This article lists common abbreviations for grammatical terms that are used in linguistic
interlinear glossing of
oral languages in English.
The list provides conventional glosses as established by standard inventories of glossing abbreviations such as the Leipzig Glossing rules,
the most widely known standard. These will generally be the glosses used on Wikipedia. Synonymous glosses are listed as alternatives for reference purposes. In a few cases, long and short standard forms are listed, intended for texts where that gloss is rare or common.
Conventions
* Grammatical abbreviations are generally written in full or small caps to visually distinguish them from the translations of lexical words. For instance, capital or small-cap (frequently abbreviated to ) glosses a grammatical past-tense morpheme, while lower-case 'past' would be a literal translation of a word with that meaning. Similarly, (small) cap might be a locative suffix used in nominal inflections, prototypically indicating direction downward but possibly also used where it is not translatable as 'down' in English, whereas lower-case 'down' would be a direct English translation of a word meaning 'down'.
[Nina Sumbatova, 'Dargwa', in Maria Polinskaya (ed.) ''The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus.''] Not all authors follow this convention.
* Person-number-gender is often further abbreviated, in which case the elements are not small caps. E.g. 3ms or 3msg for , 2fp or 2fpl for , also 1di for and 1pe for .
[
*Authors may more severely abbreviate glosses than is the norm, if they are particularly frequent within a text, e.g. rather than for 'immediate past'. This helps keep the gloss graphically aligned with the parsed text when the abbreviations are longer than the morphemes they gloss. Such shortened forms may be ambiguous with other authors or texts are so are not presented as normative here. Glosses may also be less abbreviated than the norm if they are not common in a particular text, so as to not tax the reader, e.g. for 'transitivizer' or for 'subjunctive'. At the extreme, glosses may not be abbreviated at all but simply written in small caps, e.g. , or rather than , , . Such long, obvious abbreviationse.g. in ][ have been omitted from the list below, but are always possible.
*A morpheme will sometimes be used as its own gloss. This is typically done when it is the topic of discussion, and the author wishes it to be immediately recognized in the gloss among other morphemes with similar meanings, or when it has multiple or subtle meanings that would be impractical to gloss with a single conventional abbreviation. For example, if a passage has two contrasting nominalizing suffixes under discussion, ''ɣiŋ'' and ''jolqəl'', they may be glossed and , with the glosses explained in the text.][ This is also seen when the meaning of a morpheme is debated, and glossing it one way or another would prejudice the discussion.
*Lexical morphemes are typically translated, using lower-case letters, though they may be given a grammatical gloss in small caps if they play a grammatical role in the text. Exceptions include proper nouns, which typically are not translated, and kinship terms, which may be too complex to translate. Proper nouns/names may simply be repeated in the gloss, or may be replaced with a placeholder such as "(name.)" or "" (for a female name). For kinship glosses, see the dedicated section below for a list of standard abbreviations.
*Lehmann recommends that abbreviations for syntactic roles not be used as glosses for arguments, as they are not morphological categories. Glosses for case should be used instead, e.g. or for A.]agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
of transitive verb), B (core benefactive),[Irina Nikolaeva & Maria Tolskaya (2001) ''A Grammar of Udighe''. Mouton de Gruyter.] D or I (core dative / indirect object),[ E (experiencer of sensory verb),][ G or R ( goal or recipient – indirect object of ditransitive verb),][ L (location argument),][ O or P (]patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other heal ...
of transitive verb), S (single argument of intransitive verb), SA (Sa) and SP or SO (Sp, So) (agent- and patient-like argument in split-S alignment
The split S is an Aerobatic maneuver and an air combat maneuver mostly used to disengage from combat. To execute a split S, the pilot half-rolls their aircraft inverted and executes a descending half-loop, resulting in level flight in the op ...
