatus. Thus, readings introduced as corrections in the earlier edition will be seen in the later apparatus as witnessed by the earlier edition. As observed in the discussion concerning the discrimination of hand and resp in transcription of primary sources in section 11.3.2.2 Hand, Responsibility, and Certainty Attributes, the division of layers of responsibility through various scholars for particular aspects of a particular reading may require the more complex mechanisms for assigning responsibility described in chapter 21 Certainty, Precision, and Responsibility.
TEI: Indicating Subvariation in Apparatus Entries¶12.1.3 Indicating Subvariation in Apparatus Entries
The rdgGrp element may be used to group readings, either because they have identical values on one or more attributes, or because they are seen as forming a self-contained variant sequence, or for some other reason. This grouping of readings is entirely optional: no such grouping of readings is required.
- rdgGrp (reading group) within a textual variation, groups two or more readings perceived to have a genetic relationship or other affinity.
The rdgGrp element is a member of class att.textCritical and therefore can carry the wit, type, cause, varSeq, hand, and resp attributes described in the preceding section. When values for any of these attributes are given on a rdgGrp element, the values given are inherited by the rdg or lem elements nested within the reading group, unless overridden by a new specification on the individual reading element.
<lem wit="#El #Ra2">though</lem>
<rdgGrp type="orthographic">
<rdg wit="#La">thogh</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Hg">thouh</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
</app>
Similarly, rdgGrp may be used to organize the substantive variants of an apparatus entry. Editors may need to indicate that each of a group of witnesses may be taken as all supporting a particular reading, even though there may be variation concerning the exact form of that reading in, or the degree of support offered by, those witnesses. For example: one may identify three substantive variants on the first word of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue in the manuscripts: these might be expressed in regularized spelling as Experience, Experiment, and Eriment. In fact, the manuscripts display many different spellings of these words, and a scholar may wish both to show that the manuscripts have all these variant spellings and that these variant spellings actually support only the three regularized spelling forms. One may term these variant spellings as ‘subvariants’ of the regularized spelling forms.
This subvariation can be expressed within an app element by gathering the readings into three groups according to the normalized form of their reading. All the readings within each group may be accounted subvariants of the main reading for the group, which may be indicated by tagging it as a lem element or as <rdg type='groupBase'>.
<rdgGrp type="subvariants">
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ha4">Experiens</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
<rdgGrp type="subvariants">
<lem wit="#Cp #Ld1">Experiment</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Ex<g ref="#per"/>iment</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
<rdgGrp type="subvariants">
<lem resp="#ed2013">Eriment</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
</app>
<rdg wit="#El #Hg #Ha4">
<app n="a2" type="orthographic">
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ha4">Experiens</rdg>
</app>
</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Cp #Ld1 #La">
<app n="a3" type="orthographic">
<lem wit="#Cp #Ld1">Experiment</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Ex<g ref="#per"/>iment</rdg>
</app>
</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">
<app n="a4" type="orthographic">
<lem resp="#ed2013">Eriment</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
</rdg>
</app>
<rdgGrp type="subvariants">
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ha4">Experiens</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
<rdgGrp type="sequence">
<rdgGrp varSeq="1" type="subvariants">
<lem wit="#Cp #Ld1">Experiment</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Ex<g ref="#per"/>iment</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
<rdgGrp varSeq="2" cause="abbreviation_loss">
<lem resp="#ed2013">Eriment</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
</rdgGrp>
</app>
TEI: Witness Information¶12.1.4 Witness Information
A given reading is associated with the set of witnesses attesting it by listing the witnesses in the wit attribute on the rdg, lem, or rdgGrp element. Special mechanisms, described in the following sections, are needed to associate annotation on a reading with one specific witness among several (section 12.1.4.1 Witness Detail Information), to transcribe witness information verbatim from a source edition (section 12.1.4.2 Witness Information in the Source), and to identify the formal lists of witnesses typically provided in the front matter of critical editions (section 12.1.4.3 The Witness List).
TEI: Witness Detail Information¶12.1.4.1 Witness Detail Information
When it is desired to give additional information about a particular witness or witnesses for the reading, the information may be given in a witDetail element. This is a specialized form of note, which can be linked to both a reading and to one or more of the witnesses for that reading. The former linkage is effected by the target attribute which witDetail inherits from the attribute class att.pointing, and the latter by the wit attribute.
