[Tex/LaTex] aboveglftskip in expex linguistic glosses

examplesexpexlinguisticsspacing

First of all I am not an expert in using LaTeX, I just started a few months back.

I am using MiKTeX with the expex package for glossed linguistic examples.
If we take a look at a glossed example, we see a space above the fourth line which is the free translation (\glft):

enter image description here

To get rid of the vertical spacing above the glft-line, the expex documentation advisies you to use the command "aboveglftskip=0pt" in the \begingl column.
I used this command in my document, but it still gives me a gloss with spacing before \glft.
I am using a weird template with a bunch of stuff in it, but it's likely to the beamer class.
But even if I strip my document of everything, and do a normal beamer or article class, it doesn't work:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{expex}

\begin{document}

\ex
\begingl[everyglpreamble=\it, belowglpreambleskip=0pt, aboveglftskip=0pt]
\gla batis-ne //
\glb feet-\sc{3.sg.poss}//
\glft`his/her feet'//
\endgl
\xe

\clearpage

\end{document}

According to the documentation, one can also use the command in the \glft line which I tried. It didn't work as well… Am I doing something wrong? I want to get rid of the vertical spacing above the glft line! I am also using the expex package in a paper I am writing and it's working fine there.

Best Answer

To my eye, aboveglftskip=0pt doesn't get rid of all of the extra vertical space between the glosses and translation, even with the latest version of expex (2014/03/10 v5.0b); see below. To take care of this, I usually use a negative value of aboveglftskip (and belowglpreambleskip, which has the same problem), but this seems to me to be just a hack.

enter image description here

Produced by this code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{expex}

\begin{document}

\ex
\begingl[everygla=]
\glpreamble XXXXXXXX (default) //
\gla XXXXXXXX //
\glb XXXXXXXX //
\glft XXXXXXXX (default)//
\endgl
\xe

\ex
\begingl[everygla=, belowglpreambleskip=0pt, aboveglftskip=0pt]
\glpreamble XXXXXXXX (0pt) //
\gla XXXXXXXX //
\glb XXXXXXXX //
\glft XXXXXXXX (0pt) //
\endgl
\xe

\ex
\begingl[everygla=, belowglpreambleskip=-0.5ex, aboveglftskip=-0.5ex]
\glpreamble XXXXXXXX (-0.5ex) //
\gla XXXXXXXX //
\glb XXXXXXXX //
\glft XXXXXXXX (-0.5ex) //
\endgl
\xe 

\clearpage

\end{document}
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