[Lingtyp] What do glossing labels stand for?

Wed Jan 27 04:56:23 UTC 2016

In my day-to-day linguistic life this just isn't a big problem.  A grammar
ordinarily contains not just examples with interlinear abbreviations but
also a list of the abbreviations and what they stand for, *and* the grammar
itself, with sections describing those labeled things, telling the reader
what the functions of the dative (or whatever) are.  Terms used to label
grammatical categories are usually like terms for the nearest comparative
concept, so you don't have to read the grammar to grasp approximately what
the category is, but you know that you can read the relevant section and
find out just what the term means in that linguist's description of that
language.

Johanna Nichols

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 6:51 PM, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm sorry, I had missed Stef Spronck's message in between somehow. My
> apologies.
>
> I did not mean that the result should only be a linked corpora. I mean
> that the information stored in a grammar book could be stored in a grammar
> database (cf a wiki perhaps?). It's just a different way of organising the
> information, I did not mean that it should be replaced by only linked
> corpora. Apologies for being unclear.
>
> /Hedvig
>
> *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
>
> On 27 January 2016 at 13:47, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> After having worked with this survey for a bunch of language, I basically
>> now don't assume much about most labels used in grammars. In my head I just
>> think of them as labels and then go dig through whatever examples and
>> motivation there are. My favourite pet-hate in this is "auxiliaries", I
>> won't get into it now but fair enough to say that it is not very meaningful
>> when people use that label. And that's okay! I'll just dig through the rest
>> and it'll be alright (hopefully) :)!
>>
>> More examples, more motivations!
>>
>> /Hedvig
>>
>> *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
>>
>> On 27 January 2016 at 11:54, William Croft <wcroft at unm.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> OK, well, I would then change one word in Sebastian's statement: in the
>>> third clause, have it begin "for heuristic reasons" (cf. the heuristics for
>>> category labels I referred to that's in in chapter 1 of my morphosyntax
>>> textbook). I presume the document at EVA was written before Martin fully
>>> expressed the distinction between comparative concepts and
>>> language-specific (descriptive) categories.
>>>
>>> I think that part of the issue is that the heuristic value of a category
>>> label (e.g. Dative for a case marking used on argument phrases encoding
>>> recipients) is interpreted as a theoretical statement. On the other hand,
>>> we grammar/IMT readers could reasonably assume that "Dative" in the grammar
>>> 'at least matches some idea of what datives are like'. But not necessarily;
>>> I've seen quite a few language-specific categories in grammars where I
>>> would not choose heuristically the label that the author chose. Caveat
>>> emptor!
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>> On Jan 26, 2016, at 3:14 PM, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se> wrote:
>>>
>>> > OK, do I understand this correctly? The labels stand for
>>> language-specific categories, but normally we arbitrarily choose labels
>>> that are names of comparative concepts, without asserting "any relation
>>> between the morpheme being glossed and a comparative concept however
>>> defined (beyond the mnemonic usefulness).". But at the same time, according
>>> to the document at
>>> https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php, the glosses
>>> are intended to "give information about the meanings and grammatical
>>> properties of individual words and parts of words". Can you do that without
>>> asserting any relation between the comparative concept identified by the
>>> label and the meaning of the item being glossed? The document says: "In
>>> many cases, either a category label or a word from the metalanguage is
>>> acceptable". Does this mean that lexical glosses are also only mnemonic?
>>> >
>>> > There is also a pedagogical problem here. There is no mention in the
>>> document of the distinction between descriptive categories and comparative
>>> concepts. The question is if people who write typological papers as well as
>>> those who read them understand the significance of glosses. I think there
>>> is a general tendency towards fundamentalism in most of us in the sense
>>> that we tend to take things more literally than they were intended to. So I
>>> suspect that most people who see the gloss DAT will think that it means
>>> that the author really thinks that the form in question is a dative, or at
>>> least matches some idea of what datives are like. Or that if the German
>>> word "Pferd" is glossed as 'horse', that means that it means 'horse'. In
>>> other words, it might be worth having some discussion in the document about
>>> these problems.
>>> >
>>> > östen
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
>>> > Från: Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] För
>>> William Croft
>>> > Skickat: den 26 januari 2016 17:23
>>> > Till: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> > Ämne: Re: [Lingtyp] What do glossing labels stand for?
>>> >
>>> > Exactly.
>>> >
>>> > Bill
>>> >
>>> > On Jan 26, 2016, at 1:11 AM, Sebastian Nordhoff <
>>> sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> 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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>>
>>
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