Probably the best source of information is the Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets
file (found in C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\Web\
- adjust the v14 to v10 or v12 for your version of Visual Studio)
There are some comments in this file, as well as the fact that this is the MSBuild file that uses those property values - so even if a particular property isn't commented, you might be able to figure out their purpose.