),[ Se and Sx (argument of equative/copular and existential verb),][John Du Bois, Lorraine Kumpf & William Ashby (2003) ''Preferred Argument Structure''] Su (subject of v.t. or v.i.),[ and T (theme – direct object of ditransitive verb).][
:These abbreviations are, however, commonly used as the basis for glosses for symmetrical voice systems (formerly called 'trigger' agreement, and by some still 'focus' (misleadingly, as it is not ]grammatical focus
In linguistics, focus (abbreviated ) is a grammatical category that conveys which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. In the English sentence "Mary only insulted BILL", focus is expressed prosodically ...
), such as (agent voice), (beneficiary 'focus'), (locative 'trigger').
*Glosses for generic concepts like 'particle', 'infix', 'tense', 'object marker' and the like are generally to be avoided in favor of specifying the precise value of the morpheme.[ These are not listed below as they are not glosses for morphological values.
]
Lists
Nonabbreviated English words used as glosses are not included in the list below. Caution is needed with short glosses like , , and , which could potentially be either abbreviations or (as in these cases) nonabbreviated English prepositions used as glosses.
Transparent compounds of the glosses below, such as or 'remote past', a compound of 'remote' and 'past', are not listed separately.
Abbreviations beginning with (generalized glossing prefix for ''non-'', ''in-'', ''un-'') are not listed separately unless they have alternative forms that are included. For example, is not listed, as it is composable from + . This convention is grounded in the Leipzig Glossing Rules.[Maria Polinskaya (ed.) ''The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus.'']
Some sources are moving from classical lative () terminology to 'directional' (), with concommitant changes in the abbreviations. Other authors contrast -lative and -directive.[
Some sources use alternative abbreviations to distinguish e.g. ''nominalizer'' from ''nominalization'',][ or shorter abbreviations for compounded glosses in synthetic morphemes than for independent glosses in agglutinative morphemes.][ These are seldom distinct morphosyntactic categories in a language, though some may be distinguished in historical linguistics. They are not distinguished below, as any such usage tends to be idiosyncratic to the author.
]
Punctuation and numbers
Grammatical abbreviations
{, class="wikitable"
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! Conventional Gloss
! Variants
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! Reference
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, addressee authority (cf. )
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, from. May be equivalent to or . Compounded for , , etc. if a single morpheme, as , or , etc. if not.
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, above deictic center
, ][Diana Forker (2019) ''Elevation as a category of grammar: Sanzhi Dargwa and beyond'']
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, abessive case
In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated or ), caritive and privative (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition ''without'' o ...
( caritive case or privative case: 'without')
Lehmann (2004) recommends using privative () or aversive () instead[Christian Lehmann (2004), Interlinear morphemic glossing, In: Booij, Geert & Lehmann, Christian & Mugdan, Joachim & Skopeteas, Stavros (eds.)]
Morphologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Flexion und Wortbildung. 2. Halbband
Berlin: W. de Gruyter (Handbücher der Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 17.2), p. 1834-1857, taken fro
authors draft
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, ablative case ('from')
, ][
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, ablative-modalis case
, ][Osahito Miyaoka (2012) ''A Grammar of Central Alaskan Yupik (CAY)''. De Gruyter.]
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, ,
, absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominativ ...
, [Bernd Heine & Tania Kuteva (2006) ''The changing languages of Europe.'']
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, absolute (free, non-incorporated form of noun)
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, abstract (of nominal)
, ][Niels Smit (2010) ''FYI: Theory and typology of information packaging'']
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, about
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, motion across (as opposed to up/down-hill, -river)
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, animacy classifier
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, accusative case
, ][
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, accompanier
, ][Mark Donohue & Søren Wichmann (2008) ''The Typology of Semantic Alignment'']
, -
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,
, achievement
, [
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, ,
, accomplishment
, ][William McGregor (2013) ''Verb Classification in Australian Languages''][
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, actor role.
, ][
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, actual
, ][
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, actualizing
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, activity
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, near, by. May be equivalent to or . Compounded for , (irregular ), etc. if a single morpheme, as , , etc. if not.
