[Lingtyp] Resources on glossing choices

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear Kate,

the best system of glossing that I know of is on my website (:-)):

https://www.christianlehmann.eu/ling/ling_meth/ling_description/grammaticography/gloss/index.php

which expands on an earlier publication referenced there.

As for your particular problem, I agree with you that the main concern 
is consistency. Assume you can distinguish between homonymy and 
polysemy, then even enumerating all the polysemous senses of a 
morph(eme) may be much to cumbersome for the gloss to be helpful. In 
such a case, my recommendation would be to treat the set of functions of 
each morpheme in the respective chapter of your grammar, relieving thus 
the interlinear gloss of this task, and adding a note that your glosses 
are, in this respect, context-dependent. To be sure, this is against a 
more general principle of consistent glossing. However, interlinear 
glosses serve a practical, not a theoretical function.

Best,

Christian

-- 
Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
D - 99092 Erfurt

Tel.:   +49/361/2113417
Fax:    +49/361/2113418
E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
https://www.christianlehmann.eu