Leipzig Glossing Rules

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Leipzig Glossing Rules

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These are the Leipzig Glossing Rules, and they provide a nice overview and summarization on how to gloss properly. I've reposted them in their entirety here for easy and quicker reference. The official webpage for them is HERE.

These glossing rules should be seen as guidelines when posting translations with glosses here in the Translations forum.
Preamble

Interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses give information about the meanings and grammatical properties of individual words and parts of words. Linguists by and large conform to certain notational conventions in glossing, and the main purpose of this document is to make the most widely used conventions explicit.

Depending on the author's purposes and the readers' assumed background knowledge, different degrees of detail will be chosen. The current rules therefore allow some flexibility in various respects, and sometimes alternative options are mentioned.

The main purpose that is assumed here is the presentation of an example in a research paper or book. When an entire corpus is tagged, somewhat different considerations may apply (e.g. one may want to add information about larger units such as words or phrases; the rules here only allow for information about morphemes).

It should also be noted that there are often multiple ways of analyzing the morphological patterns of a language. The glossing conventions do not help linguists in deciding between them, but merely provide standard ways of abbreviating possible descriptions. Moreover, glossing is rarely a complete morphological description, and it should be kept in mind that its purpose is not to state an analysis, but to give some further possibly relevant information on the structure of a text or an example, beyond the idiomatic translation.

A remark on the treatment of glosses in data cited from other sources: Glosses are part of the analysis, not part of the data. When citing an example from a published source, the gloss may be changed by the author if they prefer different terminology, a different style or a different analysis.

Rule 1: Word-by-word alignment

Interlinear glosses are left-aligned vertically, word by word, with the example. E.g.

(1) Indonesian (Sneddon 1996:237)

Mereka di Jakarta sekarang.
They in Jakarta now
'They are in Jakarta now.'

Rule 2: Morpheme-by-morpheme correspondence

Segmentable morphemes are separated by hyphens, both in the example and in the gloss. There must be exactly the same number of hyphens in the example and in the gloss. E.g.

(2) Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993:207)

Gila abur-u-n ferma hamišaluǧ güǧüna amuq’-da-č.
now they-OBL-GEN farm forever behind stay-FUT-NEG
‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’

Since hyphens and vertical alignment make the text look unusual, authors may want to add another line at the beginning, containing the unmodified text, or resort to the option described in Rule 4 (and especially 4C). Clitic boundaries are marked by an equals sign, both in the object language and in the gloss.

(3) West Greenlandic (Fortescue 1984:127)

palasi=lu niuirtur=lu
priest=and shopkeeper=and
'both the priest and the shopkeeper'

Rule 2A. (Optional)
If morphologically bound elements constitute distinct prosodic or phonological words, a hyphen and a single space may be used together in the object language (but not in the gloss).

(4) Hakha Lai

a-nii -láay
3SG-laugh-FUT
's/he will laugh'

Rule 3: Grammatical category labels

Grammatical morphemes are generally rendered by abbreviated grammatical category labels, printed in upper case letters (usually small capitals). A list of standard abbreviations (which are widely known among linguists) is given at the end of this document.

Deviations from these standard abbreviations may of course be necessary in particular cases, e.g. if a category is highly frequent in a language, so that a shorter abbreviation is more convenient, e.g. CPL (instead of COMPL) for "completive", PF (instead of PRF) for "perfect", etc. If a category is very rare, it may be simplest not to abbreviate its label at all.

In many cases, either a category label or a word from the metalanguage is acceptable. Thus, both of

(5) Russian

My s Marko poexa-l-i avtobus-om v Peredelkino.
1PL COM Marko go-PST-PL bus-INS All Peredelkino.
we with Marko go-PST-PL bus-by to Peredelkino.
'Marko and I went to Perdelkino by bus.'

Rule 4: One-to-many correspondences

When a single object-language element is rendered by several metalanguage elements (words or abbreviations), these are separated by periods. E.g.

