How to Make an Interlinear Glossed Text

Page Index

• Making an IGT
• Presentation and Working IGTs
• IGT in XML

Making an IGT

This section of the site walks you through the beginning of an IGT of one phrase of a Kayardild narrative. The IGT is first displayed in a presentation format so that the purpose of each line can be better explained. It is then shown in XML, which is the preferred archival format for IGTs.

Presentation and Working IGTs

In XML format, an IGT is interoperable and can be rendered in various ways. However, it is difficult for humans to interpret raw XML data. It is also impractical for linguists to write field notes in XML. A field linguist will, therefore, be well acquainted with a simple presentation of an IGT. The text presented here has five levels:

Phonetic form:
wámagʊɺʈ ɖátìnɐ ɖʊlkɐ wáràːɟàrI béɖìja ɖʊlk béɖìjɐ ɖʊlʔ

Phonemic form:
wamakuɺʈ ʈatina ʈulka waraːcari piʈiya ʈulk piʈiya tul...

Practical orthography:
Wamakurlda. dathin-a dulk-a warra-a-jarri, birdi-ya dulk birdi-ya dul...

Interlinear gloss:
(place name) that-NOM place-NOM go-M-NEGACT bad-NOM place(NOM) bad-NOM place(NOM)

Free translation:
'Wamarkuld. That place was never gone to, it's a bad place. A bad pla...'

In a typical IGT, these will be displayed as follows:

wámagʊɺʈ	ɖátìnɐ	ɖʊlkɐ	wáràːɟàrI	béɖìja	ɖʊlk	béɖìjɐ	ɖʊlʔ...
wamakuɺʈ	ʈatina	ʈulka	waraːcari	piʈiya	ʈulk	piʈiya	tul...
Wamakurlda	dathin-a	dulk-a	warra-a-jarri,	birdi-ya	dulk	birdi-ya	dul...
(place name)	that-NOM	place-NOM	go-M-NEGACT	bad-NOM	place(NOM)	bad-NOM	place(NOM)
'Wamarkuld. That place was never gone to, it's a bad place. A bad pla...'

While not an archival format, this rendition of the data is useful for transcribing texts with speakers and for analyzing the data. Note that, by applying XSL stylesheets to an XML document, you can render XML data in this way.

IGT in XML

The following XML document describes the beginning of this phrase and represents the practical orthography and English gloss. The document is commented throughout to communicate the significance of each element of the IGT.

•   **This IGT begins at the phrase level, so the first node is 'phrase'.
• <phrase>
  • 
    
  •   **The number identifies the document associated with the IGT
  • <item type="number">1</item>
  •   **The start and end times align the written data with the audio recording
  • <item type="start">0.00</item>
  • <item type="end">11.3</item>
  •   **This gloss is a free translation of the phrase
  • <item type="gls">Wamarkuld. That place was never gone to, it's a bad place. A bad pla...</item>
  •   **Comments may be added to the IGT to provide additional vital information to the document.
  • <item type="comment">[A recurring theme of the story is unauthorized trespassing. Grammatically, this results in a number of passivized motion verbs, such as warraajarri here, which express the ill effects of motion on a place.]</item>
  • 
    
  •   **At this level of the document, the phrase is broken up into words
  • <words>
    • 
      
    •   **Each word is listed separately
    • <word>
      • <item type="txt"></item>
      • 
        
      •   **At this level of the document, the word is broken up into morphemes
      • <morphemes>
        • 
          
        •   **Each morpheme is listed separately
        • <morph>
          • 
            
          •   **Each element of the gloss is represented. In this case, the gloss provides the Kayardild morpheme (txt) as well as a grammatically marked-up English gloss (gls).
          • <item type="txt">Wamakurlda</item>
          • <item type="gls">(place name)</item>
        </morph>
        </morphemes>
      </word>
    </words>
  </phrase>

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