Leipzig, last change: May 31, 2015
Further updates will be managed by the Committee of Editors of Linguistics Journals.

1The Leipzig Glossing Rules:
Conventions for interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses
About the rules
The Leipzig Glossing Rules have been developed jointly by the Department ofLinguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (BernardComrie, Martin Haspelmath) and by the Department of Linguistics of the Universityof Leipzig (Balthasar Bickel). They consist of ten rules for the "syntax" and"semantics" of interlinear glosses, and an appendix with a proposed "lexicon" ofabbreviated category labels. The rules cover a large part of linguists' needs inglossing texts, but most authors will feel the need to add (or modify) certain
conventions (especially category labels). Still, it will be useful to have a standard setof conventions that linguists can refer to, and the Leipzig Rules are proposed assuch to the community of linguists. The Rules are intended to reflect common
usage, and only very few (mostly optional) innovations are proposed.
We intend to update the Leipzig Glossing Rules occasionally, so feedback is highly
welcome.
Important references:Lehmann, Christian. 1982. "Directions for interlinear morphemic translations". Folia
Linguistica 16: 199-224.
Croft, William. 2003. Typology and universals. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. xix-xxv.

The rules(revised version of February 2008)

PreambleInterlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses give information about the meanings
and grammatical properties of individual words and parts of words. Linguists by andlarge conform to certain notational conventions in glossing, and the main purposeof this document is to make the most widely used conventions explicit.
Depending on the author's purposes and the readers' assumed backgroundknowledge, different degrees of detail will be chosen. The current rules therefore
allow some flexibility in various respects, and sometimes alternative options arementioned.
The main purpose that is assumed here is the presentation of an example in a
research paper or book. When an entire corpus is tagged, somewhat different

2considerations may apply (e.g. one may want to add information about larger units
such as words or phrases; the rules here only allow for information aboutmorphemes).
It should also be noted that there are often multiple ways of analyzing themorphological patterns of a language. The glossing conventions do not help
linguists in deciding between them, but merely provide standard ways ofabbreviating possible descriptions. Moreover, glossing is rarely a complete
morphological description, and it should be kept in mind that its purpose is not tostate an analysis, but to give some further possibly relevant information on thestructure of a text or an example, beyond the idiomatic translation.
A remark on the treatment of glosses in data cited from other sources: Glosses arepart of the analysis, not part of the data. When citing an example from a publishedsource, the gloss may be changed by the author if they prefer different terminology,
a different style or a different analysis.
Rule 1: Word-by-word alignment
Interlinear glosses are left-aligned vertically, word by word, with the example. E.g.
(1) Indonesian (Sneddon 1996:237)
Mereka di Jakarta sekarang.
theyinJakarta

now'They are in Jakarta now.'
Rule 2: Morpheme-by-morpheme correspondenceSegmentable morphemes are separated by hyphens, both in the example and in thegloss. There must be exactly the same number of hyphens in the example and in thegloss. E.g.
(2) Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993:207)
Gila abur-u-nferma hamišaluǧ güǧüna
now they-OBL-GEN

farmforeverbehindamuq’-da-č.
stay-FUT-NEG‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’Since hyphens and vertical alignment make the text look unusual, authors may
want to add another line at the beginning, containing the unmodified text, or resort
to the option described in Rule 4 (and especially 4C).
Clitic boundaries are marked by an equals sign, both in the object language andin the gloss.
(3) West Greenlandic (Fortescue 1984:127)
palasi=lu
niuirtur=lu
priest=and

shopkeeper=and'both the priest and the shopkeeper'

3

Epenthetic segments occurring at a morpheme boundary should be assigned toeither the preceding or the following morpheme. Which morpheme is to be chosen
may be determined by various principles that are not easy to generalize over, so norule will be provided for this.
Rule 2A. (Optional)
If morphologically bound elements constitute distinct prosodic or phonologicalwords, a hyphen and a single space may be used together in the object language (butnot in the gloss).
(4) Hakha Lai
a-nii -láay
3SG-laugh-FUT's/he will laugh'
Rule 3: Grammatical category labels
Grammatical morphemes are generally rendered by abbreviated grammaticalcategory labels, printed in upper case letters (usually small capitals). A list of
standard abbreviations (which are widely known among linguists) is given at theend of this document.
Deviations from these standard abbreviations may of course be necessary inparticular cases, e.g. if a category is highly frequent in a language, so that a shorter
abbreviation is more convenient, e.g. CPL (instead of COMPL) for "completive", PF(instead of PRF) for "perfect", etc. If a category is very rare, it may be simplest not toabbreviate its label at all.
In many cases, either a category label or a word from the metalanguage isacceptable. Thus, both of the two glosses of (5) may be chosen, depending on thepurpose of the gloss.
(5) RussianMy sMarkopoexa-l-i

avtobus-omv

Peredelkino.

