Interlinear glossing

The three lines

An interlinear example normally places the source-language line above a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss, then gives a separate free translation. The Leipzig Glossing Rules align word boundaries vertically and use a hyphen for segmentable morphemes and an equals sign for clitics. Periods in grammatical labels can combine categories expressed by one unsegmented form. The conventions make the analysis legible; they do not prove that the analyst has found the correct boundaries.

A word-level teaching gloss of Caesar’s short line can identify Gallia as “Gaul”, omnis as “all”, est as “be.PRS.3SG”, divisa as “divide.PTCP.PASS.NOM.F.SG”, in as “into”, partes as “part.ACC.PL” and tres as “three.ACC.PL”. This is an explanatory alignment of edited words, not an assertion that each Latin word is a single morpheme. It leaves segmentation inside inflected forms undone. Define any abbreviation that a new reader might not know.

What glosses cannot do

A gloss names an analytic contribution; it is not a sentence translation. The English phrase “all Gaul” may need a different word order from the Latin. Participial and auxiliary values may be distributed differently in readable English. Where a source language bundles several features in one form, forcing one English word under each segment can mislead. Use the free-translation line to convey the clause, and keep the gloss as a checkable analysis.

If a form is restored or its segmentation disputed, place the edition’s uncertainty in the source line and explain its effect below. Never fabricate a clean interlinear line from a damaged passage merely to make the layout tidy.

Practice

Gloss the six-word Latin opening at word level. Then compare your feature abbreviations against the Leipzig list. Put a close English rendering on a third line, and circle the places where one-to-one word correspondence fails.