(6) Turkish

çık-mak
come.out-INF
'to come out'

(7) Latin

insul-arum
island-GEN.PL
'of the islands'

(8) French

aux chevaux
to.ART.PL horse.PL
'to the horses'

(9) German

unser-n Väter-n
our-DAT.PL father.PL-DAT.PL
'to our fathers'

(10) Hittite (Lehmann 1982:211)

n=an apedani mehuni essandu.
CONN=him that.DAT.SG time.DAT.SG eat.they.shall
'They shall celebrate him on that date.' (CONN = connective)

(11) Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000:92)

nanggayan guny-bi-yarluga?
who 2DU.A.3SG.P-FUT-poke
'Who do you two want to spear?'

The ordering of the two metalanguage elements may be determined by various principles that are not easy to generalize over, so no rule will be provided for this.

There are various reasons for a one-to-many correspondence between object-language elements and gloss elements. These are conflated by the uniform use of the period. If one wants to distinguish between them, one may follow Rules 4A-E.

Rule 4A. (Optional)

If an object-language element is neither formally nor semantically segmentable and only the metalanguage happens to lack a single-word equivalent, the underscore may be used instead of the period.

(12) Turkish (cf. 6)

çık-mak
come_out-INF
'to come out'

Rule 4B. (Optional)

If an object-language element is formally unsegmentable but has two clearly distinguishable meanings or grammatical properties, the semi-colon may be used. E.g.

(13) Latin (cf. 7)

insul-arum
island-GEN;PL
'of the islands'

(14) French

aux chevaux
to;ART;PL horse;PL
'to the horses'

Rule 4C. (Optional)

If an object-language element is formally and semantically segmentable, but the author does not want to show the formal segmentation (because it is irrelevant and/or to keep the text intact), the colon may be used. E.g.

(15) Hittite (Lehmann 1982:211) (cf. 10)

n=an apedani mehuni essandu.
CONN=him that:DAT;SG time:DAT;SG eat:they:shall
'They shall celebrate him on that date.'

Rule 4D. (Optional)

If a grammatical property in the object-language is signaled by a morphophonological change (ablaut, mutation, tone alternation, etc.), the backslash is used to separate the category label and the rest of the gloss.

(16) German (cf. 9)

unser-n Väter-n
our-DAT.PL father.PL-DAT.PL
'to our fathers' (cf. singular Vater)

(17) Irish

bhris-is
PST\break-2SG
'you broke' (cf. nonpast bris-)

(18) Kinyarwanda

mú-kòrà
SBJV\1PL-work
'that we work' (cf. indicative mù-kòrà)

Rule 4E. (Optional)

If a language has person-number affixes that express the agent-like and the patient-like argument of a transitive verb simultaneously, the symbol ">" may be used in the gloss to indicate that the first is the agent-like argument and the second is the patient-like argument.

(19) Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000:92) (cf. 11)

nanggayan guny-bi-yarluga?
who 2DU>3SG-FUT-poke
'Who do you two want to spear?'

Rule 5: Person and number labels

Person and number are not separated by a period when they occur in this order. E.g.

(20) Italian

and-iamo
go-PRS.1PL (not: go-PRS.1.PL)
'we go'

Rule 5A. (Optional)

Number and gender markers are very frequent in some languages, especially
when combined with person. Several authors therefore use non-capitalized
shortened abbreviations without a period. If this option is adopted, then the
second gloss is used in (21).

(21) Belhare

ne-e a-khim-chi n-yuNNa
DEM-LOC that.DAT.SG 3NSG-be.NPST
DEM-LOC 1sPOSS-house-PL 3ns-be.NPST
'Here are my houses.''

Rule 6: Non-overt elements

If the morpheme-by-morpheme gloss contains an element that does not correspond to an overt element in the example, it can be enclosed in square brackets. An obvious alternative is to include an overt "Ø" in the objectlanguage text, which is separated by a hyphen like an overt element.

(22) Latin

puer
boy[NOM.SG]
‘boy’

or:

puer-Ø
boy-NOM.SG
‘boy’

Rule 7: Inherent categories

Inherent, non-overt categories such as gender may be indicated in the gloss, but a
special boundary symbol, the round parenthesis, is used. E.g.

