Sample Glosses

1547olmos-nahuatl-231.png

/*
Comments:

Siméon,  the 19th century French editor of the text, and translator in the case of this Nahuatl excerpt, explains: "Nous l'avons accompagné d'une traduction française aussi littérale que possible." (We have accompanied the text with a French translation which is as literal as possible.)

levels of transcription
2

type
parallel text

style
phrase to (litearal) phrase

readability
high

analysis
none

apparatus
sparse prose footnotes from editor

sentence delimiters
seemingly typical French punctuation at time of publication (1875) 

morpheme delimiters
none

*/

1. — Nopilhtze, nocuzque, noquetzale, otiyol, otitlacat, otimotlalhticpacquixtico; in ytlalhticpac in totecuyo omitzyocux, omitzpic, omitztlacatili in ypalhnemoani in Dios.

1. — Mon cher file, mon bijou, ma belle plume, tu as été conçu, tu es né, tu es venu sur la terre; c'est Notre-Seigneur, c'est Dieu, notre créateur, qui t'a formé, créé et mis au monde.

1835hurwitz-hebrew-55.png

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ פ And-he-called God to-the-light day and-to-the-darkness he-called night. And-he-was evening and-he-was morning day one. 5 wayyiqərā’ ’ĕlōhîm| lā’wōr ywōm wəlaḥōšeḵə qārā’ lāyəlâ wayəhî-‘ereḇ wayəhî-ḇōqer ywōm ’eḥāḏ: f /*

A grammar of the Hebrew language

This typographical tour-de-force, from is very concise interlinearization of Biblical Hebrew.

Comments: levels of transcription 2 type text style word to word readability very high analysis none in this text, elsewhere uses outline font to indicate inflections apparatus footnotes directionality right to left sentence delimiters apparently colon used for sentence delimiter in Mayan and Englsih morpheme delimiters dashes in source only */

1894berry-greek-iii.png

/*
Comments:

This text gives an explicit description of a method of interlinear description.
An interesting feature is that the source text (New Testament Greek, in this 
case) is modified (spaces are replaced with dashes) in order to avoid certain 
types of reordering in the translation tier.

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
word to word

readability
high

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes, marginal free translation

sentence delimiters
standard punctuation

morpheme delimiters
none

*/

1905burkitt-kekchi-273.png



/*
Comments:

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
transcription to transcription?

readability
high (depends on the reader! -- if they know Kekchi, very high!)

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes with line number references

sentence delimiters
semicolon, long dash and long equals sign used but meaning unclear

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source only

*/

1910endle-kachari-73.png

/*
Comments:

The Kacháris 

This excerpt from a 1910 pedagogical grammar of Kachari (Tibeto-Burman) 
demonstrates how variant styles of glossing can depend on the context 
in which they are quoted. Here three examples demonstrating the Kachari 
comparative, but only the final example uses vertical alignment. Working  
 out the word correspondences here requires either familiarity with the 
preceding content in the grammar, general familiarity with the language,
or a considerable effort of decipherment.

levels of transcription
2

type
pedagogical grammar

style
word to word (vertical) and phrase to phrase (horizontal)

readability
low

analysis
partial

apparatus
prose footnotes

sentence delimiters
paragraphs or long dash

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source

*/

1910finck-turkish-83.png

{ "wtf" : "WTF"}

/*
dža-da

Meister=auch

esbāb-ın

Kleider=(der)

dzümle-si-ni

Gesamtheit=ihre=die

ateš-e

Feuer=zu

vur-up

werf=enderweise

yak-ar

verbrenn=end


Der Meister warf nun sämtliche Kleider ins Feuer und verbrannte sie.
*/

1910finck-turkish2german-115.png

xodža-da

Meister=auch

esbāb-ın

Kleider=(der)

dzümle-si-ni

Gesamtheit=ihre=die

ateš-e

Feuer=zu

vur-up

werf=enderweise

yak-ar

verbrenn=end


Der Meister warf nun sämtliche Kleider ins Feuer und verbrannte sie.

1910sapir-takelma-294.png

/*

Sapir's Takelma is highly informative down to the level of the
morpheme, but is not explicitly or consistently marked as such —
in the running text, a paraphrastic word-to-phrase style is used, but 
individual source words are indexed to refer to extensive footnotes. 

Interestingly, these footnotes are often quite repetitive. I suspect 
that it is this sort of repetition which would lead to the adoption of
extensive abbreviation in the use of grammatical category labels in 
the morphological tier of annotation.


