Expansion of Abbreviations

Abbreviations are taken over according to the original, i. e. they are not expanded tacitly. For the expansion of abbreviations the <choice> element with the sub-elements <abbr> and <expan> is available. The abbreviation as taken from the original is written in <abbr>. In <expan> stands the expanded form of the abbreviation.

<choice>
                <abbr>[abbreviation according to the original]</abbr>
                <expan>[expansion of the abbreviation]</expan>
</choice>

If an abbreviation is only to be tagged as such without specifying the corresponding expansion, the element <abbr> is used. The <choice> and <expan> elements are omitted in this case. 

<abbr>[abbreviation according to the original]</abbr>
CAUTION:
An expansion can never occur without the corresponding abbreviation taken from the original (tacit expansions of abbreviations are not permitted). Thus, the <expan> element can never stand without <choice> and <abbr>.

Abbreviations are generally represented with the character available in the Unicode standard. If there is no equivalent in the Unicode standard for an abbreviation, the alternate Unicode entity &#xFFFC; (OBJECT REPLACEMENT CHARACTER) can be set. In this case, the correct expansion of the corresponding abbreviation should be given in the <expan> element.

For the encoding of expansions that cannot be deciphered or not interpreted, see chap. Difficult or Non-Decipherable Characters and Omissions.