Synonym
Summary
A synonym is a term that has the same (or sufficiently similar) meaning as another term (i.e., the term of which it is a synonym).
While from a theoretical point of view a term and its synonyms are identical, in practice they are more 'equivalent', i.e. while they have the same meaning, when using one or the other in a sentence, there is often one term that is preferred over the other.
Purpose
Within the context of TEv2, the ability to define synonyms for a term is needed so that HRGs can be made better readable without taking away control over the structure of an HRG entry.
The synonymOf field
Curated texts can specify that they are a synonym of some other term by placing a reference to that other term in the `synonymOf`-field in their headers. The contents of this field can be- a form phrase, such as
Machine Readable Glossary, or - a term identifier, such as
risk management@essif-lab:latest.
How Synonyms Work in TEv2
Ccurated texts, or MRG-entries from external MRGs can be added as provisional MRG-entries to a provisional MRG. Those that contain a non-empty synonymOf field will be further processed when the provisional MRG is complete (because only then can we be sure that the term that is being referred to by the contents of the synonymOf field actually exists).
This processing consists of creating a new MRG entry whose contents is identical with that of the term being referred to, and overwriting any fields therein with the contents of the MRG entry that contains the (non-empty) synonym field. After that, the usual post-processing happens.
A more detailed description is given in the MRGT documentation.
This way of working allows curators to tailor specific fields, such as the glossary texts field, or the form phrases fields for the synonym.
An 'Alias' (of a Term) is another name for that term. It resembles a synonym, but it could equally well be an abbreviation, or a nickname.
One might like to be able to specify one or more aliases for a term (in the header of its curated text), such that it would then 'automagically' appear in a HRG.
This is currently not supported. Of course, one may create a HRG using two converters, the first adding HRG entries for the term itself, and another one that loops over the contents of an alias field, adding a HRG entry for every name it encounters there. However, the HRGT supports only one sorter, which is typically glossaryTerm (or whatever the name of the field is that contains the name of the term in a human readable form). This means that the glossary wouldn't be properly sorted, as the alias would sit adjacent to the term that it is an alias for.