It seems that in HTML5, the content of the role attribute is specified as the WIA-ARIA attribute. See, In particular, the last paragraph of section 3.2.3, Global Attributes , which states:
To enable assistive technology products to display a finer interface than is possible with HTML elements and attributes, you can specify a set of annotations for assistive technology products (ARIA role and aria- * attributes).
The role attribute is further described in detail in section section 3.2.7 "WAI-ARIA" , and provides, apparently, a normative table of semantics and values for the attribute for each element.
Note. Links to specific sections of the HTML5 specification above point to the “latest published version” of the HTML5 Technical Report at http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ . Perhaps a more current version of the editor will appear. TR will contact him on the cover page of the document. As you update the specification or move to a new adoption phase, these links may break and need to be updated.
RobertB Dec 10 '11 at 16:25 2011-12-10 16:25
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