, ][
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, agent demotion
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, anti-deictic
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, adaptive
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, additive case; additive focus
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, adessive case ('at'; more specific than ). See .
, ][
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, adelative
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, ]adjective
In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
( adjectivizer)
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, adjunct
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, adjectivizer
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, admonitive mood (warning)
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, ,
, addressive; addressee-anchored/orientated/perspective
, ][Marian Klamer, Antoinette Schapper, Creville Corbett (2017) ''The Alor-Pantar languages: History and typology''][
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,
, adverb(ial) ( ~ adverbializer); adverbial case
, ][Seppo Kittilä, Katja Västi, Jussi Ylikoski (2011) ''Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles''][Bernard Comrie (2012) ''Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas: A Typological Overview''][
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, adverb marker
, ][
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, , ,
, adversative (maleficiary, 'whereas')
, ][
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, adverbializer
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, , ,
, aequalis (equalis) case (like, as), equational particle, equative (adj in nominal clause; = active, stative equative)
, ][
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, affirmative
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, affectionate
, ][
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, aforementioned
, ][
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, affective case
, ][Anna Siewierska & Jae Jung Song (1998) ''Case, Typology, and Grammar: In Honor of Barry J. Blake''][
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, argument-focus marker
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, away from water (= )
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, aggregate, collective (cf. )
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, ][
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, ,
, ]agreement Agreement may refer to:
Agreements between people and organizations
* Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law
* Trade agreement, between countries
* Consensus, a decision-making process
* Contract, enforceable in a court of law
** Meeting ...
affix (typically number–gender; cf. )
Lehmann (2004) recommends avoiding and specifying agreement categories.[
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, agentive case ( agentive nominalizer)
, ][
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, adjacent
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, alienable possession
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, allative case ('to'; also 'aditive' , 'adlative', 'addirective')
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, ]allocutive
In linguistics, allocutive agreement (abbreviated or ) refers to a morphological feature in which the gender of an addressee is marked overtly in an utterance using fully grammaticalized markers Trask, L. ''The History of Basque'' Routledge: 1 ...
(addressee honorific)
, [
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, alterphoric, =
, ][Floyd, Norcliffe & San Roque (2018) ''Egophoricity'']
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, ambiphoric pronoun
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,
, amplifier
, ][
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, ,
, ]animate gender
Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around th ...
( animate plural; ''cf'' ; may exclude human referents)
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, ,
, anaphoric (demonstrative, suffix)
, ][
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,
, action narrowly averted
, ][
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, ]andative
In linguistics, andative and venitive (abbreviated and ) are a type of verbal deixis: verb forms which indicate 'going' or 'coming' motion, respectively, in reference to a particular location or person. Other terms sometimes seen are itive and ven ...
('going towards', ''cf'' venitive)
, [
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,
, ]anterior tense Relative tense and absolute tense are distinct possible uses of the grammatical category of tense. Absolute tense means the grammatical expression of time reference (usually past, present or future) relative to "now" – the moment of speaking. In ...
(relative tense; used for in some traditions)
, [
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, ,
, anticipated (future), anticipating
, ][
, -
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, in front of. May be equivalent to or . Compounded for , , etc. if a single morpheme, as , , etc. if not.
, ][
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,
, anteelative (antelative)
, ][
, -
!
,
, antessive case, anteessive ('before')
, ][
, -
! ,
,
, anticausative
, ][Martin Haspelmath & Andrea Sims (2010) ''Understanding Morphology.'' 2nd edition. Hodder Education][
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,
, anticipatory ( anticipatory subject)
, ][
, -
! ,
, , , ,
, antipassive voice
, ][Wolfgang Schulze (2010) ''The Grammaticalization of Antipassives''][
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, antelative (ante-lative), antedirective
, ][
, -
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,
, agent-orientated verb
, ][
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,
, attributive oblique
, ][Diana Forker ''Evidentiality in Nakh-Daghestanian languages '']
, -
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,
, aorist (= )
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,
, adverbial particle ote: better to gloss the actual meaning, ][
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,
, adjective prefix
, ][
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, applicative (subtypes etc.)][N. J. Enfield (2002) ''Ethnosyntax: Explorations in Grammar and Culture''][
, -
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, apposition, appositional mood
, ][
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,
, approbation
, ][
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, apprehensive mood, apprehensional ('lest')
, ][
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, , ,
, ]active participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
, present participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived fro ...