(23) Hunzib (van den Berg 1995:46)

oz#-di-g xõxe m-uq'e-r
boy-OBL-AD tree(G4) G4-bend-PRET
'Because of the boy the tree bent.' (G4 = 4th gender, AD = adessive, PRET = preterite)

Rule 8: Bipartite elements

Grammatical or lexical elements that consist of two parts which are treated as distinct morphological entities (e.g. bipartite stems such as Lakhota na-xʔu̧ 'hear') may be treated in two different ways:

(i) The gloss may simply be repeated:

(24) Lakhota

na-wíčha-wa-xʔu̧
hear-3PL.UND-1SG.ACT-hear
'I hear them' (UND = undergoer, ACT = actor)

(i) The gloss may simply be repeated:

(25) Lakhota

na-wíčha-wa-xʔu̧
hear-3PL.UND-1SG.ACT- STEM
'I hear them'

Circumfixes are "bipartite affixes" and can be treated in the same way, e.g.

(26) German

ge-seh-en
PTCP-see-PTCP
'seen'

or:

ge-seh-en
PTCP-see-CIRC
'seen'

Rule 9: Infixes

Infixes are enclosed by angle brackets, and so is the object-language counterpart in the gloss.

(27) Tagalog

b<um>ili (stem: bili)
<ACTFOC>buy
'buy'

(28) Latin

reli<n>qu-ere (stem: reliqu-)
leave<PRS>-INF
'to leave'

Infixes are generally easily identifiable as left-peripheral (as in 27) or as rightperipheral (as in 28), and this determines the position of the gloss corresponding to the infix with respect to the gloss of the stem. If the infix is not clearly peripheral, some other basis for linearizing the gloss has to be found.

Rule 10: Reduplication

Reduplication is treated similarly to affixation, but with a tilde (instead of an ordinary hyphen) connecting the copied element to the stem.

(29) Hebrew

yerak~rak-im
green~ATT-M.PL
'greenish ones' (ATT= attenuative)

(30) Tagalog

bi~bili
IPFV~buy
'is buying'

(31) Tagalog

b<um>i~bili
<ACTFOC>IPFV~buy
'is buying' (ACTFOC = Actor focus)
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Re: Leipzig glossing rules

Post by Aevas »

Appendix: List of Standard Abbreviations

1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
A agent-like argument of canonical transitive verb
ABL ablative
ABS absolutive
ACC accusative
ADJ adjective
ADV adverb(ial)
AGR agreement
ALL allative
ANTIP antipassive
APPL applicative
ART article
AUX auxiliary
BEN benefactive
CAUS causative
CLF classifier
COM comitative
COMP complementizer
COMPL completive
COND conditional
COP copula
CVB converb
DAT dative
DECL declarative
DEF definite
DEM demonstrative
DET determiner
DIST distal
DISTR distributive
DU dual
DUR durative
ERG ergative
EXCL exclusive
F feminine
FOC focus
FUT future
GEN genitive
IMP imperative
INCL inclusive
IND indicative
INDF indefinite
INF infinitive
INS instrumental
INTR intransitive
IPFV imperfective
IRR irrealis
LOC locative
M masculine
N neuter
N- non- (e.g. NSG nonsingular, NPST nonpast)
NEG negation, negative
NMLZ nominalizer/nominalization
NOM nominative
OBJ object
OBL oblique
P patient-like argument of canonical transitive verb
PASS passive
PFV perfective
PL plural
POSS possessive
PRED predicative
PRF perfect
PRS present
PROG progressive
PROH prohibitive
PROX proximal/proximate
PST past
PTCP participle
PURP purposive
Q question particle/marker
QUOT quotative
RECP reciprocal
REFL reflexive
REL relative
RES resultative
S single argument of canonical intransitive verb
SBJ subject
SBJV subjunctive
SG singular
TOP topic
TR transitive
VOC vocative
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