Not excessively stretch vertical space between elements in gb4e (glossing verse text; issue w/ enumitem)

Question

Part of my data is verse text which I'd prefer to gloss line by line. I toyed with this setup (MWE):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\begin{document}
\begin{exe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \
        of endowments and of tithe even \
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \
        would_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}
\end{document}

This produces a line-by-line gloss as desired, however, the space between the \gll's and before \trans may stretch to stupid lengths—like about 10 mm. Is there a convenient way to keep vertical space between the elements reasonable, say, fix it at .5\baselineskip, without plastering examples with \vspace{-somevalue} manually? My current document setup already has

\renewcommand{\eachwordtwo}{\rule[-.5\baselineskip]{0pt}{0pt}}

to increase the space between glosses comprising multiple lines of running text.

EDIT

The most relevant actual settings as requested by @gernot. I tracked my problem down to the enumitem package preventing the manipulation of whitespace in the exe environment:

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\begin{document}
\OnehalfSpacing
\begin{exe}
\topsep=0pt
\partopsep=0pt
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \
        of endowments and of tithe even \
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \
        would_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}
\end{document}

With enumitem:

Without enumitem:

Off topic: I believe the spelling of the last word should be "tithes", not "thithes". — barbara beeton, Aug 22 '21 at 20:54

gernot · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-22T14:10:09.977

4

If you want to have control over the line breaks by using several \glls in a row, define an environment compactexe as follows (to be put into the preamble) and use it instead of the exe environment.

\makeatletter
\newenvironment{compactexe}{%
  \begin{exe}%
    \topsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    \partopsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    % Otherwise, if package enumitem is used:
    \expandafter\def\expandafter\@listi\expandafter{%
      \@listi
      \topsep=0pt
    }%
}{%
  \end{exe}%
}
\makeatother

If you don't care for the line breaks, use just a single \gll followed by the complete first line, \\, the complete second line, and another \\. The package will introduce line breaks as needed.

In the example below, both versions are illustrated.

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{compactexe}{%
  \begin{exe}%
    \topsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    \partopsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    % Otherwise, if package enumitem is used:
    \expandafter\def\expandafter\@listi\expandafter{%
      \@listi
      \topsep=0pt
    }%
}{%
  \end{exe}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{compactexe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \
        of endowments and of tithe even \
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \
        would_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{compactexe}
\begin{exe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar.\
        of endowments and of tithe even 
        would_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}
\end{document}

edited Aug 22 '21 at 14:10

answered Aug 21 '21 at 15:33

gernot

49,614

Yes, but even with the settings in the compactexe wrapper there may be a lot of whitespace introduced between lines by default: https://i.imgur.com/zB8KqPE.png. Since gb4e is essentially manipulating a list construct, I guess one might also want to set \itemsep. I'm getting OK-ish results setting negative values for the lenths, but some examples are still fairly widely spaced. – Jipí Aug 21 '21 at 18:54
@Jipí Negative values sound like a hack. You can try to set also \itemsep, \parskip and \parsep to 0pt. You can also try to add \raggedbottom. To be able to analyze the problem, you would have to post an example showing the issue. – gernot Aug 21 '21 at 19:02
I've just tested with my MWE demo document and what you propose seems to work there even when filling up the page with dummy text. Thing is, I'm using memoir for the actual thesis manuscript with one-half spacing, so that may have an adverse effect. Gotta look into that or just live with running lines of verse. – Jipí Aug 21 '21 at 19:13
@Jipí ... or you could post a MWE with your real settings, like document class. It is all about finding the right glue between the lines that may stretch with flush buttom. Seems doable ... – gernot Aug 21 '21 at 19:55
Alright, I edited my question. See the edit below the horizontal rule. A little try and error revealed that the problem is due to the presence of the enumitem package. – Jipí Aug 22 '21 at 12:09
@Jipí I have extended my answer to handle the effects of the enumitem package as well. – gernot Aug 22 '21 at 14:11
I adapted your solution to include the same settings also for 2nd-level examples (abc …) by copying the directive for @listi and changing that to @listii. It works now, thanks. – Jipí Aug 23 '21 at 08:24

Not excessively stretch vertical space between elements in gb4e (glossing verse text; issue w/ enumitem)

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