12.1. Elements
Elements are the named markup components you write as tags, such as <entry>, <form>, or <sense>. If TEI is a language, elements are its words: they name the parts of your dictionary and signal their role (lemma form, grammatical information, sense, example, etymology, and so on).
An element reference typically answers four practical questions about:
- meaning: what concept does this element represent in Lex-0 dictionary practice?
- structure: what can go inside it, and in what order?
- placement: where can it be used (e.g., inside an entry, inside a sense, inside a form)?
- details: what attributes are available, and what values do they accept?
If you are not used to formal content model notation, treat it as a structured way of saying what is required vs. optional, what may appear once vs. repeated, and what is a choice among alternatives.
Because Lex-0 is a profile of TEI P5, you may sometimes recognize an element name from TEI P5 but find that Lex-0 narrows its usage or favours one pattern over several that are permitted in TEI P5.
