[Lingtyp] What do glossing labels stand for?

Tue Jan 26 00:47:22 UTC 2016

I agree, standardizing would be fruitless and misguided—especially because it seems to me that the only way to standardize would be to standardize towards comparative concepts, which the original thread of this discussion has concluded are not the same thing as the language-specific terms we use in linguistic description and are not necessarily applicable to that domain. (Besides, as the editor of a journal I know that linguists can’t even agree on the correct way to punctuate … .)

As I understand them, the “labels” in the Leipzig glossing rules are not defined at all, they are just suggestions (not all of them good) for standard shortened forms of common descriptive terms we often use in interlinearizing (e.g., if you want to call something “imperfective” shorten it to “ipfv”). I don’t think the intent was to limit the number of terms people can use or to tell people how to use them. The more interesting question that Hedvig is asking seems to me to be “what do those terms mean?” or “what is their ontological status?” As Hedvig says, even though we all seem to be agreeing that descriptive terminology is language-specific, it would be a terrible thing if everyone used completely idiosyncratic terms. And the fact is that we don’t, and most of us get a long way using the same sets of terms, properly defined and adapted to new linguistic environments (etc., etc.). 

I understand the rhetorical stance many of us take that languages have to be described in their own terms (driven, in my case anyway, by having had to read too many shallow descriptions and theoretical grammars that take terminology and cross-linguistic uniformity for granted), but when push comes to shove, we can and do write good, thorough descriptions of languages or subsystems of languages relying on a restricted set of terminology that does fairly well, when applied mindfully and judiciously. Studying instances of where these terms seem to coincide in useful ways (that is, are successfully and usefully applied to comparable things) would be the basis for positing comparative concepts, though it is still important not to confuse the structures in any one language for the comparative concept formulated by looking at this and other structures with the same name in other languages. I think that is a good reason (as others said in the other thread) not to use comparative concepts as language-specific terms, or even to rely too much on them when choosing language-specific terms for a particular description. 

I can only speak for myself on this one, but when I find something I want to name, I look at the inventories of existing terms and how they are applied in specific cases in specific languages. If I find something that is close “enough”, I adopt that name and describe how the structure I am naming is/is not like things named that way in other languages. If I can’t find a name that is close “enough,” I make something up. I think it’s interesting that we do find so many useful parallels, and I’m fascinated by things I have to make up names for.

David

> On Jan 25, 2016, at 3:26 PM, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Standardization of lg-spec labels sounds like a very bad idea, it will lead to typologese translation grammars.
> 
> There's a trade-off between how easy it should be to create linguistic descriptions, and how unbiased we want them to be. Like Rijkhoff was saying in another thread, it depends on wether you're doing Probabilistic typology vs. typology-based grammatical theory.
> 
> /Hedvig
> 
> P.S. I remember still my first Africanist conference in Leiden and how confused I was at "AUG" in the glossings, when I was kindly informed that it meant "augment" and not "augmentative" and further enlightened at how the term "augment" is used in Bantu linguistics. Fascinating.
> 
> Hedvig Skirgård
> PhD Candidate
> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
> School of Culture, History and Language
> College of Asia and the Pacific
> Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)
> The Australian National University
> Acton ACT 2601
> Australia
> 
> Co-char of Public Relations
> International Olympiad of Linguistics
> www.ioling.org <http://www.ioling.org/>
> On 26 January 2016 at 09:18, Everett, Daniel <DEVERETT at bentley.edu <mailto:DEVERETT at bentley.edu>> wrote:
> Some have asked for standardization of glossing. But if that is done without additional details you are using comparative labels. 
> 
> Dan
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Jan 25, 2016, at 17:16, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>> Glossing can already be done at different level of detail, depending on what information is relevant in the context. Sometimes people segment out all inflections, sometimes not.
>> 
>> Either way, I had always assumed they stay for language-specific categories. Just like other lg-spec labels they are often homonyms with comparative labels, which is why motivations and more information is usually provided. A scenario where we all use unique labels (cf ISOCat) is not realistic.
>> 
>> /Hedvig
>> 
>> p.s. By the way, I've noted that there is not larger mailing list for lg-spec descriptivists and field workers (besides area or family restricted ones). If anyone knows of such a list, do let me know.
>> 
>> 
>> Hedvig Skirgård
>> PhD Candidate
>> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>> School of Culture, History and Language
>> College of Asia and the Pacific
>> Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)
>> The Australian National University
>> Acton ACT 2601
>> Australia
>> 
>> Co-char of Public Relations
>> International Olympiad of Linguistics
>> www.ioling.org <http://www.ioling.org/>
>> On 26 January 2016 at 07:27, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se <mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>> wrote:
>> Here is a question that I would like to pose to the members of the ALT list. If we accept the distinction between "descriptive categories" and "comparative concepts", what do the labels we use in glossing example sentences stand for - in particular, the labels defined in the Leipzig glossing rules? I have some thoughts about this myself but would like to hear what others think first.
>> östen
>> 
>> 
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