1PL
weMarkoMarkogo-PST-PL
go-PST-PL

bus-INS
bus-byALL

Peredelkino
Peredelkino

COMwith'Marko and I went to Perdelkino by bus.'

toRule 4: One-to-many correspondences
When a single object-language element is rendered by several metalanguage
elements (words or abbreviations), these are separated by periods. E.g.
(6) Turkish
çık-makcome.out-INF'to come out'

4(7) Latin
insul-arumisland-GEN.PL'of the islands'(8) French
auxchevaux

to.ART.PLhorse.PL'to the horses'(9) German
unser-nour-DAT.PL

Väter-nfather.PL-DAT.PL'to our fathers'(10) Hittite (Lehmann 1982:211)
n=an
apedanimehuni
CONN=himthat.DAT.SGtime.DAT.SGessandu.
eat.they.shall'They shall celebrate him on that date.' (CONN = connective)(11) Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000:92)
nanggayan
guny-bi-yarluga?
who2DU.A.3SG.P-FUT-poke'Who do you two want to spear?'
The ordering of the two metalanguage elements may be determined by various
principles that are not easy to generalize over, so no rule will be provided for this.
There are various reasons for a one-to-many correspondence between objectlanguage elements and gloss elements. These are conflated by the uniform use ofthe period. If one wants to distinguish between them, one may follow Rules 4A-E.
Rule 4A. (Optional)
If an object-language element is neither formally nor semantically segmentable andonly the metalanguage happens to lack a single-word equivalent, the underscore
may be used instead of the period.
(12) Turkish
çık-mak(cf. 6)

come_out-INF'to come out'
Rule 4B. (Optional)
If an object-language element is formally unsegmentable but has two or moreclearly distinguishable meanings or grammatical properties, the semi-colon may beused. E.g.
(13) Latin
insul-arumisland-GEN;PL'of the islands'(cf. 7)

5(14) Frenchauxchevauxto;ART;PLhorse;PL'to the horses'

Rule 4C. (Optional)
If an object-language element is formally and semantically segmentable, but theauthor does not want to show the formal segmentation (because it is irrelevant
and/or to keep the text intact), the colon may be used. E.g.
(15) Hittite (Lehmann 1982:211)
n=an
apedanimehuni
CONN=him

that:DAT;SGtime:DAT;SG(cf. 10)essandu.
eat:they:shall'They shall celebrate him on that date.'

Rule 4D. (Optional)
If a grammatical property in the object-language is signaled by amorphophonological change (ablaut, mutation, tone alternation, etc.), the backslash
is used to separate the category label and the rest of the gloss.
(16) German
unser-nour-DAT.PL(cf. 9)Väter-nfather\PL-DAT.PL'to our fathers'(cf. singular Vater)(17) Irishbhris-isPST\break-2SG'you broke'(cf. nonpast bris-)(18) Kinyarwanda
mú-kòrà
SBJV\1PL-work'that we work'(cf. indicative mù-kòrà)Rule 4E. (Optional)
If a language has person-number affixes that express the agent-like and the patientlike argument of a transitive verb simultaneously, the symbol ">" may be used in
the gloss to indicate that the first is the agent-like argument and the second is thepatient-like argument.
(19) Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000:92)
nanggayan
guny-bi-yarluga?
who2DU>3SG-FUT-poke'Who do you two want to spear?'(cf. 11)

6
Rule 5: Person and number labels
Person and number are not separated by a period when they cooccur in this order.
E.g.
(20) Italian
and-iamo
go-PRS.1PL (not: go-PRS.1.PL)'we go'Rule 5A. (Optional)
Number and gender markers are very frequent in some languages, especially whencombined with person. Several authors therefore use non-capitalized shortened
abbreviations without a period. If this option is adopted, then the second gloss isused in (21).
(21) Belhare
ne-ea-khim-chi
DEM-LOCDEM-LOCn-yuNNa

1SG.POSS-house-PL
1sPOSS-house-PL

3NSG-be.NPST
3ns-be.NPST'Here are my houses.'Rule 6: Non-overt elements
If the morpheme-by-morpheme gloss contains an element that does not correspondto an overt element in the example, it can be enclosed in square brackets. An
obvious alternative is to include an overt "Ø" in the object-language text, which isseparated by a hyphen like an overt element.
(22) Latin
puer

or:

boy[NOM .SG]

puer-Ø
boy-NOM .SG‘boy’‘boy’

