Toward a Model for Marking up Non-SI Units and Measurements

Abstract

This paper presents a markup model for encoding non-SI units and measurements. Historical texts contain many examples of compound measurements, composed of sets of units and numerical components. Instead of using the <measure> element, which requires a single set of @unit and @quantity, we propose a newly defined set of tags for encoding idiosyncratic measurement semantics, namely <unitDecl> (model.encodingDescPart), <unitDef> (model.global and contained by <unitDecl>), <unit> (model.measureLike), and a relevant attribute @factor (which shows factors of numerical values given in a referenced <unit> element). All of these elements and attributes will be included in the TEI P5 Guidelines, and they are especially useful when encoding units that are not based on the decimal system. Though this paper offers example encodings based on a Japanese historical source, the Engi-Shiki, this model is also applicable to the markup of units used for measurement within various cultural spheres other than Japan.

Keywords

• non-SI units and measurements
• TEI ODD
• TEI customization
• attribute