New subject: [tei-council] Dealing with an abbreviation that expands to multiple lines of verse

25 Sep 2017

      Dear List,

We're encoding a number of early-modern songs for a pilot project and we
are wondering how to deal with a special form of abbreviation and its
expansion.

An example: image from EEBO
https://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/full_rec?SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ACTION=ByID&ID=13587622&FILE=CITATIONS&SEARCHSCREEN=param(SEARCHSCREEN)&VID=100600&PAGENO=18&ZOOM=100&VIEWPORT=&SEARCHCONFIG=undefined&DISPLAY=param(DISPLAY)&HIGHLIGHT_KEYWORD=undefined

You can see at the bottom of the left page that the last line reads: "But I
have vow'd, &c.". The "&c." indicates that the rest of the refrain is to be
sung; you can find it underlain in the score above, starting at about a
third of the page:
"But I have vow'd, and never muſt
your baniſh'd ſervant trouble you
for if he break you may diſtruſt,
the vow he made to love you too.".

We would like to encode both the "&c." and the expansion, but since this
spans multiple lines, we are not able to use <choice> with <abbr> and
<expan>. What should we do instead?

<lg type="stanza">
  <!-- first lines -->
  <l>About with him he bears the rage,</l>
  <l>And in his tainted bloud the fire.</l>
  <l>But I have vow'd, &c.</l>
  <!-- Insert expanded refrain here -->
</lg>

We could link together expansions, but the choice remains somewhat
incomplete, as it only wraps the first part of the expansion:

<l>But I have vow'd, <choice><abbr>&c.</abbr><expan xml:id="ex1"
next="#ex2">and never must</expan></choice></l>
<l><expan xml:id="ex2" prev="#ex1" next="#ex3">your banish'd servant
trouble you</expan></l>
<l><expan xml:id="ex3" prev="#ex2" next="#ex4">for if he break you may
distrust,</expan></l>
<l><expan xml:id="ex4" prev="#ex3">the vow he made to love you
too.</expan></l>

Another possibility could be wrapping the refrain in a nested <lg> and give
it a subtype, but I'm not too happy about it. It also doesn't indicate
clearly what was on the original document and what was expanded because
"But I have vow'd," gets bundled with the rest.
  <l rend="indent1">And in his tainted bloud the fire.</l>
  <lg type="refrain" subtype="expanded">
    <l>But I have vow'd,
      <choice>
        <abbr>&c.</abbr>
        <expan>and never muſt</expan>
      </choice>
    </l>
    <l>your baniſh'd ſervant trouble you</l>
    <l>for if he break you may diſtruſt,</l>
    <l><expan>the vow he made to love you too.</expan></l>
  </lg>
</lg>

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

Raff

-- 
Raffaele Viglianti, PhD
Research Programmer
Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
University of Maryland

Dealing with an abbreviation that expands to multiple lines of verse

Raffaele Viglianti

Raffaele Viglianti

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