Interlinear
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
and pedagogy
, an interlinear gloss
is a series of brief descriptions or definitions (in one or two words) placed between a line of original text (or its transliteration
) and its translation
in another language
, so that each line of the original text acquires multiple lines of transcription known as an interlinear text or interlinear glossed text (IGT)interlinear for short. Such glosses help the reader follow the relationship between the source text and its translation and the structure of the original language. In its simplest form, an interlinear gloss is simply a literal, word-for-word translation that may be incoherent in the language of translation.
Such annotations have occasionally been expressed not through interlinear layout, but rather, through enumeration of words in the object and meta language. One such example is Wilhelm von Humboldt
's annotation of Classical Nahuatl
:
This "inline" style allows examples to be included within the flow of text, and for the word order of the target language to be written in an order which approximates the target language syntax. (In the gloss here, mache es is reordered from the corresponding source order to approximate German syntax more naturally.) Even so, this approach requires the readers to "re-align" the correspondences between source and target forms.
More modern 19th and 20th-century approaches took to glossing vertically, aligning the same sort of word-by-word content in such a way that the metalanguage terms were placed vertically below the source language terms. In this style, the given example might be rendered thus (here English gloss):
Note that here word ordering is determined by the syntax of the object language.
Finally, modern linguists have adopted the practice of using abbreviated grammatical category labels. A recent (2008) publication which repeats this example labels it as follows:
This approach is denser and also requires effort to read, but it is less reliant on the grammatical structure of the metalanguage for expressing the semantics of the target forms.
An interlinear text will commonly consist of some or all of the following, usually in this order, from top to bottom:
and finally
As an example, the following Taiwanese clause has been transcribed with five lines of text:
In linguistics, it has become standard to align the words and to gloss each transcribed morpheme
separately. That is, khóat-tèng in line 1 above would either require a hyphenated two-word gloss, or be transcribed without a hyphen, for example as khóattèng. Grammatical terms are commonly abbreviated and printed in SMALL CAPITALS to keep them distinct from translations, especially when they are frequent or important for analysis. Varying levels of analysis may be detailed. For example, in a Lezgian text using standard romanization,
Here every Lezgian morpheme is set off with hyphens and glossed separately. Since many of these are difficult to gloss in English, the roots are translated, but the grammatical suffixes are glossed with three-letter grammatical abbreviations.
The same text may be glossed at a different level of analysis:
Here the Lezgian morphemes are translated into English as much as possible; only those which correspond to English are set off with hyphens.
A more colloquial gloss would be:
Here the gloss is word for word; rather than setting off Lezgian morphemes with hyphens, the English words in the gloss are joined with periods when more than one is required to translate a Lezgian word.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
, an interlinear gloss
Gloss
A gloss is a brief notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text, or in the reader's language if that is different....
is a series of brief descriptions or definitions (in one or two words) placed between a line of original text (or its transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
) and its translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
in another language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, so that each line of the original text acquires multiple lines of transcription known as an interlinear text or interlinear glossed text (IGT)interlinear for short. Such glosses help the reader follow the relationship between the source text and its translation and the structure of the original language. In its simplest form, an interlinear gloss is simply a literal, word-for-word translation that may be incoherent in the language of translation.
History
Interlinear glosses have been used for a variety of purposes over a long period of time. One common usage has been to annotate bilingual textbooks for language education. This sort of interlinearization serves to help make the meaning of a source text explicit without attempting to formally model the structural characteristics of the source language.Such annotations have occasionally been expressed not through interlinear layout, but rather, through enumeration of words in the object and meta language. One such example is Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...
's annotation of Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
:
- ni-1 c-2 chihui3 -lia4 in5 no-6 piltzin7 ce8 calli9 ich1 mache3 es2 für4 der5 mein6 Sohn7 ein8 Haus9
This "inline" style allows examples to be included within the flow of text, and for the word order of the target language to be written in an order which approximates the target language syntax. (In the gloss here, mache es is reordered from the corresponding source order to approximate German syntax more naturally.) Even so, this approach requires the readers to "re-align" the correspondences between source and target forms.
More modern 19th and 20th-century approaches took to glossing vertically, aligning the same sort of word-by-word content in such a way that the metalanguage terms were placed vertically below the source language terms. In this style, the given example might be rendered thus (here English gloss):
| ni- | c- | chihui | -lia | in | no- | piltzin | ce | calli |
| I | it | make | for | to-the | my | son | a | house |
Note that here word ordering is determined by the syntax of the object language.