Comments:

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
word-to-phrase (paraphrase), mostly

readability
medium

analysis
in footnotes

apparatus
extensive and repetitive footnotes

sentence delimiters
English-style punctuation

morpheme delimiters
dashes occasionally in some  source words

*/

1915bloomfield-language-157.png

/*

Comments:

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
word to word

readability
high

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes

sentence delimiters
apparently colon used for sentence delimiter in Mayan and Englsih

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source only

*/

1915bloomfield-language-192.png

/*
As Lehmann notes, Bloomfield himself, [while considered a primary
proponent of the idea of the morpheme],  did not always consistently
indicate morpheme-to-label mappings. In this Turkish example extracted
from an early edition of his text Language, he transcribed the
source sentence phonetically, and translated in a paraphrastic style
comparable to Sapirs'. But nowhere is there a clear indication of
how the semantics of the paraphrasis are intended to be mapped onto
the individual morphemes of the Turkish words, or even what those
morphemes are.

Comments:

levels of transcription
3

type
inline example

style
word to word with free translation

readability
high as prose, difficult as a gloss

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes

sentence delimiters
apparently colon used for sentence delimiter in Mayan and Englsih

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source only

*/

1921tozzer-mayan-115.png

A run-of-the-mill word-to-word interlinear gloss, this one is
remarkable only for its less-than-detailed footnotes (compare Sapir's
Takelma footnotes produced 11 years earlier) and the fact that
only the source words are broken into morphemes.

It is also exemplifies some of the dangers of relying a word-to-word
alignment in this style of paraphrastic translation:  


Tu haab-il 1847 liqil u-ka-pul le-wink-ob leeti

u-haab-il tal-ob u-took-ob Săki tan nohot$ kah:

yaab pal-al tu-kim-s-ob: bĕ-šan tulakal kah-ob tu-took-ah-ob

ku {open-o}{prime}ok-ol ka-bin-ob Santa Cruz u-qaba

tak helae ti-an-ob ti buk-ah haab yaab: yet wink-il-ob

{open-o}{prime}oki u-kim-s-ik-ob: luum ut$uk man-ob nohot$:

yaab-ob šan: helae u-yum {open-o}ik bĕnil Mexico 

tun šup-ik u-taqin yetel u-meq-tan-ob yoklal u-{open-o}{prime}ok-s-ik




Tu
In

haab-il
the year

1847
1847

liqil
arose

u-ka-pul
for second time

le-wink-ob
these men (Indians)

leeti
this

u-haab-il
its year

tal-ob
they came

u-took-ob
to burn 

Sa{breve}ki
Valladolid 

tan
in the midst of

nohot$
a large
# alignment here unclear: [ in the midst of a large pueblo / Sa{breve}ki tan nohot$ kah: ]

kah:
pueblo:

yaab
yaab

pal-al

tu-kim-s-ob:

be{breve}-$an

tulakal

kah-ob

tu-took-ah-ob

ku

{open

o}{prime}ok-ol

ka-bin-ob

Santa

Cruz

u-qaba

tak

helae

ti-an-ob

ti

buk-ah

haab

yaab:

yet

wink-il-ob

{open

o}{prime}oki

u-kim-s-ik-ob:

luum

ut$uk

man-ob

nohot$:

yaab-ob

$an:

helae

u-yum

{open

o}ik

be{breve}nil

Mexico

tun

$up-ik

u-taqin

yetel

u-meq-tan-ob

yoklal

u-{open-o}{prime}ok-s-ik


/*
Comments:

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
word to word

readability
high

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes

sentence delimiters
apparently colon used for sentence delimiter in Mayan and Englsih

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source only

*/

1965oswalt-dictionary-extract.png

/*
Comments:

levels of transcription
2

type
text

style
word to word

readability
high

analysis
none

apparatus
prose footnotes

sentence delimiters
apparently colon used for sentence delimiter in Mayan and Englsih

morpheme delimiters
dashes in source only

*/

1970golla-hupa-295.png

1972-applegate-531.png

/hini-s-pleʔ hečaʔ ha-šup, s-iyam-š ha-ʔ-oʔ/
[hinispleʔ eč ašup, siyamš aʔoʔ]

'When this world perished, it was full of water: when it perishes / this / world / is full of / water'

hini-s-pleʔ
  hini-
    when
  s-
    3rd sg.
  ple{glottal} 
    to perish

hečaʔ
  this

ha-šup
  world

s-iyam-š
  s
    3rd sg
  iyam
    to be full, filled with 
  -š
    intrans., sustained action

ha-ʔ-oʔ
  water

Sample glosses