## Text Encoding Initiative

### The XML Version of the TEI Guidelines

# %INHERITED

`INHERITED` | as a default attribute value, indicates that if not specified, the attribute value is inherited from corresponding attribute of the parent element.

Note

For the parser, this entity has the same effect as specifying a default value as `IMPLIED`. For the user and the application program, however, `INHERITED` has a different effect, specifying as it does exactly how the application program is to infer the correct default value: the value is to be inherited from the attribute of the same name on the immediately enclosing element. If that element, too, specifies no value, then its value will have been inherited from its own immediately enclosing element, etc. (If the attribute is not declared for all elements, the value is inherited from the nearest ancestor for which the attribute is declared.)

If no ancestor element has a value specified for the attribute, the value is undefined. Encoders are encouraged to provide an explicit value for inherited attributes on the outermost elements for which they are declared; it is, however, not an error for the outermost element to specify no attribute value for an attribute with a default of `%INHERITED;`.

The most prominent example of attribute value inheritance is the TEI global attribute `lang`.

Declaration | `<!ENTITY % INHERITED '#IMPLIED' >`
See further | 3.7 Element Classes

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