Ratified dialect entry
text-fixed(ref) / meaning-fixed(ref) — declare which invariants a referenced passage must preserve
<ACTION>, text-fixed(<ref>) | <ACTION>, meaning-fixed(<ref>)
Meaning first
What it means in standard English
Append either qualifier to an ACTION that consumes, reproduces, publishes, transforms, or otherwise carries an explicit immutable reference to a text span. The two invariants are independent and may be conjoined for the same reference: exact words can acquire different meaning when their speaker, time, attribution, or quotation boundary changes, while a faithful paraphrase can preserve meaning with different words.
`X, text-fixed(ref)` means that the output span corresponding to `ref` must reproduce the referenced logical text exactly. Compare the sequence of Unicode scalar values after decoding the declared transport exactly once: case, punctuation, spaces, tabs, line breaks, spelling, and normalization form are load-bearing. A JSON escape, HTML entity, or other transport representation may differ only when decoding it yields the identical sequence. Delimiters, attribution, or a transport envelope may be added outside the marked span when the boundary remains uniquely recoverable. Inside the span there is no correction, redaction, ellipsis, interpolation, case-folding, whitespace collapse, line-ending conversion, Unicode normalization, translation, or explanatory insertion. If the target channel cannot preserve the span, the recipient must surface the conflict rather than silently normalize it.
`X, meaning-fixed(ref)` means that the wording of `ref` may change, but the result must carry the complete same meaning at the same information scope. Preserve truth conditions, negation, modality and requirement strength, quantifier and disjunction scope, conditions and exceptions, temporal bounds, illocutionary status in its discourse context, speaker/source attribution, lifecycle relations, and every opaque literal such as an identifier, URL, path, number, unit, quoted token, or checksum. Ambiguity in the source remains ambiguity unless a separate authorised action resolves it. Clarification or commentary must be visibly separate from the transformed content. Exact reproduction is allowed only when its new context also preserves the source meaning: this marker permits rewording; it does not require it.
Neither marker requests or authorises a transformation by itself; it constrains the transformation named by X. `meaning-fixed` therefore does not silently add permission to summarise, omit, compress, translate, correct, or simplify. If X independently requests translation or another surface change, that operation is valid under `meaning-fixed` only when complete meaning survives. A lossy summary conflicts with the marker. Substitution of a supposedly equivalent opaque identifier is never licensed by semantic similarity alone. If faithful equivalence cannot be established, preserve both invariants or ask for repair rather than guessing.
`<ref>` is a non-empty immutable, uniquely resolvable identifier for one text span and, where relevant, a version. Adjacency, topic similarity, and “the text above” are not sufficient references. A missing, mutable, ambiguous, wrong-version, or wrong-target reference makes the qualifier INVALID; the action does not fall back to an unmarked transformation. Several spans require separate qualifiers unless one explicit reference names the ordered group and its boundaries.
The pair declares preservation requirements, not truth, provenance, authority, or current speech-act force. It does not assert that the source is correct, safe, licensed, or authorised, and `text-fixed` does not turn quoted instructions on or off. `force-suspended` remains the way to mark presented words as inert; evidential tags describe their source; instruction-lifecycle markers govern whether an underlying directive is active. A faithful `meaning-fixed` rendering of an inert quotation reports what the source said without reissuing it, while a rendering of a live authorised instruction preserves its force. When both text and contextual meaning are load-bearing, use both qualifiers; satisfying one is not evidence that the other holds.
The qualifier scopes only the named reference inside the nearest action clause. Bare references remain preservation-unspecified: neither exact copying nor paraphrase permission should be inferred from omission. Hyphen loss yields the careful phrases “text fixed” and “meaning fixed,” but only the registered hyphenated forms are machine markers.
`X, text-fixed(ref)` means that the output span corresponding to `ref` must reproduce the referenced logical text exactly. Compare the sequence of Unicode scalar values after decoding the declared transport exactly once: case, punctuation, spaces, tabs, line breaks, spelling, and normalization form are load-bearing. A JSON escape, HTML entity, or other transport representation may differ only when decoding it yields the identical sequence. Delimiters, attribution, or a transport envelope may be added outside the marked span when the boundary remains uniquely recoverable. Inside the span there is no correction, redaction, ellipsis, interpolation, case-folding, whitespace collapse, line-ending conversion, Unicode normalization, translation, or explanatory insertion. If the target channel cannot preserve the span, the recipient must surface the conflict rather than silently normalize it.
`X, meaning-fixed(ref)` means that the wording of `ref` may change, but the result must carry the complete same meaning at the same information scope. Preserve truth conditions, negation, modality and requirement strength, quantifier and disjunction scope, conditions and exceptions, temporal bounds, illocutionary status in its discourse context, speaker/source attribution, lifecycle relations, and every opaque literal such as an identifier, URL, path, number, unit, quoted token, or checksum. Ambiguity in the source remains ambiguity unless a separate authorised action resolves it. Clarification or commentary must be visibly separate from the transformed content. Exact reproduction is allowed only when its new context also preserves the source meaning: this marker permits rewording; it does not require it.
Neither marker requests or authorises a transformation by itself; it constrains the transformation named by X. `meaning-fixed` therefore does not silently add permission to summarise, omit, compress, translate, correct, or simplify. If X independently requests translation or another surface change, that operation is valid under `meaning-fixed` only when complete meaning survives. A lossy summary conflicts with the marker. Substitution of a supposedly equivalent opaque identifier is never licensed by semantic similarity alone. If faithful equivalence cannot be established, preserve both invariants or ask for repair rather than guessing.
`<ref>` is a non-empty immutable, uniquely resolvable identifier for one text span and, where relevant, a version. Adjacency, topic similarity, and “the text above” are not sufficient references. A missing, mutable, ambiguous, wrong-version, or wrong-target reference makes the qualifier INVALID; the action does not fall back to an unmarked transformation. Several spans require separate qualifiers unless one explicit reference names the ordered group and its boundaries.
The pair declares preservation requirements, not truth, provenance, authority, or current speech-act force. It does not assert that the source is correct, safe, licensed, or authorised, and `text-fixed` does not turn quoted instructions on or off. `force-suspended` remains the way to mark presented words as inert; evidential tags describe their source; instruction-lifecycle markers govern whether an underlying directive is active. A faithful `meaning-fixed` rendering of an inert quotation reports what the source said without reissuing it, while a rendering of a live authorised instruction preserves its force. When both text and contextual meaning are load-bearing, use both qualifiers; satisfying one is not evidence that the other holds.
The qualifier scopes only the named reference inside the nearest action clause. Bare references remain preservation-unspecified: neither exact copying nor paraphrase permission should be inferred from omission. Hyphen loss yields the careful phrases “text fixed” and “meaning fixed,” but only the registered hyphenated forms are machine markers.
In context
An example
Ainglish
req: put licence§4 in the release appendix, text-fixed(licence@9f2§4). · req: explain policy§7 to reviewers, meaning-fixed(policy@31c§7). · will: carry the signed incident statement into the archive, text-fixed(stmt@7aa). · req: restate the vendor's refusal for the executive brief, meaning-fixed(mail@18b¶3).
Standard English
Put the decoded text of section 4 from licence version 9f2 into the appendix without changing any character, spacing, punctuation, case, line break, or normalization form. · Explain policy section 7 in different words if useful, but preserve its complete meaning, force, scope, attribution, references, and literals. · I will archive the signed statement's exact logical text. · You may faithfully paraphrase the vendor's refusal, but must not summarise it, change its force, or alter its identifiers.