- att.pointing defines a set of attributes used by all elements which point to other elements by means of one or more URI references.
target specifies the destination of the reference by supplying one or more URI References - witDetail (witness detail) gives further information about a particular witness, or witnesses, to a particular reading.
wit (witnesses) indicates the sigil or sigla for the witnesses to which the detail refers.
<rdgGrp type="subvariants">
<lem xml:id="W026" wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ha4">Experiens</rdg>
</rdgGrp>
</app>
<witDetail target="#W026" wit="#El" resp="#PR">Ornamental capital.</witDetail>
<l>daz sint alle megede,</l>
<l>die wellent ân man</l>
<l>
<app>
<rdg wit="#Mu" hand="#m1">alle</rdg>
<rdg xml:id="anon.6.4" wit="#Mu" hand="#m2">allen</rdg>
</app>
disen sumer gân.
</l>
<witDetail target="#anon.6.4" wit="#Mu">
<ref>allen</ref>
<mentioned>n</mentioned> nachgetragen.
</witDetail>
Observe that a single witness detail element may be linked to several different readings (noting, for example, a recurrent phenomenon in a particular manuscript) by having the target attribute point at all the readings in question. Similarly, feature structures containing information about the text in a witness (whether retroversion, regularization, or other) can also be linked to specific lem and rdg instances. See chapter 18 Feature Structures.
TEI: Witness Information in the Source¶12.1.4.2 Witness Information in the Source
- wit contains a list of one or more sigla of witnesses attesting a given reading, in a textual variation.
<l xml:id="Diet1.1">Slăfest du, vriedel ziere?</l>
<l xml:id="Diet1.2">wan wecket uns leider schiere;</l>
<l xml:id="Diet1.3">ein vogellīn sŏ wol getăn</l>
<l xml:id="Diet1.4">daz ist der linden an daz zwī gegăn.</l>
</lg>
<app type="secondary" loc="Diet.1.1">
<rdg wit="#Kb">slăfst</rdg>
<wit>K(Ba)</wit>
</app>
<app type="secondary" loc="Diet.1.2">
<rdg wit="#Kv">Man</rdg>
<wit>K(V)</wit>
<rdg wit="#K">weckt</rdg>
<wit>K (Wackernagel 401)</wit>
<rdg wit="#Ju">Ich waen ez taget uns schiere</rdg>
<wit>Jungbluth, Festschr. Pretzel 1963, 122.</wit>
</app>
TEI: The Witness List¶12.1.4.3 The Witness List
A list of all identified witnesses should normally be supplied in the front matter of the edition, or in the sourceDesc element of its header. This may be given either as a simple bibliographic list, using the listBibl element described in 3.11 Bibliographic Citations and References, or as a listWit element, which contains a series of witness elements. Each witness element may contain a brief characterization of the witness, given as one or more prose paragraphs. If more detailed information about a manuscript witness is available, it should be represented using the msDesc element provided by the msdescription module; a msDesc may appear within a listBibl.
Whether information about a particular witness is supplied by means of a bibl, msDesc, or witness element, a unique sigil for this source should always be supplied, using the global xml:id attribute. This identifier can then be used elsewhere to refer to this particular witness.
- listWit (witness list) lists definitions for all the witnesses referred to by a critical apparatus, optionally grouped hierarchically.
- witness contains either a description of a single witness referred to within the critical apparatus, or a list of witnesses which is to be referred to by a single sigil.
- msDesc (manuscript description) contains a description of a single identifiable manuscript or other text-bearing object.
- bibl (bibliographic citation) contains a loosely-structured bibliographic citation of which the sub-components may or may not be explicitly tagged.
- listBibl (citation list) contains a list of bibliographic citations of any kind.
<witness xml:id="Chi3"/>
<witness xml:id="Ha4"/>
<witness xml:id="Ju"/>
<witness xml:id="K"/>
<witness xml:id="Kb"/>
<witness xml:id="Kl"/>
<witness xml:id="Kv"/>
<witness xml:id="Ld"/>
<witness xml:id="Ld1"/>
<witness xml:id="Ln"/>
<witness xml:id="Mu"/>
<witness xml:id="Ry2"/>
<witness xml:id="Wa"/>
<witness xml:id="X"/>
</listWit>
<witness xml:id="El">Ellesmere, Huntingdon Library 26.C.9</witness>
<witness xml:id="Hg">Hengwrt, National Library of Wales,
Aberystwyth, Peniarth 392D</witness>
<witness xml:id="Ra2">Bodleian Library Rawlinson Poetic 149
(see further <ptr target="http://example.com/msDescs#MSRP149"/>)</witness>
</listWit>
<witness xml:id="A">die sog. <soCalled>Kleine (oder alte)
Heidelberger Liederhandschrift</soCalled>.
