[Lingtyp] What do glossing labels stand for?

[Sebastian Nordhoff]

Dear list,
- a language-specific category is a concept with a label chosen by the
linguist.
- the label is in principle arbitrary.
- for mnemonic reasons, a label evocative of the concept being described
is normally used.
- since some labels are rather long, it is convenient to abbreviate them.
- some abbreviations have several plausible expansions (SUPerlative,
SUPeressive, SUPine)
- a standardization of the match abbreviation-long label is therefore
useful for disambiguation purposes. This is what the Leipzig glossing
rules do in my opinion
- the Leipzig glossing rules therefore match abbreviations with common
concept labels. An author using a Leipzig gloss does, however, not
assert any relation between the morpheme being glossed and a comparative
concept however defined (beyond the mnemonic usefulness).

Best wishes
Sebastian


On 01/25/2016 09:27 PM, Östen Dahl 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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