SIL Electronic Working Papers
Author: Bickford, J. Albert
Title: A Rich Model for Presenting Interlinear Text
Keywords: linguistics, computing, text analysis
This paper examines the advantages of presenting interlinear texts using a multi-line model. The particular one discussed here includes three types of transcription, glosses and notes in two languages, glosses and translations at three levels, and a citation form for each inflected word.
This model has many advantages over traditional three-line models. It addresses a broader audience of scholars and native speakers, provides clearer representation of the semantic structure, and links directly with published dictionaries. The greater number of lines enable editors and others who don't know the language to assist the linguist by checking for consistency between lines.
If texts from different languages are all prepared according to this model, comparison between them is much easier. Such a collection is currently being assembled, consisting of texts from languages in Mexico and the Southwest U.S.A, with accompanying explanatory materials.