Agreed. I think the concept of users wanting to change quotes is mostly academic. Has anyone actually wanted to do this? Really?
Real world, concrete example: the NASB & NASB95 are printed differently depending on whether they print each verse on a new line or use paragraph layout. (Continuation quotes are printed at the head of verses, when quotations span boundaries, if each verse is printed on a new line.) Different editions of these two translations exist, but those editions (with different paragraphing/quotation mark placement) are not considered different translations themselves.
That knocks down a few of Michael's feebler arguments.
I believe (from a position of little knowledge) that the language rules for quotes in complex cases go beyond what style sheets can do.
I believe (from a position of extensive knowledge) that the rules for quotation mark placement are very trivial. The reason for this is simply that, while languages exhibit a great degree of unpredictability, quotation marks are most definitely not part of language. Quotation marks are a purely typographic convention.
Michael will, of course, argue with this. But unless he can actually provide any example where quotation mark placement is unpredictable, there's no reason to believe it is.
There was a claim quotes are additions to the text. I disagree. If you go down this road, why would you stop at quotes? Surely commas are additions as well and what about other punctuation? I believe that quotes are part of the text as and where the translators placed them.
Quotation marks identify quotations. The quotation is the actual structural piece of a text. Quotation marks themselves ARE markup, not text. They signal that the thing between them is a direct quote.
Commas are, in a sense, markup, but they don't mark anything consistently--they're completely unpredictable. There's also no variation within or across languages when it comes to comma placement.
--Chris
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