no, not possible.
It might be possible to adjust the style using the fact that primary sources tend to be different item types, but that would be a good bit of work and you'd likely be on your own - at least I don't have time for that.
Getting Latin abbreviations into Chicago isn't terribly hard, though

http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#locale
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

Thanks for the fast feedback!

Unfortunately in this way I am stuck - I can insert the source citations manually, but they won't be recognized from zotero, which means that the next "ibid." will refer to the last zotero item (and between them I have already a couple of manually inserted citations from the sources)...

In the same time I think it's not a bad idea to make this somehow possible, because there is a lot of users work in the field of Philosophy, Philology, Theology etc. that would need this option. I am recommending zotero to my colleagues on my Institute, but without this option it seems to be not very useful...

Exactly what is the "DivNom, IV, 13" source document? This sounds a bit like earlier requests for special handling of "classical works."

Right, but what IS it? A book? A classical work? What makes it "primary"?

@bdracus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source

In my case these are antique and medieval texts (books, sermons, disputes etc...), which are published today in critical editions (through comparison of different manuscripts, studying of the sources etc.), like the one from P. Enepikides, form the "Byzantinische Zeitschrift 46" quoted above.

(For "secondary literature" see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_source)

II) it certainly could be done, but someone would have to do it. Everyone else here has an academic specialty that isn't programming, too. bdarcus is a geographer, I'm a political scientist etc.
Unfortunately, the disciplines where people are most likely to throw up their hands and claim ignorance about 'programming' are also the ones that are most like to come up with the most onerous rules...
Writing localization files, though, doesn't require any computing expertise - you literally just replace words and symbols - look at the German one here for example:
https://github.com/citation-style-language/locales/blob/master/locales-de-DE.xml

@adamsmith
Maybe you have right... I'll give it a try these days. Thanks

OK, I really appreciate it. But here I speak about simple citing of sources like Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Aquinas etc. Well, you cannot quote them in the usual way, as you quote for ex. some modern study on Aristotelian ethics. It is a standardized work, with a standardized numeration (of chapters, columns etc...) Take the Bible for ex. - you never write in the text which edition you used, year, place of publication etc. You don't eve write it is the Bible. You simple write: 1. Cor. 3,5 (that is 1. Letter of Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 5) or Jn. 10,11 (for Gospel of Apostle John, chapter 10, verse 11). And there is no difference if it is the first citation or not. Only in the bibliography on the end you give the whole note with an info about the edition, place, year etc. I hope this gives you an idea about what is a primary source in my context.

So these are not simply republished historical manuscripts - the manuscripts of the same work are compared from scholars (usually philologists), who make a critical edition of the work on the basis of the manuscripts. Generally, the philologist works with manuscripts, the systematical researcher (philosopher, theologian etc.) works with the editions edited by the philologists.

Yes! That's the right topic!

Still all the solutions there are only improvisations. It seems to me that the best and easiest solution would be simply to ad a new item type "classical work" (like "book", "book section", "manuscript" etc.) - that would cite only the short title and the numeration, and that would contain the whole information on the used edition in the bibliography. I think that the developers of Zotero should consider such an option.

The last offered solution on the topic was to insert the notes manually (which I still find the easiest of all offered). But the "ibid." problem stays! Fbennet as well as Simon in this topic say that Zotero recognizes non-Zotero citations. There is obviously something that I don't understand correctly here:

1. If every footnote is recognized as a citation, then it breaks the ibid.-connection to a previous cited work. That is a problem, because not every footnote contains a reference (it can be only a comment). In my case this doesn't work (and it is good that it doesn't work, because I have a lot of comment-footnotes without any references).

2. Is it only the paragraph style "footnote" that makes the manually inserted reference recognizable to Zotero? If this is right, then in my case this definitely doesn't work. Do Fbennet and Simon here think of another way of marking a manual reference, that could be recognized from Zotero?

I am not sure if I understand your question. What do you mean by "any little detail beyond type that distinguishes these types of items consistently such that it could be embodied in a field"?

Yes, certainly!

1. Few notes on the topic "introductions" to classical works can be helpful. Many editions have usually long introductions (normally up to 100 pages), which are treated as separate research works. In this way you have two different item types within one publication: a peace of secondary research work (the introduction) and the primary source (the classical work). You have the "aparatus" (the notes of the editor on his edition of the classical work - normally in the form of footnotes). In this way you should insert the same book twice in the bibliography - once as a "book section", and once as a "classical work".

2. The classical work practically functions as a kind of a "book section", but with citing rules, different from the standard ones for the "book section" type. In the final bibliography you need for both all the information on the used edition: author, editor, publisher, place, year... The bibliographical information for the reference "Met. IV (1003a, 21)" ("Met." in italic) should look like: "Metaphysics, ed. W. D. Ross, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1924)" ("Metaphysics" in italic). The bibliographical information for the Introduction should look like: "W. D. Ross, "Introduction", in: Metaphysics, ed. W. D. Ross, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1924)" ("Metaphysics" in italic).

3. Therefore I think that adding a check box in the "insert citation" box with an option like "suppress everything but short title and make it valid for the first note as well" would one possible solution. The cited work will have the status of a "book section", but could be cited in a special way. On the other hand this is still an improvisation (!) (something better than the one with the editor).

4. I prefer much more the option to make a new item type. It is simply better for the user: once you have defined it is a "classical work" you can cite directly without having to check the check box in "insert citation" every time you cite that source! It is more correct from the formal side as well: the "Metaphysics" is not a "book section" of "Metaphysics, ed. W. D. Ross, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1924)", but is an edition of the very book (the classical work). The "Introduction" on the other hand is a "book section" of the used edition. I simply think that creating a new source type is an "once and for all" solution and would make Zotero better and more accessible for a large group of scholars who research the classical literature.

I hope this comment helps.

6. The last option seems actually to be the best one. "Classical works" are often being published together in one book. So they practically function in every respect as "book sections" in relation to the publication. Adding a field/box (like the one described above under 5.) within the "book section" type with options like "Classical Work", "Research Paper", "Article", "Chapter", "Introduction", "Note" etc. can be a good Solution.

Ask me again in a week or two :-)

Obviously if others have thoughts in the meantime, that'd be good.

My thoughts only (also depends on input from Zotero devs like Dan Stillman):

1. How is this relevant to the discussion per se?


2. OK, but this will vary according to style. Again: don't see how it's relevant, except to note it needs different formatting. I imagine there may be similar issues with other (say legal) types.


3. I wasn't suggesting a checkbox for the citation, but rather on the source (not sure what the value would be though).


4. Maybe, but I'm still not convinced :-)


5. See above.


6. OK.

OK only means I think that's a reasonable option to consider for CSL, Zotero, and the RDF import/export representation. I have no idea how long it would take to resolve and implement, but I doubt it'll be in the next month.