Birth and death can be an equivalent of placeName they aren't _necessarily_ anything to do with dates but names of places where these events take place. This they should have all the same attributes of other names.
Oh. My first instinct is "I don't buy it". Why on earth would one presume that the content of <birth> or <death> is a place name? Certainly it may *contain* a place name, but that (IMHO) does not give it the right to express canonical information about one bit inside itself. If you wanted to encode canonical information about a place where someone was born, you should (IMHO) stick a <placeName> (or equivalent) in as a child of <birth>. You might well ask why I think it is OK that <birth> and <death> are members of att.datable. That's because I think the semantics there are absolutely clear, and exemplified at that. The dating information on <death> clearly describes the date of death. But what does @ref on <death> point to? A <place> where the person died, the place where a physician pronounced the person dead, an <event> that caused her death, or the <date> of said event? And I'm not sure I even know how to ask what @nymRef or @role might mean on a <death> or <birth>. So if we're going to stick with this, I think we need to very explicitly say what the semantics of these attrs are. BTW, I think the examples in the Guidelines bear this out. Here is first a summary of them, and then the actual elements (whitespace tweaked) in the same order. empty empty content content content content content children: date name name name name content content children: date name content children: name date empty empty content content children: name content children: name content children: placeName content children: placeName content children: placeName content children: placeName content children: placeName content children: placeName content children: date name --------- <birth notBefore="1368"/> <death notBefore="1579-08-22" notAfter="1582-03-28"/> <birth when="1857-03-15">15 March 1857.</birth> <birth notBefore="1857-03-01" notAfter="1857-04-30">Some time in March or April of 1857.</birth> <birth>Before 1920, Midlands region.</birth> <birth>Années 20, dans les Pouilles.</birth> <birth when="1901-01-16"> Elle est née le<date> 16 janvier 1901</date> à <name type="place">Louvres</name>, alors commune de <name type="place">Seine-et-Oise</name> (aujourd'hui dans le <name type="place">Val-d'Oise</name>), au nord-ouest de l'actuel aéroport de<name type="place"> Roissy</name>. </birth> <birth>早於1920的上海租界</birth> <birth when="1960-12-10"><date>1960年12月10日</date>早晨，在一個靠近<name type="place">龍山寺</name>的小平房裡</birth> <birth when="1960-12-10">In a small cottage near <name type="place">Aix-la-Chapelle</name>, early in the morning of <date>10 Dec 1960</date> </birth> <death when="1902-10-01"/> <death when="1902-10-01"/> <death when="1953-04-07">Ma mère est morte le 7 avril.</death> <death when="1960-12-10">在<name type="place">北大教堂</name>附近死於腦性麻痺</death> <death when="1960-12-10">Passed away near <name type="place">Aix-la-Chapelle</name>, after suffering from cerebral palsy. </death> <birth when="-0044-03-20"> 20 March 43 BC<placeName><settlement type="city">Sulmona</settlement><country key="IT">Italie</country></placeName> </birth> <death notBefore="0017" notAfter="0018">17 or 18 AD<placeName><settlement type="city">Tomis (Constanta)</settlement><country key="RO">Roumanie</country></placeName> </death> <birth when="-0044-03-20"> 西元前43年3月20日<placeName><settlement type="city">Sulmona</settlement><country key="IT">義大利</country></placeName> </birth> <death notBefore="0017" notAfter="0018">西元後17或18年<placeName><settlement type="city">Tomis (Constanta)</settlement><country key="RO">羅馬尼亞</country></placeName> </death> <birth when="-0044-03-20"> 20 March 43 BC <placeName><settlement type="city">Sulmona</settlement><country key="IT">Italy</country></placeName> </birth> <death notBefore="0017" notAfter="0018">17 or 18 AD <placeName><settlement type="city">Tomis (Constanta)</settlement><country key="RO">Romania</country></placeName> </death> <birth when="1950-01-12"> <date>12 Jan 1950</date> <name type="place">Shropshire, UK</name> </birth> ---------