19.3 Quotient, localization, and repair

Not every textual difference should trigger repair. A task-specific quotient

removes decision-null variation. Meaning-preserving formatting, reordering of independent grounds, and shared stylistic changes may be null. Qualifier, source, warrant, and rebuttal changes are not null when they can affect promotion.

The remaining obstruction is localized over a cover of reasoning steps, source passages, retrieved documents, proposition clusters, warrant bridges, model runs, populations, and downstream decision branches. The output is a compatible family of typed witnesses rather than an unordered collection of scores.

Repair has two modes. Tangential preservation changes presentation while remaining in the same admitted semantic family. Transverse repair changes a structurally material component: restoring evidence, weakening an overstatement, reinstating a rebuttal, replacing a warrant, or requesting missing support.