biblatex on particles, etc.

CSL Development
1

So I decided to take a look at biblatex again, which is nicely done.
Here’s the entry for particles:

useprefix=true, false (default: false)
Whether the name prefix (von, van, of, da, de, della, etc.)
is considered when
printing the last name in citations. This also aǀects the
sorting and formatting
of the bibliography as well as the generation of certain
types of labels. If this
option is enabled, biblatex always precedes the last name
with the prefix. For
example, Ludwig van Beethoven would be cited as “Beethoven”
and alphabetized
as “Beethoven, Ludwig van” by default. If this option is
enabled, he is cited as “van
Beethoven” and alphabetized as “Van Beethoven, Ludwig” instead.

So he uses just one parameter for both sorting and display, and its
value is a boolean.

Also interesting to note that he handles contributor substitution by
simple parameter (useeditor and usetranslator). Is there an argument
to make that we ought to do that as well?

Bruce

2

This is too limited. For one, it wouldn’t allow for “van Beethoven, Ludwig”
(display) to be sorted under either “B” or “V”. Quite a few styles vary on
this point. Also, the entry seems to contain some typos (in both cases the
option is enabled)

Rintze

3

I’m not denying this; just noting how they do it for comparison (and
will note that one can imagine room for some convergence over time
such that CSL styles might be used with biblatex).

Bruce

4

Oh, also worth mentioning: the biblatex spec doc is quite nice and detailed!

Bruce

5

BTW, it seems essentially to be what we initially implemented as particle
support (before we figured out we needed more options):

724 ## determines whether name particles (such as “van”) should
725 ## be included in the family name when sorting and when rendering.
726 ## When false (the default), the particle is placed after the given
name.
727 name-particle-opt =
728 attribute particle-in-name-sort { xsd:boolean }?

Rintze