Re: definition of plain text

From: Peter Cyrus <pcyrus_at_alivox.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:23:09 +0200

Perhaps the idea of something embedded in the text that then controls
the display of the subsequent run of text is the very definition of
"markup", whether or not that markup is a special character or an
ASCII sequence like </span><span style="gait:xxx;"> or </span><span
style="font:xxx;">.

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham_at_ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:37:20 +0200
> Peter Cyrus <pcyrus_at_alivox.net> wrote:
>
>> Perhaps, awkwardly.  But that is ultimately equivalent to marking the
>> gait on every letter, in which case I probably wouldn't need to
>> distinguish between initial and non-initial letters.
>
> If you allow C(R)V(C) as a 'fixed' syllable structure, the
> location of the syllable boundary in words like /tatrat/ would be
> significant, as in Thai.  /tata/ would also be awkward if you had null
> initials, as, again, some claim for Thai.  (There are languages that
> need to be analysed as having a phonemic contrast between null initials
> and initial glottal stops, even if German isn't one of them.)
>
> You might be able to handle syllable breaks just by having an
> optional syllable break character, analogous to CGJ and ZWSP.
>
> Marking gait on every letter may not be necessary, but gait-selecting
> characters present issues.  They're analogous to the deprecated numeric
> shape selectors U+206E and U+206F, whose use is strongly discouraged.
> These characters need explicit support in rendering engines, which is
> an argument against gait-selecting characters.  You might be able to
> propagate gait by contextual substitution, *if* you could propagate it
> through automatic line breaks.
>
> Richard.
>
>
Received on Mon Oct 17 2011 - 03:27:40 CDT

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