Glosering

Glosering is the practice in linguistics of providing a structured, line-by-line annotation of a text in a language other than the analyst's, to expose its morphological and syntactic structure. It is widely used in language documentation, descriptive grammars, and corpus annotation, and is often referred to in English as interlinear glossing.

A typical glossed excerpt consists of three lines: a surface line showing the original sentence, a gloss line that breaks the sentence into morphemes and provides a short abbreviation-based gloss for each unit, and a free translation line conveying the whole sentence’s meaning. The gloss line is aligned with the surface line so readers can see how each word or morpheme contributes to the grammar.

Conventions such as the Leipzig Glossing Rules provide standardized abbreviations for grammatical categories (for example person, number, tense, case) and formatting guidelines. These conventions aim to ensure readability and cross-language comparability, particularly in typological research and field documentation.

Glosering supports analysis and teaching but has limitations. It is not a full translation and may oversimplify complex morphology or syntax. Some languages require multi-line or specialized glosses, and researchers adapt conventions to language-specific features.

See also: interlinear glossing, Leipzig Glossing Rules, language documentation.