On Sun, Nov 15 2020, giulia b wrote:
Dear all,
I was wondering if anybody on the list has ever used the element <samplingDecl> and, if so, for which purposes. By reading the TEI guidelines (herehttps://tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-samplingDecl.html), it seems that this should only be used when creating a corpus or a collection of texts, adding together pieces of a source or different sources.
Dear Giulia, short answer: I have not used that element till now. To me it seems like your understanding is right. But it might be a good idea to ask about this on the general TEI list (actually, I’d suggest that also for the next part of your question).
My doubt is: could it be used to record free-text information about the inclusion or the omission of portions of a text, manuscripts, or witnesses that are not editorial? For instance, can it be a good place to report that, for a given stretch of text, a given witness will not be collated (whether because the witness is incomplete or damaged)? Or should this kind of info rather be stated somewhere else (e.g. in <sourceDesc>, or <editorialDecl>)?
I’d look for such a general description in the tei:editorialDecl, or in the description of the particular witness that is concerned (tei:witness). And perhaps off-topic: to encode this in the document, there are useful elements described at “12.1.5 Fragmentary Witnesses” (https://tei-c.org/Vault/P5/4.1.0/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/TC.html#TCAPMI): tei:witStart, tei:witEnd, tei:lacunaStart, tei:lacunaEnd. You could perhaps link to these from a description in tei:witness. Best wishes, -- Patrick McAllister long-term email: pma@rdorte.org