 Interlinear gloss

An interlinear gloss aligns a linguistic example with an analysis of the meanings or grammatical properties of its words and morphemes. It commonly combines an original-language line, a segmented line, analytical labels and a freer translation. The aligned analysis provides information that the translation alone can conceal.

The Leipzig Glossing Rules by Bernard Comrie and others specify word alignment, matching hyphens at segmentable morpheme boundaries, and abbreviated grammatical labels.^[ref] In the original English illustration walk-ed / walk-PST, PST identifies past grammatical tense; the matching hyphens connect the ending with its proposed contribution. The unsegmented surface form is walked.

A matching number of boundaries does not prove the segmentation correct. The rules explicitly distinguish the gloss from the original data: different analyses can describe the same recorded form. An interlinear gloss therefore makes claims about linguistic morphology inspectable while preserving the need for independent evidence about those claims.