, [
, -
!
,
, approximative
, ][
, -
!
,
, near, in the vicinity of. May be equivalent to or . Compounded for , , etc. if a single morpheme, as , , etc. if not.
, ][
, -
!
, ,
, areal (place/time/situation)
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]argumentative
In the American legal system, argumentative is an evidentiary objection raised in response to a question which prompts a witness to draw inferences from facts of the case.
One common misconception is that argumentative questions are meant only t ...
, [Leon Stassen (2009) ''Predicative Possession.'' OUP.]
, -
!
,
, article
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
...
, [
, -
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,
, actor (agent-role subject)
, ][
, -
!
, , ,
, (a) associative case ('with', 'à'; not = ), ]
(b) associative plural (also ),
(c) associative mood
(d) compounds, e.g. associated motion
, [Greville Corbett (2000) ''Number''][
, -
!
,
, aspect, aspectual]
Lehmann (2004) recommends avoiding 'aspect' as a gloss and specifying the aspect.assertive mood
Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive to defend a right point of view or a relevant statement. In the field of psychology and psychotherapy, it is a skill that can be learned and a mode of communi ...
, [
, -
!
,
, asserted past participle
, ][
, -
!
, , cn?
, assumptive mood, assumed evidential
, ][
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!
,
, assistive
, ][
, -
!
,
, asymmetric (= )
, ][
, -
!
,
, at (locative) nglish preposition as a gloss, ][
, -
!
,
, attention-calling
, ][
, -
!
, ,
, ]attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
( attributive derived from place name), attributor
, [
, -
!
,
, auditory evidential, auditive
, ][
, -
!
,
, (a) ]augmentative
An augmentative ( abbreviated ) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive.
Overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque and so in s ...
;
(b) augment (in Bantu noun classes)
(c) augmented number (e.g. of imperative)
, [
, -
!
,
, auxiliary verb]
Per Lehmann (2004), this should only be used if it uniquely identifies the morpheme (i.e., there is only one auxiliary morpheme in the language.)[Hans-Martin Gärtner, Joachim Sabel, Paul Law (2011) ''Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages''. De Gruyter.][Fay Wouk & Malcolm Ross, eds. (2002) ''The historical and typological development of westernAustronesian voice systems.'' Pacific Linguistics, Canberra][
, -
!
,
, aversative, ]aversive
In psychology, aversives are unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in behavior via negative reinforcement or positive punishment. By applying an aversive immediately before or after a behavior the likelihood of the target behavior occurring in t ...
, [
, -
!
, ,
, 'be' verb (a conflation of and ) f. ,
, -
!
,
, below deictic center
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]benefactive case
The benefactive case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used where English would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g. "She opened the door ''for Tom''" or "This book is ''for Bob''". ...
('for')
, [
, -
!
,
, background
, ][Bernhard Wälchli, Bruno Olsson, Francesca Di Garbo (2019) ''Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity'', vol. I][
, -
!
,
, ]bivalent Bivalent may refer to:
* Bivalent (chemistry), a molecule formed from two or more atoms bound together
*Bivalent (engine), an engine that can operate on two different types of fuel
*Bivalent (genetics), a pair of homologous chromosomes
*Bivalent log ...
, [
, -
!
,
, bottom (presumably also '')
, ][
, -
!
, ,
, boundary (a. boundary-emphasizing; b. geographic boundary)
, ][Ad Foolen, Gijs Mulder & Helen de Hoop (2018) ''Evidence for Evidentiality.'' John Benjamins.][
, -
!
,
, bound root
, ][
, -
!
,
, boundary tone
, ][
, -
!
