Re: 2 Questions about glosses

From:    scott <sjcaldwell@...>
> My language has 3 genders, which is basically indicated
> by 3 articles: asem, ipen, ümen. These articles are the definite
> article. The indefinite article is created by adding the suffix -a.
>
> ümen-a hafal
> a-INDF horse
> 'a horse'
>
> Is the gloss for 'the horse' (ümen hafal)
>       the horse
> or  the-DEF horse
> or  something else ?
I would not analyze your basic uninflected articles as definite
articles, but rather referential articles: they point to a NP in
the discourse that actually exists, whether previously referred
to or not.  This would be the distinction between:

   Is there a unicorn in the garden?
   (=> no assertion that unicorns exist)

and

   There is a unicorn in the garden.
   (=> assertion that unicorns exist.)

English has no way to distinguish these morphologically; only the
context distinguishes them.  (In Georgian, which generally lacks articles,
the number _erti_ "one" is used as a referential indefinite article
sometimes, though not obligatorily.)  But getting back to your example,
since all definites are also referential, perhaps your -a suffix is a
genuine indefinitivizer, and your language lacks a definite article
altogether.  The definite reading could be drawn from the pragmatic
inference that one did not use the indefinitivizer, splitting up the
articles in a way opposite to English.

Just an idea, though.

> Also, when writing the gloss do you indicate gender (which in
> my case is a mix of formal vs. informal, and sentient vs.
> non-sentient)? Or would this only be the case if you were
> using an affix to indicate gender instead of a wholly different
> and separate word?
I would not indicate gender in the morphemic breakdown unless
it's actually needed in the morphosyntax.  Thus, English has no
gender in the sense of German, where gender is a formal rather
than fuzzy feature of nouns, and so gender should not be marked
in the breakdown, with the possible pragmatic exception of pronouns.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637