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3.9.6 says "All particles (see Particles (ยง3.9)) must satisfy the following constraints.". In fact, this is only true of the constraint in 3.9.6.1. Subsections 3.9.6.2 and 3.9.6.3 should both start "The following constraint [singular] defines a relation [singular] appealed to elsewhere in this specification". Personally, I would write "For a particle to be emptiable one or more of the following is true:" as "A particle is emptiable if and only if one or more of the following is true:" - but that's really in the realm of editorial discretion.
Telcon 2008-11-21 This is a specific instance of a general problem, the use of "constraint" to describe various definitions of terms. There is a general sense in the WG that recasting this in general might be a good thing for definitions, modulo caution about accidentally affecting the impact of the conformance section.
During its 2009-03-13 telecon, the schema WG adopted a proposal to address this issue. The proposal can be found at (member-only): http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2004/06/xmlschema-1/structures.omni.20090313.html Changes include: 1. Moved the intro paragraph in 3.9.6 to 3.9.6.1, and changed "constraints" to "constraint" (plural -> singular) 2. Changed "constraints define relations" to "constraint defines a relation" in 3.9.6.2. 3. Copied the intro paragraph in 3.9.6.2 to 3.9.6.3. With these change, the WG believes that the issue raised in this bug report is fully addressed. I'm marking this RESOLVED accordingly. Michael, as the persons who opened and reopened this issue, if you would indicate your concurrence with or dissent from the WG's disposition of the comment by closing or reopening the issue, we'll be grateful. If we don't hear from you in the next two weeks, we'll assume that silence implies consent.
Note that the linked proposal only contains the first change. The other 2 were amendments to the proposal. All 3 changes are adopted by the WG and will be available in the next refresh of the status quo document.