,
, beneficiary voice/focus/trigger
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]common gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
( or cs common singular, or cp common plural)
, [
, -
!
,
, conceptualizer
, ][Tasaku Tsunoda & Taro Kageyama, eds. (2006) ''Voice and Grammatical Relations: In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani'']
, -
!
,
, 'compass', in languages where relative position is based on cardinal direction
The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, E, S, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are ...
rather than left, right, front and behind ( compass ablative, compass allative)
, [Erich Round (2013) ''Kayardild Morphology and Syntax'']
, -
!
,
, complementizing (prefix on case abbreviation)
, [
, -
!
,
, ceased existence
, ][
, -
!
,
, caritive case
, ][
, -
!
,
, cardinal numeral (morpheme or grammatical feature)
, ][
, -
!
, , ,
, ]causative
In linguistics, a causative ( abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
, [Marvin Beachy (2005) ''An Overview of Central Dizin Phonology and Morphology'']
, -
!
,
, (a) conditional converb, (b) clause-chain marker
, [
, -
!
,
, core development
, ][
, -
!
,
, conjunct dubitive neutral
, ][
, -
!
,
, conjunct dubitive preterite
, ][
, -
!
,
, continued event
, ][
, -
!
,
, centric case
, ][
, -
!
,
, centrifugal (motion)
, ][Antoine Guillaume & Harold Koch (2021) ''Associated Motion''. De Gruyter]
, -
!
,
, centripetal (motion)
, [
, -
!
,
, certainty (evidential)
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]cessative
The cessative aspect or terminative aspect is a grammatical aspect referring to the end of a state. It is the opposite of the inchoative aspect and conveys the idea of "to stop doing something" or "to finish doing something".
In Yaqui, the cessati ...
, [
, -
!
,
, contrastive focus
, ][
, -
!
,
, at X's place, at the home of (from the French preposition '' chez'')
, ][
, -
!
,
, chômeur
, ][
, -
!
,
, cohortative (often = )
, ][
, -
!
,
, contrary information flow
, ][
, -
!
, ,
, (a) circumstantive ('in', 'by')]
(b) circumstantial voice (= )
, [
, -
!
, , $
, (empty tag to mark second element of a ]circumfix
A circumfix (abbreviated ) (also confix or ambifix) is an affix which has two parts, one placed at the start of a word, and the other at the end. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, attached at the ...
)
, [
, -
!
,
, circumferential
, ][
, -
!
,
, circumessive
,
, -
!
, ,
, cislocative
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]citation form
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' ...
ending
, [Pamela Munro (1987) ''Muskogean Linguistics'']
, -
!
,
, conjoint
{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009
The conjoint was a basic medical qualification in the United Kingdom administered by the United Examining Board. It is now no longer awarded. The Conjoint Board was superseded in 1994 by the United Examining Boa ...
, [
, -
!
,
, close link (necessary condition; temporal closeness)
, ][
, -
!
,
, nominal class (in Bantu languages)
,
, -
!
,
, clause-level, e.g. clause-level 'and', completive clause marking
, ][
, -
!
, , ,
, classifier (base or morpheme) ( noun class). Some distinguish classifier from class marker.][ ]
The category of classifier should be specified,[ or ""][
, -
!
,
, (a) conjugation marker;]
(b) noun-class marker;
(c) concatenative marker
, [
, -
!
,
, compound
,
, -
!
, , , , , ,
, completive (completitive) aspect (e.g. completed past) – normally = ][
, -
!
, , , ,
, comparative
, ][
, -
!
, ,
, commitment, committal
, ][
, -
!
,
, common noun (e.g. common-noun determiner)
, ][
, -
!
,
, ]conjunct nominal
{{For, the linguistic and logical operation of conjunction, Logical conjunction
In linguistics, the term conjunct has three distinct uses:
*A conjunct is an adverbial that adds information to the sentence that is not considered part of the propos ...
, [
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In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin ''status constructus''). For example, in Arabi ...