WISH: for sentence mechanism for identifying plural role variables

[Michael Hannah 0]

I wish for a new sentence mechanism to distinguish when there is only one or more than one person assigned to a given role. [i also posted this wish to the TMG-L email list.]

 

The current sentence mechanism to deal with when there is only one or both Principals is very useful. The single bar ‘|’ inside conditional variable text defines what is printed if there is one or both Principals known. That construct uses “part1” when there is one principal and “part2” when there are two, as in

[P] <was|and [PO] were>  or <[M1]|><|[M2]>

I wish for a similar mechanism inside conditional variable text to deal with one or more people assigned to a given role. I don't quite know how such a new mechanism for roles might be implemented. Re-using the single bar would probably not work so perhaps would need to be some other character. Using only one character may not be possible. However, for the sake of my example below let me use the ampersand ‘&’ character. I would like to be able to design a sentence something like the following:

[R+:HOH]'s <son [RF:son] was&sons [RF:son] were> listed in [RS:HOH] household on the 1930 Census <[L]>.

In my trial example this proposed construct would require the same role variable in both parts. It would output only “part1” when there is only one person assigned to the role and only “part2” when there are multiple people assigned. For backwards compatibility if there is no ampersand the sentence would work as it does now. Similar to the multiple Principal construct, something like the constructs and also should be allowed.

 

The exact mechanism is not important to me, but the capability is. Many of us have struggled with constructing custom sentences for single and plural roles over the years. I sure wish for something to help make it easier to use role variables in sentences.

[Michael Hannah 0]

It has been noted here that one variable [R:role] works in a special way in one special circumstance. If [R:role] is used in the role sentence for that same role then it will only output this specific one focus person regardless of how many people are assigned this role. In that one sentence (and only that one sentence) it is possible to identify a specific single person among many assigned that role, namely the current focus person. No other role variable operates in this special way.

 

As an expansion of the above proposal, I wish that this proposed construct when used in the sentence defining this same role operate in a similar special manner, but only in this same role sentence. For example, if [RF:Son] was used in the Son role sentence for a person assigned the role of Son, then should output only this one person, but for backwards compatibility [RF:Son] would output however many there are, and would only output all others assigned this role if there are any. And the current behavior of [R:Son] would continue to only give one person in a sentence for a Son role, but now would permit to output all others assigned this role if there are any.

 

I am trying to be careful that this proposal does not break the behavior of any current sentence construct, it only adds new capability. Obviously more thought and discussion is needed to be sure this proposal is workable and complete, but this thread is intended to start that discussion.