[Lingtyp] orthography in formatted examples

Wed Mar 25 17:37:23 UTC 2020

What’s against using a fourth line on top which provides punctuation? Other than it using up space?

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 17:00, <lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

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> 1. Re: orthography in formatted examples (Sebastian Nordhoff)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 16:21:55 +0100
> From: Sebastian Nordhoff <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>
> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] orthography in formatted examples
> Message-ID: <39e9f497-63cd-9d37-a68a-ec449f4084c0 at glottotopia.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> Dear all,
> I have typeset over 100 LangSci books with contributions from over 1000
> authors. There seem to be a hierarchy
>
> ? > ! > . > ,
>
> This means that people who would use a given symbol would also use all
> symbols to the left.
>
> We use the following rule: if an example ends with [?!.], it should
> start with a capital letter and vice versa (Proper names are an
> exception). If an example does not end with one of these punctuation
> marks, it should not start with a capital letter.
>
> Best wishes
> Sebastian
>
> On 3/25/20 12:15 PM, Christian Lehmann wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> here is a little methodological problem which some may dismiss as
>> trivial but which needs to be solved if we care
>> forstandardizinglinguistic methodology. It concerns the orthographic
>> representation of linguistic data, esp. suchasare 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
>>
>>
>>
>> Catilina:VOC.SG
>>
>>
>>
>> patience(F):ABL.SG
>>
>>
>>
>> our: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 initialcapitalization, with commasin 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/)
>>
>>
>> also recommend the omission. The practice seems inevitable for a
>> representation of a piece of text which is not in orthography but in
>> some moreformal representation, say phonetic or morphophonemic. Here I
>> am talking about *orthographic representations*.
>>
>> There are somereasons for the practice of omitting punctuation and
>> sentence-initial capitalizationin glossed examples:
>>
>> 1.
>>
>> These orthographic marks maynot figure in the original source:
>>
>> 1.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 2.
>>
>> 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:
>>
>> 1.
>>
>> Punctuation symbols like ‘.’, ‘:’ have a special function in
>> glosses which they do not have in a fully orthographictext line.
>> Others like ‘,’ and ‘!’are inadmissible in the gloss. If such
>> symbolsappeared in the original text line, they would map on
>> nothing in the gloss line.
>>
>> 2.
>>
>> 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
>> areprovided with a final full stop, too. This is plainly unthinking.)
>>
>> Here are some reasons for abandoning the ban onpunctuation 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 capitalizationin linguistic examples, or
>> you may be able to invalidate some of the above. I would be grateful for
>> some discussion which helpsto 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
>> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
>>
>>
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