DOCBOOK: docbook XML entities in nsgmls

[Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>]

I'm trying to use the latest version of Docbook XML from
Norm Walsh that includes the ISO character entity
definitions in Unicode that look like this:

  <!ENTITY acute  "&#x00B4;"> <!-- ACUTE ACCENT -->

These entity definitions generate fatal errors in
two SGML products that supposedly support XML: nsgmls from
James Clark and Arbortext Adept.  The error is generated
when the parser encounters the first entity definition in the DTD:

  Unknown function name (X00B4) given in character reference.
  Check that name has been used in the FUNCTION clause of the SGML declaration
  (err:552  line:6  pos:244)

Somehow SGML is interpreting x00B4 in the entity as a function name
rather than a character.  FUNCTION is an SGML declaration
feature.  It is used to assign special functions to certain
characters in the character set, such as record end (RE),
record start (RS), etc.  The ISO unicode characters are not
functions.  Is there something I can add to the declaration
so these entity definitions are interpreted as functions?

bobs