Line Break

A line break within the text, optionally accompanied by explicit line numbering.

Standard “newline” characters are not evaluated as philologically significant line breaks; instead, they produce Newline units that are treated merely as notational noise. Simple carriage returns can therefore be used to format IbiScript code at will—for instance, by moving long sequences of linguistic annotations to the next line (cf. Linguistic Annotation of a Lexical Unit).

From an epigraphic perspective, IbiScript requires that every significant line of text—that is, any line clearly identifiable on the support—be explicitly marked in the code. This is achieved by appending the notation (illustrated below) at the end of the line, as if notifying the system of a carriage return by analogy.

Should the user forget to insert an explicit line break at the final line of text (e.g., in the case of single-line inscriptions), IbiScript will automatically supply it.

Syntax

A single slash / optionally followed by a natural number for explicit line numbering.

Overview

• 𝑛ᵟ = an optional number 𝑛 ∈ ℕ (natural numbers).
• ↵ = a new line
• νₐᵟ = any natural number or none.
• νₑᵟ = n EpiDoc attribute followed by a natural number or none.

Examples

/

/2

abc
def

abc/
def

EpiDoc Outputs

/

<ab>
    <lb/>
</ab>

/2

<ab>
    <lb n="2"/>
</ab>

abc
def

<ab>abcdef</ab>

abc/
def

<ab>
    <lb/>abcdef</ab>

Structural Analysis (Conceptual AST)

/

LineBreak

/2

LineBreak(n=2)

abc
def

Plain("abc")
NL
Plain("def")

abc/
def

Plain("abc")
LineBreak
NL
Plain("def")

Remarks

Since standard carriage returns (i.e., those inserted with the “Enter” key) are non-significant, inscriptions consisting of very short lines can be written on a single line of code, e.g., line1/line2/line3/.