Conref and xml:lang in High W3C Latin

["Paul Prescod" <paul.prescod@blastradius.com>]

I thought I would help Michael out. ;)

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Definition: Post DITA-Processing Infoset (PDPI)

A Post-DITA Processing Infoset is an infoset that results from the
application of DITA conref, conditional processing and metadata rules to
a map or topic.

Definition: Post DITA-Conref Element (PDCE)

A Post DITA-Conref Element is an element infoset item derived from an
XML element information item("the originating element") in an input
document information item.

Definition: Language Property

An DITA processor should augment the originating infoset and the PDPI by
adding the language property to each element information item. The value
of this property is the normalized value of the xml:lang attribute
appearing on that element if one exists, with xml:lang="" resulting in
no value, otherwise it is the value of the language property of the
element's parent element if one exists, otherwise the property has no
value. (this is ripped off from http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/#language)

Rule: Language of PDCEs

The language property associated with a PDCE infoset item is the same as
the language property that is associated with the originating element in
the input document. The original language property is assigned according
to normal XML rules. If the origin has no language property then the
language property should be set to the empty string.

In the vernacular, this means that a conref processor must copy the
xml:lang attribute attached to a referent element or to its most direct
ancestor containing an xml:lang attribute. If there is no such attribute
then the processor should copy the empty string.

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As a purely philosophical point, we define the mapping from originating
elements to PDCEs and can do whatever we want in that transformation.

In addition, I notice that the idea of scoping xml:lang elements is not
defined in either XML or the infoset proposal. 

 Paul Prescod