simifilm
commented
8 years ago With the latest additions, something is severely broken. I get
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1230 \DeclareLabelalphaNameTemplate
{
?
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1231 \namepart
[use=true, base=true, strwidth=1]{prefix}
?
! LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}.
See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
...
l.1231 \namepart[
use=true, base=true, strwidth=1]{prefix}
?
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1232 \namepart
[base=true]{family}
?
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1233 \namepart
{given}
? 
njbart
plk
JohnLukeBentley
moewew
I request support for:
origdate={c 0125};origdate={c 1487/1490}; andorigdate={1750 ?}.It would be desirable for these kinds of values to be permissible in all date fields. I use
origdateas the more likely example. There might be reasons for choosing different symbols for these kind of dates, to make parsing easier. There might be reasons for disallowing spaces.edit: This issue thread also combines issue Before the common era (BCE/BC) and common era (CE/AD) date support. #422 /edit
Kinds
When writing a scholarly piece there are several kinds of date ambiguities and uncertainties, these are listed below.
(Part of the power of Biblatex is in providing support for many and any type of style guide. But in the cases below I sometimes borrow from the ...
University of Chicago. 2010. The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/contents.html.
... because it sheds some light on these issues. I could have chosen another style guide.)
Circa dates. Where the scholarship is only able to fix a date approximately. Generally this is beyond the precision of a year, as in "c. 125 CE" (rather than at the precision of a day: we rarely see, in publishing, something like "c. 0125-02-20").
(University of Chicago 2010, under "10.43 Scholarly abbreviations", http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch10/ch10_sec043.html)
Circa date ranges.
No dates.
(University of Chicago 2010, under "14.152 'No date'", http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch14/ch14_sec152.html)
Question marked dates.
(University of Chicago 2010, under "14.152 'No date'", http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch14/ch14_sec152.html)
Ambiguities over which known date is relevant. For example we might have the following reference entry:
... but there is ambiguity around whether 1751 is the relevant original date, given ...
We could have chosen 1777 as the original date. But, in the case, we have reasons for choosing one date (1751) over another (1777). So in the reference entry we can add an annotation that explains all this. The annotation thereby handles the ambiguity ...
Bilatex already handles:
Biblatex also provides for date ranges.
So I request the additional functionality for:
origdate={c 0125};origdate={c 1487/1490}; andorigdate={1750 ?}.Other considerations.
Often enough there might be no semantic difference between a circa date and a question marked date. Both can be used to express a uncertainty about a date. It's rare to come across a questioned marked date, relative to a circa date. So it might be tempting to ignore question marked dates with the rule: "If you are uncertain about a date just designate it as a circa date".
However, there probably are going to be contexts, albeit rare, in which an author does want to maintain a semantic difference. E.g. For dates they are personally uncertain about, the author might tag with a question mark. For a date that the author knows a community of scholars has established as having a lack of precision, the author might tag with a circa.
On the issue of whether to support output formats "ca." or "c." as the abbreviation for circa, I'm undecided. Personally I can generally mostly recall seeing
c. 1815and probably prefer this look, but the Chicago Manual of Style promotes 'ca.'. Perhaps both possibilities need to be supported for style authors who, in turn, provide options for users (with relevant defaults for a chosen style).