According to the manual the canonical attribute is inherited unless
    there is a default on an element or
    that element explicitly sets canonical or
    that element does not have a canonical attribute.

For osisText, canonical defaults to true
For div, canonical defaults to false
For header, canonical defaults to false
For titlePage, there is no canonical attribute.

Because of this the canonical attribute on the osisText element has no 
effect.

To encode a Bible, it is necessary to set canonical="true" for the divs 
that are children of osisText.

Is this what is intended?

To me it makes more sense that canonical default to true for divs or not 
default at all.

To quote the manual:
    When canonical="true", it means that the content of that element is 
a part of the text being encoded.
    ...
    It should be explicitly noted that the value of the canonical 
attribute should not be used to reflect theological judgment about the 
content of a text, but merely to distinguish between what has been added 
to the text and what has not.

 From this I understand that for a commentary, canonical=true would be 
set for all text that the book's author wrote. Same for a dictionary, 
topical bible, general book and even a Bible.

Since <div> is the major structural element defining content from a 
work, I think it should default to true.

DM,

Yes, default on <div> is meant to be false.

Reasoning was that Bibles commonly have <div> elements that are not part 
of the biblical text.

Most common example would be the synopsis or summary material that 
precedes the text. Certainly not part of the original text.

And yes, we were to some degree inconsistent because neither are verses 
markers, etc. But as Fowler's Modern English Usage (now quite dated) 
would say, those are sturdy indefensibles.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick

DM Smith wrote:
[...]
[...]

Patrick,
Thanks for the quick response.

Well, I'm glad it is deliberate and not a mistake.

I think that it bears emphasizing in the manual just like <title> is 
noted as having canonical=false. Ultimately all canonical text is 
wrapped in a div.

Is there any possibility of changing it? I can't help but think that the 
divs containing synopsis, front-matter or other non-biblical, non-note 
text to a testament, book or chapter will add up to a greater number of 
divs than divs which are set to canonical="true".

If a Bible is marked up with paragraphs, quotes and such, then it is 
highly likely that the milestone version of the verse tag will need to 
be used. In this case the canonical="true" on the verse tag has no 
effect. And canonical="true" will need to be set on its container. Same 
with milestoned <chapter>, though I am not aware of actual chapters that 
need milestones.

I'm not going to quibble over inconsistencies. I'm looking for practical 
simplicity.

Patrick Durusau wrote:[...][...][...]