I agree with Eric on this one... in the example below, there is nothing in the structure to say where the qualifier belongs... If you read the data sequentially you might have a pretty good guess, but a specification that relies on sequence rather than the structural relationships and clear (explicit?) definitions of components for sense and meaning, is an bit fragile in my view...
jim
I think there is a real difference in terms of a reduction in ambiguity. We should generally make an effort to clearly associate modifiers with the object that they are intended to modify. Suppose we have something like the following:
<ELEMENT> <ELEMENT_NAME> leaf </ELEMENT_NAME> <VALUE> lobed margins </VALUE> <VALUE> with spines </VALUE> <QUALIFIER> rarely </QUALIFER> </ELEMENT>
How should such a construct be interpretted? Do spines cover the leaf as a whole, or are they confined to the lobed margins? Is it the spines which are rarely present, or the lobed margins?