Glosses are taken from a language L2 that serves as a metalanguage of L1. L2 is based on a natural language – in the present case, English –, but with far-reaching deviations from natural language use. The glossing vocabulary consists of the following kinds of symbols:
- vocables
- L2 morphemes and stems
- grammatical category labels
- boundary symbols
The difference between the two kinds of vocables is the following: Morphemes and stems are taken from natural L2 vocabulary and are meant to be translation equivalents (in a sense to be made precise in the section on ambiguity) of L1 items. For instance, the notation “Germ. Schreib-tisch (write-table) ‘desk’” is interpreted thus: The German word form Schreibtisch ‘desk’ consists of two morphs, of which schreib- means ‘write’ and tisch means ‘table’.
Grammatical category labels, on the other hand, are taken from scientific terminology and are meant to represent the function of L1 items. For instance, “Germ. schreib-en (write-INF) ‘write (inf.))’” is interpreted thus: The German word form schreiben ‘write (inf.)’ consists of two morphs, of which schreib- means ‘write’, while –en is an infinitive marker (that is, -en does not mean ‘infinitive’; it is the German word Infinitiv which means ‘infinitive’).
To bring out this essential difference between the two kinds of glossing vocables, L2 morphemes and stems are written in straight orthography, while grammatical category labels are written in (small) capitals (Rule 32).
A grammatical category label represents (i.e. is the name of) the value of a grammatical category (the latter being taken, technically, as a parameter or attribute). For instance, the label ‘ACC’ is the name of the value ‘accusative’ of the morphological category ‘case’. Just as a grammatical category label is a name of a value of a grammatical category, what is called ‘L2 morphemes and stems’ are actually names of L2 morphemes and stems. In the following, we will abide by the simpler way of speaking. The choice and use of vocables are treated in the following subsections.