The following abbreviations are used:
| L1 | the (object) language of the text or example to be analyzed |
| L2 | the (meta-)language used in the analysis |
| T | the text line in L1 to be glossed |
Basic principles
Rule 1. A morphological gloss should be as precise and detailed as tolerable. The limits of precision and detail are defined by practical considerations of complexity and intelligibility.
Rule 2. The L1 text should be represented in such a form of writing which is amenable to the indication of morphological boundaries and to an interlinear representation and word-by-word association of its morphological gloss.
If traditional L1 orthography does not support this, there may be a line of morphophonemic representation beneath the original L1 text line. This is then the text line T matched by the morphological gloss.
Rule 3. With the exception specified by Rule 22, there is a biunique mapping of individual L1 morphs onto glosses.
Specifically:
- There is a symbol or a configuration of symbols in the morphological gloss if there is a morph in the L1 text corresponding to it.
- Every L1 morpheme (in all of its variants) has one distinctive gloss identifying it.
Glossing vocabulary
Rule 4.
- An L1 lexeme is glossed by L2 lexemes.
- L1 stems are glossed by L2 stems.
Rule 5. A grammatical or derivational L1 formative
- should be glossed by a configuration of grammatical category symbols each of which represents the value of a grammatical category
- may be glossed by an L2 word if this is a close equivalent
- is not glossed by a bound L2 form.
Rule 6. Homonymy is resolved in the morphological gloss, polysemy is preferably not.
Rule 7. The gloss of a polysemous L1 item should represent, in the order of decreasing preference,
- its generic meaning
- its basic meaning
- the set of its senses
- its contextual sense (as in cases of homonymy).
Morphological structure
Rule 8. The morphological gloss represents morphemes, not allomorphs.
Therefore, all the allomorphs of a morpheme share the same gloss; the gloss of a grammatically conditioned allomorph does not contain the feature conditioning it.
Rule 9. A (sub-)morphemic unit of L1 with no recognizable linguistic function may be glossed by the zero symbol (∅).
Rule 10. A morphological gloss represents an individual morpheme, not an entire class or category of morphemes.
Rule 11. If L1 pronominal indexes cross-reference more than one syntactic function, the gloss of a pronominal index starts with a label identifying the syntactic function referenced.
Boundary symbols
Rule 12. Apart from Rules 14 and 33, there is a boundary symbol of a certain type in the morphological gloss if there is a corresponding boundary symbol in the L1 text.
More strictly, there is a blank, hyphen, plus, equal sign, angled bracket and tilde in a morphological gloss if and only if there is an identical symbol in the L1 text corresponding to it.
Rule 13. A word boundary is shown by a blank ( ) both in T and in the gloss line.
Rule 14. Two successive orthographic L1 words which are glossed by one L2 word are linked by an underscore (_).
Rule 15.
- A clitic boundary is shown by an equals sign (=) both in T and in the gloss line.
- If L1 orthography in T treats the clitic as a separate word, showing the clisis is optional. If it is shown, the equals sign may be combined with a blank space beside the host.
Rule 16. By default, a morpheme boundary is shown by a hyphen (-) both in T and in the gloss.
Rule 17. A boundary in a compound stem may be shown by a plus sign (+) both in T and in the gloss.
Rule 18. An infix is enclosed in angled brackets both in T and in the gloss.
The gloss of a left-peripheral infix precedes the gloss of its host, the gloss of a right-peripheral infix follows it.
Rule 19.
- The string flanked by a discontinuous L1 item P1 ... P2 is enclosed in inverted angled brackets (P1> ... <P2). That Pi receives the gloss which is the head of the pair. The gloss of this Pi is enclosed in angled brackets; the other component is not glossed.
- If angled brackets are not available for discontinuous stems, chevrons may be used instead.
Rule 20. A reduplicative segment is glossed like an affix (i.e. by a configuration of grammatical category labels) and separated from its source by a tilde (~) both in T and in the gloss.
Rule 21. A grammatical meaning coded by a non-segmentable morphological process (transfixation, internal modification, metathesis, subtraction, suprasegmental process) is not identified in the L1 representation. Its gloss follows the gloss of the base, separated by a backslash (\).
Rule 22. A gloss of a linguistic unit not represented in T is enclosed in round parentheses (()).
Rule 23. A morphological boundary not shown in T is indicated by a colon (:) in the gloss. This applies to portmanteau morphs, too.
Rule 24. Symbols of a gloss that represent semantic components or morphological features of one L1 morph are separated by a period (.).
The period between values of different morphological categories cumulated in one morpheme is dispensable between person, gender and number, provided the resulting letter sequence is unambiguous.
Rule 25. As a special case of Rule 24, components of one L1 pronominal index morph that have distinct reference are separated by the ampersand (‘&’) or, where no conflict with Rules 18 and 19 arises, by the greater-than sign (‘>’) for actor and undergoer cross-reference.
Rule 26. An L1 word form whose morphological structure is not represented in the gloss line may be represented by a sequence of symbols (commonly, words) whose status as representing morphs or features is ignored and whose order has no implications as to L1. Such symbols that jointly correspond to an L1 word form are joined by an underscore (_).
Rule 27. Constituent structure may be indicated by square brackets ([]) in the morphological gloss.
The closing bracket may be indexed by a subscript representing a syntactic category.
Typographic conventions
Rule 28. The vertical distance above T is larger than the default line-height and, in particular, than the distance above the gloss line.
Rule 29. The morphological gloss is in the line immediately below the corresponding T.
Rule 30.
- A line of T with its associated gloss and free translation lines are left-aligned (i.e. full justification is suspended).
- A piece of L1 text whose length exceeds one print line is broken (not at the right edge of the page, but) at a major syntactic boundary.
- Each word form in T is left-flush with the L2 word or complex of symbols rendering it in the gloss line.
If such an arrangement is impossible, the following is a minimum requirement: A gloss of an element of T is contained in the line immediately below T. - If the L1 text piece occupies more than one print line, its free translation
- is subdivided into stretches positioned beneath each two-linear pair of T and gloss if the stretches of T and the translation correspond (i.e. to the extent that higher-level syntax of L1 and L2 is analogous)
- follows the entire multilinear block if this condition cannot be met.
Rule 31. The gloss line should be type-set in approximately 85% of the font-size of T.
If this is impossible, then at least grammatical category labels are in small capitals.
Rule 32. Grammatical category labels appearing in morphological glosses are abbreviated, without a period at the end, and set in (small) capitals.
Rule 33. There is no punctuation in a morphological gloss. Parentheses including optional material in T (although repeated in the free translation) are not repeated in the morphological gloss, either.
Rule 34. There is no sentence-initial uppercase in a morphological gloss.
Rule 35. There is no syllabication either in the L1 text or in the gloss.