<bibl>Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg col. pal.
germ. 357. Pergament, 45 Fll. 18,5 × 13,5 cm.</bibl>
Wahrscheinlich die älteste der drei großen Hss. Sie
<quote>datiert aus dem 13. Jahrhundert, etwa um 1275. Ihre Sprache
weist ins Elsaß, evtl. nach Straßburg. Man geht wohl nicht
fehl, in ihr eine Sammlung aus dem Stadtpatriziat zu sehen</quote>
(<bibl>
<author>Blank</author>, [vgl. <ref>Lit. z. Hss. Bd. 2,
S. 39</ref>] S. 14</bibl>). Sie enthält 34 namentlich
genannte Dichter. <quote>Zu den Vorzügen von A gehört, daß
sie kaum je bewußt geändert hat, so daß sie für
manche Dichter ... oft den besten Text liefert</quote> (so wohl mit
Recht <bibl>
<author>v. Kraus</author>
</bibl>).</witness>
<witness xml:id="a">Bezeichnung <bibl>
<author>Lachmann</author>
</bibl>s für die von einer 2. Hand auf bl. 40–43
geschriebenen Strophen der Hs. A.</witness>
<witness xml:id="B">die <soCalled>Weingartner (Stuttgarter)
Liederhandschrift</soCalled>. <bibl>Württembergische
Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, HB XIII poetae germanici 1.
Pergament, 156 Bll. 15 × 11,5 cm; 25 teils ganzseitig,
teils halbseitige Miniaturen.</bibl> Kaum vor 1306 in Konstanz
geschrieben. Sie enthält Lieder von 25 namentlich genannten
Dichtern. (Dazu kommen Gedichte von einigen ungenannten
bzw. unbekannten Dichtern, ein Marienlobpreis und eine
Minnelehre.)</witness>
</listWit>
<bibl xml:id="bcn_1482">T. Kempis, De la imitació de Jesuchrist e del
menyspreu del món (trad. Miquel Peres); Barcelona, 1482, Pere
Posa. Editio princeps.</bibl>
<bibl xml:id="val_1491">T. Kempis, Del menyspreu del món (trad. Miquel
Peres); València, 1491.</bibl>
<bibl xml:id="bcn_1518">T. Kempis, Libre del menysprey del món e de la
imitació de nostre senyor Déu Jesucrist, (trad. Miquel Peres);
Barcelona, 1518, Carles Amorós. </bibl>
</listBibl>
<witness xml:id="Ellesmere">Ellesmere, Huntingdon Library 26.C.9</witness>
<!-- ... -->
<listWit xml:id="Con">
<head>Constant Group C</head>
<witness xml:id="Cp">Corpus Christi Oxford MS 198</witness>
<witness xml:id="La">British Library Lansdowne 851</witness>
<witness xml:id="Sl2">British Library Sloane MS 1686</witness>
</listWit>
</listWit>
Situations commonly arise where there are many more or less fragmentary witnesses, such that there may be quite distinct groups of witnesses for different parts of a text or collection of texts. One may treat this with distinct listWit elements for each different part. Alternatively, one may have a single listWit element at the beginning of the file or in its header listing all the witnesses, partial and complete, for the text, with the attestation of fragmentary witnesses indicated within the apparatus by use of the witStart and witEnd elements described in section 12.1.5 Fragmentary Witnesses.
If a witness list is provided, it may be unnecessary to give, in each apparatus entry, an exhaustive list of the witnesses which agree with the base text. An application program can—in principle—compare the witnesses given for each variant found with those given in the full list of witnesses, subtracting from this list all the witnesses not active at this point (perhaps because of lacuna, or because they contain a variation on a different, overlapping lemma) and thence calculate all the manuscripts agreeing with the base text. In practice, encoders may find it less error-prone to list all witnesses explicitly in each apparatus entry.
