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From: marcel@cs.caltech.edu (Marcel van der Goot)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Glossed examples in TeX
Keywords: vertical alignment, separating words, glossing
Message-ID: <1990Nov7.030449.7145@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 90 03:04:49 GMT
References: <43647@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
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In <43647@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Robert Malouf
(malouf@acsu.buffalo.edu) asks

> Does anyone know of a macro for formatting glossed examples in TeX?

In <46341@bsu-ucs.uucp> Paul Neubauer (neubauer@bsu-ucs.uucp)
commiserates

> Well, now, this is a question that I have been worrying about since
> I started to get interested in TeX (and LaTeX).

And in <373@txsil.lonestar.org> Steve McConnel (steve@txsil.lonestar.org)
answers

> We've been working on TeX macros for typesetting interlinear text for
> a couple of years, and are almost ready to publish a book ...

It was not entirely clear to me what exactly the macros are supposed
to do (really, if you want people who know about TeX but not about your
field, to answer questions, then the least you can do is clearly describe
what the problem is), but as I understand it you want to typeset two
sentences atop each other, where the individual words are vertically
aligned. (If that's wrong, you can hit 'n' now ...) I assume that the
big problem is not how to number your examples.

I have a macro \gloss that, when used as follows
	\gloss This is an example
	       Dit is een voorbeeld
will create an hbox with contents
	This is an  example
	Dit  is een voorbeeld
You can then do whatever you want with this hbox.

Your examples could be done as
	\gloss Mosimane o-   bed-  its- w-    e     ke monna.
	       boy     subj- beat- prv- pass- mood- by man.
and
	\gloss Mosimane o-bed-its-w-e ke monna.
	       boy      subj-beat-prv-pass-mood by man.
This seems a bit more readable than the other macros that were suggested.

The file gloss.tex is available via anonymous ftp from
csvax.cs.caltech.edu [131.215.131.131] in directory pub/tex.
The macros were written for TeX, but I don't see compelling reasons
why they couldn't be used in combination with LaTeX.

				    Marcel van der Goot
				    marcel@vlsi.cs.caltech.edu