{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_complete_proposal_portfolio20_20260803","cell_id":"negative_space_design__linguistics_semiotics","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"nsd_ls_005_protected_equivalence_gap","proposal_index":5,"version":0,"title":"Protected Equivalence Gap for Bilingual Terminology","problem":"A bilingual terminology project may require every source-language concept to occupy a target-language term field. When reviewers have not validated a direct equivalent, editors may fill the field with the nearest candidate and place qualifications in notes. The authoritative position of that candidate can communicate a one-to-one equivalence that the review has not established. Leaving the field generically blank is also inadequate because users cannot distinguish unresolved research, deliberate non-equivalence, scope exclusion, and data loss. The candidate problem is pressure to fill an equivalence position whose deliberate, framed vacancy may carry the more accurate meaning.","actors":["Target-language community reviewers who assess usage and acceptability","Bilingual terminologists maintaining the glossary","Translators and writers who consume approved terminology","Subject specialists who define the source concept and relevant contexts","Glossary governance lead responsible for publication states"],"observable_state":"For a bounded set of disputed entries, the published target-term position contains a qualified near-equivalent, several competing candidates, or an unexplained blank even though review notes do not establish one conventional target expression across the specified contexts. Users must inspect secondary notes to learn whether the displayed term is approved, approximate, contested, or merely proposed.","consequence":"A candidate expression may be copied as though it were an approved direct equivalent, concept distinctions may be flattened, and later users may be unable to tell community-validated terminology from editorial convenience. Conversely, an unexplained blank may be read as incomplete work or as a claim that the target language cannot express the concept.","affected_objective":"Preserve the difference between a validated direct equivalent, an approved paraphrastic rendering, and an unresolved or context-dependent relation without depriving users of actionable translation guidance.","intervention":"Add a governed protected-equivalence-gap state to the glossary lifecycle. When the authorized review process has not validated a direct target term for the defined contexts, remove proposed single-term candidates from the authoritative equivalence position and reserve that position against publication-time filling. Present a concise boundary cue stating the typed status, such as no validated direct equivalent, context-dependent rendering, research pending, or outside scope. Place an approved paraphrase or translation procedure beside—but not inside—the reserved term position, and keep definitions, examples, candidate terms, objections, provenance, and review history in recoverable detail. Search for a candidate may route users to the entry but must identify it as unapproved. A target term enters the reserved position only after the glossary’s existing authorized validation rule is satisfied; the transition and superseded gap status are logged.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Attention Competition Map","domain_realization":"Identify proposed terms, approximate synonyms, source-language calques, and specialist preferences that compete for the visual and institutional authority of the target-equivalent position."},{"archetype_element":"Omission Candidate","domain_realization":"Remove unvalidated single-term candidates from the published equivalence position while preserving them as reviewable proposals."},{"archetype_element":"Protected Empty Space","domain_realization":"Reserve the target-term position so deadlines, interface defaults, and export requirements cannot silently fill it with the nearest available expression."},{"archetype_element":"Positive Form Relationship","domain_realization":"Use the vacant term position to clarify the status of the adjacent approved paraphrase, definition, and contextual guidance: they support expression of the concept but are not asserted to be a direct lexical equivalent."},{"archetype_element":"Absence Boundary","domain_realization":"Bind the gap to a defined source concept, target variety, usage contexts, review date, and governance state."},{"archetype_element":"Meaning-of-Absence Check","domain_realization":"Distinguish unvalidated direct equivalence from research pending, context dependence, scope exclusion, restricted disclosure, and corrupted or missing data."},{"archetype_element":"Context Preservation Frame","domain_realization":"Retain definitions, usage examples, grammatical constraints, dialect information, candidate forms, objections, and provenance outside the authoritative term slot."},{"archetype_element":"Reintroduction Trigger","domain_realization":"Populate the protected position only when the authorized validation criterion is met, then record who approved the transition and for which contexts."},{"archetype_element":"Accessibility and Recoverability Guardrail","domain_realization":"Provide a textual status explanation, an actionable paraphrase, and access to candidate history rather than communicating the gap through visual blankness alone."},{"archetype_element":"Clarity or Effect Test","domain_realization":"Test whether glossary users can identify what is authorized, select the prescribed rendering, and avoid interpreting the gap as linguistic deficiency or accidental incompleteness."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"editorial_cut","role":"Cuts unvalidated near-equivalents from the authoritative term position while preserving every candidate, rationale, and objection in the review record.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the recoverable cut, a proposed form can retain the visual status of an approved equivalent; permanent deletion would erase evidence needed for later terminology work."},{"mechanism_slug":"empty_state_design","role":"Diagnoses why the equivalent position is unfilled and supplies the appropriate next action, such as use an approved paraphrase, consult context-specific renderings, or await review.","counterfactual_removal":"Without typed states and guidance, the gap could be mistaken for missing data, a system fault, or a categorical claim that expression is impossible."},{"mechanism_slug":"whitespace","role":"Separates the vacant direct-equivalent position from paraphrases and candidate forms so proximity does not falsely group them as interchangeable approved terms.","counterfactual_removal":"If candidates and paraphrases crowd the reserved position, users may infer equivalence from placement even when qualifying text remains available."},{"mechanism_slug":"focus_mode_or_control_hiding","role":"Keeps unapproved candidates out of the production-facing selection surface while allowing authorized reviewers to reveal and compare them in the governance view.","counterfactual_removal":"Without role-bounded hiding and guaranteed reviewer access, candidates either remain exposed as production choices or become unavailable for validation."},{"mechanism_slug":"margin_and_gutter_system","role":"Defines a repeated boundary between authoritative equivalents, operational paraphrases, and review-only candidates across glossary entries and exports.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a consistent separation rule, the same placement could signal approval in one entry and speculation in another."