Add missing definition for "proper name"#5098
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patrickhlauke
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….com/doi/full/10.1111/theo.12578 about use across languages
patrickhlauke
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Non-Normative
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Looks good to me, can't see why that should be an issue, @WilcoFiers |
WilcoFiers
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WilcoFiers
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I'm opposed to making substantive changes to WCAG's existing documents. See #4952 (comment)
This change can be done in an understanding document.
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| <dt><dfn id="dfn-proper-name-s" data-lt="proper names|proper name(s)">proper name</dfn></dt> | |||
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| <p>a name which is taken to uniquely identify its referent in the world – such as the name of a specific person, place, or product – and that can be used across languages without modification</p> | |||
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This definition seems kinda clunky. So people who were named after a parent / grandparent don't have a proper name because the name wasn't intended to be unique? That's odd, and hard to test. It also seems that things like book and movie titles fall under this. "Project Hail Mary" is the name of a book and movie, it's intended to be unique, and you can't translate it because you're then talking about the translated book. Books and movies wouldn't traditionally be considered a proper name, but your definition doesn't seem to rule them out. I would expect a language attribute on those to be required.
"Can be used across languages without modification" is a confusing phrase to me. I had to look up the issue to figure it out. I think what you want to say here is that "the name cannot be translated to the language of the text without changing its meaning". That way "Deutsch" in an English text requires a language, as does "Deutschland". But "Shell Global" in a German text is fine, even if you can translate those words, since the English name of that company is also its name used in Germany.
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i encourage you to come up with a better definition, @WilcoFiers
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(and the fact we're arguing/disagreeing is exactly WHY this should be a normative definition in spec ... since this determines whether something passes or fails the requirements in question that use that undefined term ... and understanding documents should not be the ones that influence pass or fail per se, no?)
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I suggest to drop the term "uniquely" from the definition.
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"the name cannot be translated to the language of the text without changing its meaning"
Not sure that it is a 'cannot' be translated. My name, for example, is a proper noun but 'White' can be translated into other languages.
Having said that if the definition of 'proper name'/'proper noun' "appears to be a hotly contested / not quite clear-cut area in linguistics", I am wondering if this is something that we can or should wade in with a definition for.
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My name, for example, is a proper noun but 'White' can be translated into other languages.
but then, it changes its meaning, because you are not "Kevin Bianco", you are "Kevin White", which is your proper name
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I am wondering if this is something that we can or should wade in with a definition for
and leave the normative wording ambiguous? and therefore interpretation and auditing results ambiguous/down to people's interpretation?
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+1 to Wilco’s concern for the proposed definition. I suggest that the change should be for the SC to use “proper nouns” instead of “proper names” and then we really don’t have to add a term.
Can anyone articulate a difference between the two? I think this is essentially a long-standing typo! Compare Google (or dictionary) search for proper name to proper noun.
do you think "proper nouns" is unambiguous enough that it doesn't warrant a term/definition? I disagree, to me it's just as vague a term as "proper names". keeping in mind that the audience includes a large number of authors etc who don't have English as their first language either. and just noting that even saying "we should change names to nouns" would still be an erratum that I believe Wilco would be opposed to |
Co-authored-by: Adam Page <adam@adampage.net>
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Discussed in today's TF call. There were a few smaller wordsmithing concerns, and the question of whether or not this would actually directly address the original issue that spawned this (which I believe it does, as the actual term definition would make it clearer by inference that "Deutsch", "Italiano", etc are not "proper names" when used in English prose), but I think generally the feeling was positive. |
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I think the current proposed definition is an improvement from earlier:
But is it not a bit circular? The “used across languages without translation” is the basis for exception in the SC, so it’s off-loading some of the subjectivity to the definition. I am not sure this is an improvement. I still favor using proper noun (instead of proper name), a term found in dictionaries. I do think “proper nouns” is unambiguous enough that it doesn't warrant a glossary entry. Yes, that is still an erratum. It’s correcting a typo, so I think that is more defensible (as compared to adding a term). |
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I agree that “distinctly” is better than “uniquely” and “without translation” is better than ”without translation” but, assuming we add a definition, can we avoid “referent” and “is taken to? I am also not sure about “in the world” as I think fairly abstract things can have proper names. How about:
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Discussed on TF call 15 May and we have consensus with moving forward to AG. A recommendation was made to reinforce in PR that main point of SC is for pronunciation by screen reading software. |
Co-authored-by: Kevin White <kevin@w3.org>
Yes, absolutely - and given that the WCAG group are not lexicographers (although some of us, taking a broad definition of "group", might meet the definition given by Johnson a few centuries ago) I think it is better to look for terms that we can avoid defining. |
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retracting this for now - too much pushback to actually defining normatively what the term means. will switch to a note in Language of Parts understanding instead then... |
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Superseded by #5135 which tries to solve this in the non-normative understanding document instead (though this seems suboptimal compared to actually providing a normative definition) |
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Two success criteria just casually mention "proper names" without having an actual definition of what the term means.
The exact meaning of "proper name" (and "proper noun") appears to be a hotly contested / not quite clear-cut area in linguistics. Some languages also may not have a concept of "proper name/noun" that maps neatly to the English meaning.
This PR tries to give a fairly high-level definition (inspired by wikipedia, admittedly), for clarity/consistency. In particular, it surfaces the idea that a proper name/noun "can be used across languages" (which is relevant to explain its use in 3.1.2 Language of Parts in particular).
Relates to #4113 where the question came up whether or not the names of languages, in their own language (like "Deutsch", "Italiano", etc) are not considered "proper names" because they were capitalised, and one folksy definition of proper name/noun leans on the idea that "they're words that are usually capitalised".
This PR just spells out explicitly what the interpretation has always been (?), so this does not introduce any new normative requirement by the backdoor.
Previews:
Also relates to #1174
Closes #4094