TEI: Fragmentary Witnesses¶12.1.5 Fragmentary Witnesses
If a witness is incomplete (whether a single fragment, a series of fragments, or a relatively complete text with one or more lacunae), it is usually desirable to record explicitly where its preserved portions begin and end. The following empty tags, which may occur within any lem or rdg element, indicate the beginning or end of a fragmentary witness or of a lacuna within a witness:
- witStart/ (fragmented witness start) indicates the beginning, or resumption, of the text of a fragmentary witness.
- witEnd/ (fragmented witness end) indicates the end, or suspension, of the text of a fragmentary witness.
- lacunaStart/ indicates the beginning of a lacuna in the text of a mostly complete textual witness.
- lacunaEnd/ indicates the end of a lacuna in a mostly complete textual witness.
These elements constitute the class model.rdgPart, members of which are permitted within the elements lem and rdg when the module defined by this chapter is included in a schema.
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Auctoritee</lem>
<rdg wit="#La #Ra2">auctorite</rdg>
<rdg wit="#X">
<lacunaEnd/>auctorite</rdg>
</app>
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Auctoritee</lem>
<rdg wit="#La #Ra2 #X">
<lacunaEnd wit="#X"/>auctorite</rdg>
</app>
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Auctoritee</lem>
<rdg wit="#La #Ra2">auctorite</rdg>
<rdg wit="#X">
<witStart/>auctorite</rdg>
</app>
TEI: Linking the Apparatus to the Text¶12.2 Linking the Apparatus to the Text
Three different methods may be used to link a critical apparatus to the text:
- the location-referenced method,
- the double-end-point-attached method, and
- the parallel segmentation method.
Both the location-referenced and the double end-point methods may be used with either in-line or external apparatus, the former dispersed within the base text, the latter held in some separate location, within or outside the document with the base text. The parallel segmentation method does not use the concept of a base text and may only be used for in-line apparatus.
Where an external apparatus is used, the listApp element provides a useful means of grouping together a series of app elements of a specific type, or from a particular source:
- listApp (list of apparatus entries) contains a list of apparatus entries.
- att.typed provides attributes which can be used to classify or subclassify elements in any way.
type characterizes the element in some sense, using any convenient classification scheme or typology. subtype provides a sub-categorization of the element, if needed
listApp elements would normally appear in the back of a document, but they may also be placed in any other convenient location.
Any document containing app elements requires a variantEncoding declaration in the encodingDesc element of its TEI header, thus:
- variantEncoding/ declares the method used to encode text-critical variants.
method indicates which method is used to encode the apparatus of variants. location indicates whether the apparatus appears within the running text or external to it.
TEI: The Location-referenced Method¶12.2.1 The Location-referenced Method
The location-referenced method of encoding apparatus provides a convenient method for encoding printed apparatus; in this method as in most printed editions, the apparatus is linked to the base text by indicating explicitly only the block of text on which there is a variant (noted usually by a canonical reference scheme, or by line number in the edition, such as A 137 or Page 15 line 1).
<body>
<div n="WBP" type="prologue">
<head>The Prologe of the Wyves Tale of Bathe</head>
<l n="1">Experience though noon Auctoritee</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
</div>
</body>
</text>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<!-- ... -->
<l n="1">Experience
<app>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
though noon Auctoritee</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
<app>
<rdg wit="#La"> Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2"> Eryment</rdg>
</app>
</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
<app>
<lem wit="#El">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
Where it is intended that the apparatus be complete enough to allow the reconstruction of the witnesses (or at least of their non-orthographic variations), simple location-reference methods are unlikely to be as successful as the other two methods, which allow the unambiguous reconstruction of the lemma from the encoding.
TEI: The Double End-Point Attachment Method¶12.2.2 The Double End-Point Attachment Method
In the double end-point attachment method, the beginning and end of the lemma in the base text are both explicitly indicated. It thus differs from the location-referenced method, in which only the larger span of text containing the lemma is indicated. Double end-point attachment permits unambiguous matching of each variant reading against its lemma. It or the parallel-segmentation method should be used in all cases where this is desired, for example where the apparatus is intended to enable full reconstruction of the text, or of the substantives, of every witness.
