The BG Language Creation Guide
Help with Glossing
It's always a good idea to include a key, so that people know what you mean by the abbreviations you use.
Some of things are standard, but variation exists. Your best defense against being misread is to define your terms.
Pronouns
Remember not to use the English words (I you she he it...) to gloss pronouns. Use person and number.
Add in gender if you need it.
- 1sg first person singular
- 2sg second person singular
- 3sg third person singular
- 1pl first person plural
- 2pl second person plural
- 3pl third person plural
- masc masculine
- fem feminine
- inc inclusive
- exc exclusive
- fam familiar (informal)
- hon honorific (formal)
Case
- nom niminative
- acc accusative
- dat dative
- gen / poss genetive / possessive
- instr instrumental
Other markings
- aug augmentative (showing something is bigger)
- aux auxiliary (usually an auxiliary or helping verb)
- comp comparative
- def definite
- dim diminuative
- fam familiar (informal)
- fem feminine
- fut future
- gen / pos genetive / possession
- hon honorific, formal
- indef indefinite
- loc locative: anythig that shows location
- masc masculine
- nc noun class marker (if you noun classes are not masculine/feminine, try using NC1 NC2 etc to mark them).
- neg negation / not
- nom nominalizer
- pst past tense
- pl plural
- poss / gen / possession / genetive
- pres present tense
- sg singular
- sup superlative