Rule 7: Inherent categoriesInherent, non-overt categories such as gender may be indicated in the gloss, but a
special boundary symbol, the round parenthesis, is used. E.g.
(23) Hunzib (van den Berg 1995:46)
oz#-di-gxõxe
m-uq'e-r
boy-OBL-ADtree(G4)G4-bend- PRET

'Because of the boy the tree bent.'(G4 = 4th gender, AD = adessive, PRET = preterite)
Rule 8: Bipartite elements

7Grammatical or lexical elements that consist of two parts which are treated as
distinct morphological entities (e.g. bipartite stems such as Lakhota na-xʔu̧ 'hear')
may be treated in two different ways:(i) The gloss may simply be repeated:(24) Lakhota
na-wíčha-wa-xʔu̧
hear-3PL.UND-1SG.ACT-hear'I hear them'(UND = undergoer, ACT = actor)(ii) One of the two parts may be represented by a special label such as STEM:(25) Lakhota
na-wíčha-wa-xʔu̧
hear-3PL.UND-1SG.ACT- STEM
'I hear them'
Circumfixes are "bipartite affixes" and can be treated in the same way, e.g.
(26) German
ge-seh-enor:ge-seh-en

PTCP-see-PTCPPTCP-see-CIRC'seen''seen'

Rule 9: Infixes
Infixes are enclosed by angle brackets, and so is the object-language counterpart inthe gloss.
(27) Tagalogb<um>ili(stem: bili)<ACTFOC>buy'buy'(28) Latinreli<n>qu-ere(stem: reliqu-)leave<PRS>-INF'to leave'

Infixes are generally easily identifiable as left-peripheral (as in 27) or as rightperipheral (as in 28), and this determines the position of the gloss corresponding to
the infix with respect to the gloss of the stem. If the infix is not clearly peripheral,
some other basis for linearizing the gloss has to be found.
Rule 10: Reduplication

8

Reduplication is treated similarly to affixation, but with a tilde (instead of anordinary hyphen) connecting the copied element to the stem.
(29) Hebrew
yerak~rak-im
green~ATT-M .PL'greenish ones'(ATT = attenuative)(30) Tagalog
bi~bili
IPFV~buy'is buying'(31) Tagalogb<um>i~bili<ACTFOC>IPFV~buy'is buying'(ACTFOC = Actor focus)

Appendix: List of Standard Abbreviations
123A
ABLABSACCADJADVAGRALL
ANTIPAPPL
ART
AUX
BEN
CAUS
CLF
COM
COMP
COMPL
COND
COP
CVB
DAT
DECL
DEF

first person
second person
third person
agent-like argument of canonical transitive verb
ablative
absolutive
accusative
adjective
adverb(ial)agreement
allative
antipassive
applicative
articleauxiliary
benefactive
causativeclassifier
comitativecomplementizer
completive
conditional
copulaconverb
dativedeclarative
definite

9
DEM
DET
DIST
DISTR
DU
DUR
ERG
EXCL
F
FOC
FUT
GEN
IMP
INCL
IND
INDF
INF
INS
INTR
IPFV
IRR
LOC
M
N
NNEG
NMLZ
NOM
OBJ
OBL
PPASS
PFV
PL
POSS
PRED
PRF
PRSPROG
PROH
PROX
PST
PTCP
PURP
Q
QUOT
RECP
REFL

demonstrative
determiner
distaldistributive
dual
durative
ergative
exclusive
feminine
focus
futuregenitive
imperative
inclusive
indicative
indefinite
infinitive
instrumental
intransitive
imperfective
irrealis
locativemasculine
neuternon- (e.g. NSG nonsingular, NPST nonpast)
negation, negative
nominalizer/nominalization
nominative
objectobliquepatient-like argument of canonical transitive verb
passive
perfective
pluralpossessive
predicative
perfect
present
progressive
prohibitive
proximal/proximate
past
participle
purposivequestion particle/marker
quotative
reciprocal
reflexive

10
RELRESS
SBJ
SBJV
SGTOPTRVOC

relative
resultative
single argument of canonical intransitive verb
subject
subjunctive
singular
topictransitive
vocative

References
Fortescue, Michael. 1984. West Greenlandic. (Croom Helm descriptive grammars)
London: Croom Helm.
Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. A grammar of Lezgian. (Mouton Grammar Library, 9).
Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lehmann, Christian. 1982. "Directions for interlinear morphemic translations". Folia
Linguistica 16: 199-224.
Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2000. Simple and complex verbs in Jaminjung: A study of event
categorization in an Australian language. Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Ph.D.
Dissertation.
Sneddon, James Neil. 1996. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.
van den Berg, Helma. 1995. A Grammar of Hunzib. (Lincom Studies in Caucasian
Linguistics, 1.) München: Lincom Europa.