When the double end-point attachment method is used, the from and to attributes of the app element are used to indicate the beginning and ending points of the reading in the base text: their values are identifiers which occur at the locations in question. If no other markup is present there, the beginning and ending points should be marked using the anchor element defined in chapter 16 Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment. In cases where it is not possible to insert anchors within the base text (e.g. where the text is on a read-only medium) the beginning and end of the lemma may be indicated by using the ‘indirect pointing’ mechanisms discussed in chapter 16 Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment. Explicit anchors are more likely to be reliable, and are therefore to be preferred.
<!-- ... -->
<div n="WBP" type="prologue">
<head>The Prologe ... </head>
<l n="1" xml:id="WBP.1">Experience<anchor xml:id="WBP-A2"/> though noon Auctoritee</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
</div>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<!-- ... -->
<l n="1" xml:id="wbp.1">Experience
<app from="#wbp.1">
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
though noon Auctoritee</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
The lemma need not be repeated within the app element in this method, as it may be extracted reliably from the base text. If an exhaustive list of witnesses is available, it will also not be necessary to specify just which manuscripts agree with the base text to enable reconstruction of witnesses. An application will be able to determine the manuscripts that witness the base reading, by noting which witnesses are attested as having a variant reading, and inferring the base text reading for all others after adjusting for fragmentary witnesses and for witnesses carrying overlapping variant readings.
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
This method is designed to cope with ‘overlapping lemmata’. For example, at line 117 of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, the manuscripts Hg (Hengwrt), El (Ellesmere), and Ha4 (British Library Harleian 7334) read:
- Hg
- And of so parfit wys a wight ywroght
- El
- And for what profit was a wight ywroght
- Ha4
- And in what wise was a wight ywroght
<anchor xml:id="WBP-A117.1"/> of so parfit
<anchor xml:id="WBP-A117.2"/> wys
<anchor xml:id="WBP-A117.3"/> a wight
<anchor xml:id="WBP-A117.4"/> ywroght
<app from="#WBP-A117.1" to="#WBP-A117.3">
<lem wit="#Hg">of so parfit wys</lem>
<rdg wit="#Ha4">in what wise was</rdg>
</app>
<app from="#WBP-A117.2" to="#WBP-A117.4">
<lem wit="#Hg">wys a wight</lem>
<rdg wit="#El #Ha4">was a wight</rdg>
</app>
</l>
Because creation and interpretation of double end-point attachment apparatus will be lengthy and difficult it is likely that they will usually be created and examined by scholars only with mechanical assistance.
TEI: The Parallel Segmentation Method¶12.2.3 The Parallel Segmentation Method
This method differs from the double end-point attachment method in that all variants at any point of the text are expressed as variants on one another. In this method, no two variations can overlap, although they may nest. Thus, the concepts of a base text and of a lemma become unnecessary: the texts compared are divided into matching segments all synchronized with one another. This permits direct comparison of any span of text in any witness with that in any other witness. It is also very easy with this method for an application to extract the full text of any one witness from the apparatus.
This method will (by definition) always be satisfactory when there are just two texts for comparison (assuming they are in the same language and script). It will also be useful where editors do not wish to privilege a text as the ‘base’ or when editors wish to present parallel texts. It will become less convenient as traditions become more complex and tension develops between the need to segment on the largest variation found and the need to express the finest detail of agreement between witnesses.
<!-- ... -->
<l n="1">
<app>
<lem wit="#El #Hg">Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
though noon Auctoritee
</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
This method cannot be used with external apparatus: it must be used in-line. Note that apparatus encoded with this method may be translated into the double end-point attachment method and back without loss of information. Where double-end-point-attachment encodings have no overlapping lemmata, translation of these to the parallel segmentation encoding and back will also be possible without loss of information.
<app>
<lem>Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
though noon Auctoritee
</l>
<l>Were in this world ...</l>
Alternatively, the witnesses for every reading may be stated, as in the first example.
<app>
<rdg wit="#Chi3">Auctoritee, though none experience</rdg>
<rdg>
<app>
<rdg wit="#El #Hg">Experience</rdg>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<app>
<rdg wit="#El #Ra2">though</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Hg">thogh</rdg>
<rdg wit="#La">thouh</rdg>
</app>
<app>
<rdg wit="#El #Hg">noon Auctorite</rdg>
<rdg wit="#La #Ra2">none auctorite</rdg>
</app>
</rdg>
</app>
</l>
Parallel segmentation cannot, however, deal very gracefully with variants which overlap without nesting: such variants must be broken up into pieces in order to keep all witnesses synchronized.