Finally, modern linguists have adopted the practice of using abbreviated grammatical category labels. A recent (2008) publication which repeats this example labels it as follows:
| ni-c-chihui-lia | in | no-piltzin | ce | calli |
| 1SG.SUBJ-3SG.OBJ-mach-APPL | DET | 1SG.POSS-Sohn | ein | Haus |
This approach is denser and also requires effort to read, but it is less reliant on the grammatical structure of the metalanguage for expressing the semantics of the target forms.
Structure
A semi-standardized set of parsing conventions and grammatical abbreviations is explained in the Leipzig Glossing Rules.An interlinear text will commonly consist of some or all of the following, usually in this order, from top to bottom:
- The original orthographyOrthographyThe orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
(typically in italic or bold italic), - a conventional transliteration into the Latin alphabet,
- a phonetic transcription,
- a morphophonemic transliteration,
- a word-by-word or morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
-by-morpheme gloss, where morphemes within a word are separated by hyphens or other punctuation,
and finally
- a free translation, which may be placed in a separate paragraph or on the facing page if the structures of the languages are too different to allow it to follow the text line by line.
As an example, the following Taiwanese clause has been transcribed with five lines of text:
- the standard pe̍h-ōe-jī transliteration,
- a gloss using tone numberTone numberA tone number is a numeral used in a notational system for marking the tones of a language. The number is usually placed after the romanized syllable. Notice that a number may have very different meanings in different contexts since the systems may have developed independently.Other means of...
s for the surface tones, - a gloss showing the underlying tones in citation form (before undergoing tone sandhiTone sandhiTone sandhi is a feature of tonal languages in which the tones assigned to individual words vary based on the pronunciation of the words that surround them in a phrase or sentence. It is a type of sandhi, or fusional change, from the Sanskrit word for "joining".-Languages with tone sandhi:Not all...
), - a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, and - an English translation:
1. goa iau-bòe khóat-tèng tãng-sî bóeh tńg-khì.
2. goa1 iau1-boe3 khoat2-teng3 tang7-si5 boeh2 tng2-khi3.
3. goa2 iau2-boe7 khoat4-teng7 tang1-si5 boeh4 tng2-khi3.
4. I not-yet decide when want return.
5. "I have not yet decided when I shall return."
In linguistics, it has become standard to align the words and to gloss each transcribed morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
separately. That is, khóat-tèng in line 1 above would either require a hyphenated two-word gloss, or be transcribed without a hyphen, for example as khóattèng. Grammatical terms are commonly abbreviated and printed in SMALL CAPITALS to keep them distinct from translations, especially when they are frequent or important for analysis. Varying levels of analysis may be detailed. For example, in a Lezgian text using standard romanization,
| Gila | abur-u-n | ferma | hamišaluǧ | güǧüna | amuqʼ-da-č |
| now | they-OBL Oblique case An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition... -GEN Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
farm | forever | behind | stay-FUT Future tense In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,... -NEG Negation In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified... |
| Now their farm will not stay behind forever. | |||||
Here every Lezgian morpheme is set off with hyphens and glossed separately. Since many of these are difficult to gloss in English, the roots are translated, but the grammatical suffixes are glossed with three-letter grammatical abbreviations.
The same text may be glossed at a different level of analysis:
| Gila | aburun | ferma | hamišaluǧ | güǧüna | amuqʼ-da-č |
| now | their.OBL | farm | forever | behind | stay-will-not |
| Now their farm will not stay behind forever. | |||||
Here the Lezgian morphemes are translated into English as much as possible; only those which correspond to English are set off with hyphens.
A more colloquial gloss would be:
| Gila | aburun | ferma | hamišaluǧ | güǧüna | amuqʼdač |
| now | their | farm | forever | behind | won't.stay |
| Now their farm will not stay behind forever. | |||||
Here the gloss is word for word; rather than setting off Lezgian morphemes with hyphens, the English words in the gloss are joined with periods when more than one is required to translate a Lezgian word.
External links
- The Leipzig Glossing Rules: Conventions for interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses
- Interlinear Glossed Text Standards (E-MELD)
- Interlinear Glossed Text Levels (E-MELD)
- Toward a General Model of Interlinear Text (E-MELD)
- Interlinear Morphemic Glosses
- Online Interlinear of Biblical Greek Scriptures (New Testament) text - Requires Adobe Acrobat
- ODIN - The Online Database of INterlinear text