}],"causal_chain":["A required target-term field creates procedural and visual pressure to supply a single expression.","An approximate or contested candidate placed in that position acquires the semiotic status of an authorized direct equivalent.","The governance process identifies entries for which that relation has not been validated in the defined contexts.","The publication workflow removes candidates from the authoritative position and protects the resulting vacancy from automatic or deadline-driven filling.","A typed boundary cue explains the absence, while an adjacent approved paraphrase preserves practical usability and full review context remains recoverable.","Users can distinguish what they may use operationally from what the glossary claims as a validated direct equivalent.","If later validation succeeds, a logged reintroduction trigger fills the position without erasing the earlier uncertainty or its scope."],"baseline":"Use the same glossary entries, reviewers, definitions, examples, and candidate evidence under a conventional required-field workflow. Publish the nearest candidate in the target-term field with a qualifier in notes, list several candidates together, or leave a generic blank when no choice is made.","nearest_rivals":["Publishing the nearest candidate with an approximation symbol, footnote, or warning label","Listing all proposed target terms with equal visual weight and leaving selection to each user","Withholding the entire source-concept entry until a direct equivalent is approved","Eliminating term slots and publishing definition-only bilingual guidance for every entry"],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal’s distinguishing structure is an authoritative term position deliberately kept vacant, protected from candidate encroachment, and paired with typed status plus actionable paraphrase and recoverable review evidence. It does not claim that blankness is inherently clearer. If a visibly qualified candidate communicates authorization boundaries just as reliably without inducing false equivalence, the protected vacancy has no remaining advantage.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The glossary’s designated target-language governance body decides whether a direct equivalent is validated and when the protected gap may be filled. Terminologists may document candidates and subject specialists may define concepts, but neither role alone authorizes target-language acceptance.","authorized_first_step":"Create read-only alternative renderings for a small set of already disputed, non-safety-critical entries and test interpretation without changing the production glossary or candidate status.","excluded_actions":["Inferring that the target language or its speakers lack the underlying concept","Treating absence of a direct lexical equivalent as inability to express the meaning","Removing approved paraphrases, definitions, examples, dialect information, or uncertainty","Suppressing attested community terms merely because they differ from a preferred source-language structure","Allowing software defaults or publication deadlines to populate protected positions","Using an unvalidated candidate in legal, medical, emergency, or other consequential communication","Presenting governance disagreement as unanimous community judgment"],"halt_rollback":"Halt if users interpret the gap as linguistic deficiency, cannot find an actionable rendering, or cannot distinguish candidates from approved terms. Also halt if the governance body disputes the assigned status. Roll back by withdrawing the experimental rendering and retaining the existing production entry, candidates, review history, and permissions unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"In a blinded comparison, intended users interpret a qualified-candidate entry as accurately as the protected-gap entry, while the protected gap produces more incomplete translations, stronger language-deficit inferences, or greater difficulty locating the approved paraphrase.","problem_falsifier":"The problem is falsified for the target glossary if authoritative equivalents, provisional candidates, paraphrases, and unresolved states are already separated consistently and users do not treat qualified or provisional forms as validated direct equivalents.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if users cannot identify the authorized translation action, mistake the vacancy for accidental incompleteness or inexpressibility, continue selecting exposed candidates as approved terms, or perform no better than with a qualified-candidate rival.","risks":["The blank position may reinforce deficit narratives about the target language.","An approved paraphrase may become a de facto fixed label despite being placed outside the term position.","Governance procedures may privilege some speakers, varieties, or institutions over others.","Removing candidates from production view may make legitimate emerging usage harder to discover.","Users under time pressure may abandon the glossary when no single term is displayed.","A direct-equivalence model may itself oversimplify context-dependent translation relations.","Status may become stale if no re-review trigger is maintained."]},"next_evidence_step":"Select 12 non-safety-critical entries that the authorized glossary record already identifies as disputed, approximate, context-dependent, or unresolved. Before testing, have the governance body confirm each entry’s current status and an acceptable operational paraphrase without deciding any new term. Produce three read-only versions from identical evidence: the existing required-field presentation, a prominently qualified-candidate presentation, and the protected-equivalence-gap presentation. In counterbalanced order, ask 6 eligible bilingual reviewers and 8 intended glossary users to identify the authorized term status, choose a rendering for a supplied context, locate supporting evidence, and state what the entry does not imply. Record status misclassification, unauthorized candidate selection, failure to find the paraphrase, deficit interpretations, and provenance-recovery failures. Use the bounded result only to reject the intervention, revise its framing, or justify further governance review.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 uses a protected temporal band in conversation transcripts to make response silence perceptible during retrospective analysis. Proposal 2 uses facilitator silence during live elicitation to prevent added researcher language from occupying a consultant’s response slot. Proposal 3 records and spatially frames observed unsigned locations in a linguistic-landscape survey. Proposal 4 temporarily withholds known prior annotations so corpus reviewers can make independently attributable first-pass judgments. This proposal governs an unresolved equivalence relation in bilingual terminology: it removes unvalidated candidates from an authoritative lexical position, supplies a separate operational paraphrase, and fills the position only after authorized validation. Unlike Proposal 3, its absence is not an empirical observation about a physical site; unlike Proposal 4, it is not temporary blinding from an existing answer but a publication state reflecting that no candidate currently has the required authority. It changes neither conversational displays, elicitation conduct, signscape sampling, nor annotation adjudication and is independently adoptable as glossary governance.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}