Interlinear Glossed Text

Page Index

• Introduction

Introduction

An IGT (Interlinear Glossed Text) is a multi-tiered representation of a language text. It has a text in the language of study arranged into lines with parallel lines of interlinear glossing of various kinds. It usually has a line with morpheme-by-morpheme or word-by-word glosses, and often shows a line containing a fluent translation of the text into another language.

The aim of IGT is to provide a detailed analysis of linguistic material, so there can be multiple lines of annotation, though the ones listed above are the most common. Its main purpose is to communicate the grammatical structure of the language of study, but it is also useful as a means of explicating traditional narrative as exemplary text in a grammar.

This part of the School is divided into five sections.

• The technologies section outlines the use of various mark-up languages and software tools in creating an IGT.
• The standards section provides references to current standards for IGT development.
• The levels section recommends levels of representation in an IGT.
• The troubleshooting section addresses problems likely to occur in IGT development, specifically concerning portability and alignment.
  
  
• The how-to section gives a step-by-step example of an IGT in XML.