> XPath (2)  is careful to distinguish between the type of a 
> node (the "node type") and the type of its value  (its "type 
> annotation")

and indeed the "node kind", which is one of element, attribute, text,
comment, PI, namespace, or document.

Essentially, a "node type" may include constraints on the node kind, the
node name, and the node's [schema] type annotation.

Type annotation isn't quite the same as the type of the value. A node can
have a type annotation of xs:IDREFS, for example, and its value might be an
empty sequence. But there is a close relationship.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/