12. Specification
The Guidelines you are reading have two complementary “voices”:
- The narrative parts explain why TEI Lex-0 recommends certain practices, what those practices mean for dictionary work, and how to apply them in real encoding situations. Narrative sections are written for humans: they include rationale, examples, discussion of alternatives, and guidance for consistent practice.
- The Specification is the reference manual (and, effectively, the “grammar”) of TEI Lex-0. It tells you exactly which TEI constructs are in scope and how they are allowed to combine. When you need to answer questions like “Can this element go here?”, “Which attributes are permitted?”, or “What values are valid?”, the Specification is the place to look.
In TEI terms, the Specification is where TEI Lex-0 becomes concrete: it lists the allowed elements, their attributes, and their content models (what may appear inside them), along with the reusable building blocks that make those content models manageable (classes, macros, and data types).
