LingSync Glosses
being updated constantly, stay tuned
General Guidelines
Gloss everything--no defaults!
- This is mainly to make search easier and more intuitive. If we had, for instance, “animate” as the understood default person and only glossed inanimate morphology as such, it would be very difficult to get a datalist of all animate words. Having no default glossing means that all our glosses will be very explicit and therefore easy to search.
- This will be painful at the start, but once we have enough data in there, LingSync will autogloss and make our lives much easier! Hang in there.
- If you have an affix that affects the category of the word to which it attaches, mark the original word's category as well as that of the affix. (ie: plamu 'salmon.AN' and plamu-ei 'salmon.AN-of.IN')
- However, if you have an affix that reflects the category of the original word, do not redundantly mark both for the same animacy. (ie: plamu 'salmon.AN' and plamu-g 'salmon-AN.PL')
When in doubt, don’t parse it out!
- Try to avoid making null morphemes unless there's very, very strong evidence for them. Pass it by someone else's eyes first, too!
- Feel free to use dots frequently in your glosses.
In general be faithful to the surface form when drawing morpheme boundaries. (ie match the morpheme line to the utterance line as closely as possible)
- Please use the Notes section to leave comments about phonology if you think there is a predictable process going on!
- One exception is the palatalization of 't' at morpheme boundaries. Thoughout LingSync we will assume that t -> j / _-i, so it is safe to have the utterance and morpheme lines different here.
Order functional abbreviations (separated by dots) as you would say them out loud, e.g...
- AN.PL
- PRES.IND
Verbs...
- don’t write V in VAI, VTA, etc. Just use AI (animate intrans), II (inanimate intrans), TA (transitive animate), TI (transitive inanimate)
- to be continued
Specific Oddball Cases
Break up long sentences/utterances at conjunctions and add ellipses. Number, for example, as 1a, 1b, etc.
- Example:
- “Once there was a bear. He was a really big bear and he liked to fish and he used to go to the lake every day”
- 1-1 Once there was a bear.
- 1-2a He was a really big bear …
- 1-2b … and he liked to fish …
- 1-2c … and he used to go to the lake every day.
On glossing multiple words that your consultant translates as 1 word:
- utterance: tan pas’g
- morphemes: tan.pas’g
- gloss: any
- translation: any
New Datum Fields
Current:
- utterance
- morpheme
- gloss
- translation
Proposed:
- utteranceType: this field allows users to specify whether the Datum is a lone word such as NOUN or VERB, or a full SENTENCE or a STORYPART.
- contender for a tag as well, rather than a Datum Field.
- utteranceNumber: this field allows users to number a Datum to fit within a story, such as 1/20, 2a/20, 2b/20 etc.
- NOT contender for a tag
- conjugationType: this field allows users to specify whether a verb is of the first conjugation, second conjugation, etc. (helpful for users who are learning Mi'gmaq and want to find more straightforward patterns.)
- contender for a tag as well, rather than a Datum Field.
Tags used
right now we don't have tags in operation, but this may change. If you want to make arguments for or against tagging, please go to the discussion side of this page. Tags should generally be not the same as glossable morphemes.
Current:
Proposed:
- NPI
- Q wh
- Q yesno
- modal
Abbreviations
(following Leipzig Glossing Conventions)
| ABBREVIATION | terminology | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | third person (inanimate) | |
| 1 | first person | |
| 12 | first person inclusive ('we (me & you)') | |
| 13 | first person exclusive ('we (me & another)') | |
| 2 | second person | |
| 3 | third person (proximate, i.e. 's/he') | |
| 4 | third person (obviative, i.e. 'her/his mother' | |
| ABSN | absentive | |
| ADV | adverb(ial) | |
| AN | animate | |
| ANTIP | antipassive | |
| APPL | applicative | |
| BEN | benefactive | |
| CAUS | causative | |
| CLF | classifier | |
| COMP | complementizer | |
| COMPL | completive | |
| COND | conditional | |
| CONJ | conjunct | |
| COP | copula | |
| DECL | declarative | |
| DEM | demonstrative | |
| DIR | direct | |
| DIST | distal | |
| DISTR | distributive | |
| DU | dual | |
| EMPH | emphatic | |
| EXCL | exclusive | |
| EXT.PL | extended plural | (provisional term contrasting with SG, DL, PL, to mean a number equivalent of 'multitude') |
| FOC | focus | |
| FUT | future | |
| IMP | imperative | |
| IN | inanimate | |
| INCL | inclusive | |
| IND | indicative | |
| INF | infinitive | |
| INST | instrumental | |
| INT | intonation | |
| IPFV | imperfective | |
| IMPS | impersonal | |
| IRR | irrealis | |
| LOC | locative | |
| N- | non- | |
| NEG | negation, negative | |
| NMLZ | nominalizer, nominalization | |
| OBJ | object | |
| OBL | oblique | |
| OBV | obviative | see obviation |
| PART | particle | |
| PASS | passive | |
| PFV | perfective | |
| PL | plural | |
| POSS | possessive | |
| PLP | pluperfect | |
| PRF | perfect | |
| PRES | present | |
| PROG | progressive | |
| PROH | prohibitive | |
| PROX | proximal, proximate | |
| PST | past | |
| PURP | purposive | |
| Q | question, question marker/particle | |
| QUOT | quotative | |
| RECP | reciprocal | |
| REFL | reflexive | |
| RES | resultative | |
| SBJV | subjunctive | |
| SG | singular | |
| SUBJ | subject | |
| SUBV | subordinative | |
| TOP | topic | |
| VAI | intransitive verb with animate subject) | |
| VII | intransitive verb with inanimate subject) | |
| VOC | vocative | |
| VTA | transitive verb with animate subject & animate object | |
| VTI | transitive verb with animate subject & intransitive object |