[Lingtyp] orthography in formatted examples

Wed Mar 25 15:13:30 UTC 2020

On 3/25/20 3:45 PM, khaude at uni-koeln.de wrote:
> The problem with initial capitalization is that there are no capital 
> letters for special symbols (e.g. from the IPA). Or am I wrong?

A couple of orthographies make use of symbols originally conceived for 
IPA, but in those cases, there are normally upper case letters as well. 
Cases in point: ŊŋƆɔɄʉ

Best wishes
Sebastian

> 
> Best,
> Katharina
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quoting "Haspelmath, Martin" <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>:
> 
>> Yes, punctuation and initial capitalization should be included, and 
>> names capitalized. By definition, when we write a language in a 
>> consistent way, we use an orthography.
>>
>> (I think the older idea that languages which are not frequently used 
>> for writing by their speakers should be represented phonetically has 
>> become obsolete. We allowed it as one option in the WALS chapters, but 
>> most authors used punctuation and capitalization.)
>>
>> This practice is also recommended by the Generic Style Rules (see §10: 
>> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistics/past-research-resources/resources/generic-style-rules.html) 
>>
>>
>> Best,
>> Martin
>>
>> On 25.03.20 14:49, John Du Bois wrote:
>> Hi Christian,
>> Thanks for your thoughtful post.
>>      I would argue for including punctuation, because it may be 
>> significant as a representation of prosody, or it may serve as its 
>> near equivalent, either of which is meaningful. The current glossing 
>> conventions seem to carry the implicit assumption that language is 
>> purely segmental.
>>      You can even gloss the punctuation. For example, in Discourse 
>> Functional Transcription (DFT), a comma signals "continuing" 
>> intonation, while a period signals "final" intonation.
>> Best,
>> Jack
>>
>> ==============================
>> John W. Du Bois
>> Professor of Linguistics
>> University of California, Santa Barbara
>> Santa Barbara, California 93106
>> USA
>> dubois at ucsb.edu<mailto:dubois at ucsb.edu>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 4:15 AM Christian Lehmann 
>> <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de<mailto:christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>> 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> here is a little methodological problem which some may dismiss as 
>> trivial but which needs to be solved if we care for standardizing 
>> linguistic methodology. It concerns the orthographic representation of 
>> linguistic data, esp. such as are provided with an interlinear gloss.
>>
>> In the past decades, it has become customary in linguistic 
>> publications to omit punctuation in data which are formatted as 
>> examples and provided by a gloss, like this:
>>
>>
>> quo
>>
>>
>> usque
>>
>>
>> tandem
>>
>>
>> abutere
>>
>>
>> Catilina
>>
>>
>> patientia
>>
>>
>> nostra
>>
>>
>> whither
>>
>>
>> continually
>>
>>
>> finally
>>
>>
>> abuse:FUT:MID.2.SG<http://MID.2.SG>
>>
>>
>> Catilina:VOC.SG<http://VOC.SG>
>>
>>
>> patience(F):ABL.SG<http://ABL.SG>
>>
>>
>> our:F.ABL.SG<http://F.ABL.SG>
>>
>>
>> “ How far will you continue to abuse our patience, Catiline?” (Cic. 
>> Cat. I, 1)
>>
>>
>> The example is actually taken from a text; and there it is, of course, 
>> provided with initial capitalization, with commas in between and with 
>> a final question mark. Many of us have gotten accustomed to omitting 
>> these things in formatted examples. My own guidelines for interlinear 
>> glosses
>>
>> (christianlehmann.eu/ling/ling_meth/ling_description/grammaticography/gloss/<http://christianlehmann.eu/ling/ling_meth/ling_description/grammaticography/gloss/>) 
>>
>>
>> also recommend the omission. The practice seems inevitable for a 
>> representation of a piece of text which is not in orthography but in 
>> some more formal representation, say phonetic or morphophonemic. Here 
>> I am talking about orthographic representations.
>>
>> There are some reasons for the practice of omitting punctuation and 
>> sentence-initial capitalization in glossed examples:
>>
>>   1.  These orthographic marks may not figure in the original source:
>>
>>      *   There is no published orthographic version which would need 
>> to be cited literally; it is just a transcription of a recording. 
>> Omission of punctuation signals this.
>>
>>      *   The quoted stretch of text is not (necessarily) a sentence, 
>> be it in its original context, be it in the language system.
>>
>>   1.  These orthographic marks would confuse the mapping of symbols 
>> structuring the interlinear gloss onto the original text line:
>>
>>      *   Punctuation symbols like ‘.’, ‘:’ have a special function in 
>> glosses which they do not have in a fully orthographic text line. 
>> Others like ‘,’ and ‘!’ are inadmissible in the gloss. If such symbols 
>> appeared in the original text line, they would map on nothing in the 
>> gloss line.
>>
>>      *   Punctuation symbols like ‘-’ should have the same function in 
>> the original text and in the gloss.
>>
>> (Ad (1b): We are not talking about examples which are just syntagmas 
>> below clause level. In some linguistic publications, such examples are 
>> provided with a final full stop, too. This is plainly unthinking.)
>>
>> Here are some reasons for abandoning the ban on punctuation and 
>> initial capitalization:
>>
>>   1.  It makes the language exemplified appear as one which lacks an 
>> orthography, thus dangerously evoking the attitude towards „an idiom 
>> which does not even have a grammar“.
>>
>>   2.  Punctuation, of course, fulfills a sensible function in 
>> established orthographies: it reflects the syntactic or prosodic 
>> structure of a piece of text. Omitting it from an example renders this 
>> less easily intelligible.
>>
>>   3.  Whenever a linguistic example is, in fact, quoted from a text 
>> noted in established orthography, the quotation should be faithful, 
>> including the punctuation.
>>
>>   4.  Current practice allows for exceptions to the principle of 
>> suppression of punctuation: at least question marks are commonly set.
>>
>> You may know of more reasons for or against the practice of 
>> suppression of punctuation and of initial capitalization in linguistic 
>> examples, or you may be able to invalidate some of the above. I would 
>> be grateful for some discussion which helps to bring this closer to a 
>> recommendation that most of us could share and that would have a 
>> chance to find its way into style sheets.
>>
>> Christian
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
>> Rudolfstr. 4
>> 99092 Erfurt
>> Deutschland
>>
>> Tel.:   +49/361/2113417
>> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de<mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
>> Web:    https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de<mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>)
>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>> Kahlaische Strasse 10
>> D-07745 Jena
>> &
>> Leipzig University
>> Institut fuer Anglistik
>> IPF 141199
>> D-04081 Leipzig
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