Wiki gloss plug-in

Overview

The Gloss extension provides a wiki markup element for linguistic annotations, developed for McGill Field Methods classes by Derek Ruths. The Gloss extension automatically aligns text with glosses, as well as provides auto-numbering and hyper-referencing. It closely follows the form and features of the Latex-based glossing tools, allowing the wiki source text to be easily pasted into Latex documents. This page provides both formal documentation of the extension as well as numerous examples of how the tool is used.

Installing the extension

To install the extension, you must have access to the includes directory of your MediaWiki installation. The installation is a two step procedure.

1. Copy the gloss.php file into the includes directory of your MediaWiki installation

2. Open the LocalSettings.php file in the root directory of your MediaWiki installation. Just below the line

require_once( "$IP/includes/DefaultSettings.php" );

add the line

require_once( "$IP/includes/gloss.php" );

You should now be able to use the Gloss extension in your wiki pages.

Using the extension

The GL element

The Gloss extension allows a wiki editor to automatically align text for interlinear glossing. In this extension, one phrase-gloss-translation entry is entered inside an xml-formatted element

<gl ...arguments...>
\gll ...text...
...gloss...
\trans ...translation...
</gl>

A simple example would be

<gl id="ex1">
\gll ela'l-ul magasan-g 
bring-1>2  store-LOC 
\trans I'm bringing you to the store.
</gl>

which produces the following block:

1. ela'l-ul   magasan-g    
   bring-1>2  store-LOC    
   'I'm bringing you to the store.'

A fourth line can be added above the parsed line:

1. ela'lul magasang
   ela'l-ul   magasan-g    
   bring-1>2  store-LOC    
   'I'm bringing you to the store.'

Numbering and references

Notice that the example blocks above were automatically numbered. This number is inserted and auto-increments. As a result, the next block will receive the number 3.

1. Piel  amalga-t   
   Piel  dance-3SG  
   'Piel dances.'

Beyond giving some structure to the blocks themselves, you can easily create hyperlinked references to specific GL elements by using the GL reference element

<glr id="...gl element id..."/>

. So, we can reference the example above using

<glr id="ex3"/>

which generates this: (2).

You can reset the numbering for a given GL element by using the GL element header:

<gl renum="true">
...
</gl>

Spacing

The number of spaces inserted between words in the GL element can be adjusted by using the parameter margin. Thus, we can render the same content with different spacings (for readability, for example), as follows:

<gl margin=2 id="ex4">
\gll Mali newti-al-asi-t       
Mali one-around-move-3sg  
\trans Mali wanders around alone.
</gl>

This produces (4), where the margin = 2 (this is the default value):

1. Mali  newti-al-asi-t         
   Mali  one-around-move-3sg    
   'Mali wanders around alone.'

In (5) the margin = 5:

1. Mali     newti-al-asi-t               
   Mali     one-around-move-3sg          
   'Mali wanders around alone.'

Font size

The size of the font used inside of the GL element can be set using the parameter fontsize. By default, the fontsize is 15. Here is the same content as above, rendered in font size 12.

1. Piel  wenaqwie-t    
   Piel  jump-3SG      
   'Piel jumps'

Blank space and grammaticality marks

As in Latex gloss environments, curly brackets can be inserted in the gloss line in order to line up with unglossed text, such as the square brackets in (7)

1. Mali  magwtgp       [  lpa'tuj-ewei  wenju'su'n  ]    
   Mali  eat.3sg.past     boy-POSS      apple            
   'Mali ate the boy's apple.'

which was created with the following input:

<gl id="ex6">
\gll Mali magwtgp [ lpa'tuj-ewei wenju'su'n ]  
Mali eat.3SG.PST {} boy-POSS apple {}   
\trans Mali ate the boy's apple.
</gl>

The same can be used to mark examples as ungrammatical or infelicitous, as in (8)

1. *  jinm  ala   mesgilg    
      man   that  big        
   'That man is big.'

created with:

<gl id="ex7">
\gll * jinm  ala  mesgilg  
{} man that  big      
\trans That man is big.
</gl>

Known issues

Unicode string handling

While the GL extension does handle unicode characters, there are some instances where it will incorrectly align strings containings rich unicode characters. When using these characters, the phrase and gloss may not perfectly line up.

Formatting within GL blocks

Currently, it is impossible to use special formatting (e.g. boldface, italics) inside a GL block.