TEI: Other Linking Methods¶12.2.4 Other Linking Methods
When an apparatus is provided it does not need to be given at the location in the transcription where the variation, emendation, attribution, or other apparatus observation occurs. Instead it may be stored in a separate place in the same file, or indeed in another file, and point to the location at which it is meant to be used. Storing apparatus entries separately can be beneficial when encoding multiple competing, potentially overlapping, interpretations of the same point in the source texts.
The location-referenced method can be used to point a position in a text using the loc attribute and a canonical reference that is understood and documented in the context of the file where it is used. Where possible it is recommended that other methods use the from attribute to point to an xml:id attribute on an anchor or other element at the location where the apparatus observation takes place. The contents of an element pointed to are understood to be equivalent to a lem if none exists in the app, and if a lem does exist this should replace any content.
<seg xml:id="WBP-so.1.1">Experience</seg> though noon Auctoritee
</l>
<!-- In another file -->
<app from="example.xml#WBP-so.1.1">
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<anchor xml:id="WBP-so.1.1a"/> though noon Auctoritee
</l>
<!-- In another file -->
<app
from="http://www.example.com/example.xml#WBP-so.1.1a">
<lem>Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
<!-- In another file -->
<app
from="example.xml#string-range(WBP.1a, 0, 10)">
<lem>Experience</lem>
<rdg wit="#La">Experiment</rdg>
<rdg wit="#Ra2">Eryment</rdg>
</app>
If only the from attribute is provided then it should be understood that this supplies the location of the textual variance that the apparatus documents. If the from attribute contains an XPointer scheme that identifies a range of text (or elements) then this is understood to record the starting and ending of the range as in the double end-point attachment method. In such a case a @to attribute is unnecessary.
TEI: Using Apparatus Elements in Transcriptions¶12.3 Using Apparatus Elements in Transcriptions
It is often desirable to record different transcriptions of one stretch of text. These variant transcriptions may be grouped within a single app element. An application may then construct different ‘views’ of the transcription by extraction of the appropriate variant readings from the apparatus elements embedded in the transcription.
<app>
<rdg resp="#ES">perfectio<am>
<g ref="#ii"/>
</am>
</rdg>
<rdg resp="#FJF">perfectio<ex>u</ex>n</rdg>
<rdg resp="#PGR">perfectiou<ex>n</ex>
</rdg>
</app>
<app>
<rdg resp="#ES">perfecti<am>
<g ref="#ii"/>
</am>
</rdg>
<rdg xml:id="f105" resp="#FJF">perfectio<ex>u</ex>n</rdg>
<rdg xml:id="r105" resp="#PGR">perfectiou<ex>n</ex>
</rdg>
</app>
<!-- ... <note> appearing elsewhere in the document ... -->
<note target="#r105 #f105">Furnivall's expansion implies that the bar
is an abbreviation for 'u'. There are no certain instances of
this mark as an abbreviation for 'u' in these manuscripts and it is
widely used as an abbreviation for 'n'. Ruggiers' expansion is to
be accepted.</note>
In most cases, elements used to indicate features of a primary textual source may be represented within an app structure simply by nesting them within its readings, just as the am and ex elements are nested within the rdg elements in the example just given. However, in cases where the tagged feature extends across a span of text which might itself contain variant readings which it is desired to represent by app structures, some adaptation of the tagging may be necessary. For example, a span of text may be marked in the transcription of the primary source as a single deletion but it may be desirable to represent just a few words from this source as individual deletions within the context of a critical apparatus drawing together readings from this and several other witnesses. In this case, the tagging of the span of words as one deletion may need to be decomposed into a series of one-word deletions for encoding within the apparatus. If it is important to record the fact that all were deleted by the same act, the markup may use the join element or the next and prev attributes defined by chapter 16 Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment.
TEI: Module for Critical Apparatus¶12.4 Module for Critical Apparatus
The module described in this chapter makes available the following components:
- Module textcrit: Critical Apparatus
- Elements defined: app lacunaEnd lacunaStart lem listApp listWit rdg rdgGrp variantEncoding wit witDetail witEnd witStart witness
- Classes defined: att.rdgPart att.textCritical att.witnessed model.rdgLike model.rdgPart
The selection and combination of modules to form a TEI schema is described in 1.2 Defining a TEI Schema.