Drawing syllable diagrammes in LaTeX

Question

I'd like to know how to best draw syllable structure diagrammes like the following image in LaTex.

I have tried using tikz-qtree, but found that it doesn't support multiple roots, and I have tried to use tkz-graph, but found that it doesn't support non-ASCII vertex labels (e.g. $\sigma$ doesn't work). Neither support the C--V lines that we see in the image above.

Using plain tikz produces something ok:

\begin{tikzpicture}
\tikzset{level 1+/.style={sibling distance=2\baselineskip}}
\node (s1) at (2,0) {$\sigma$} ;
\node (s2) at (5,0) {$\sigma$} ;
\node (s3) at (8,0) {$\sigma$} ;
\node (c1) at (1,-1) {C} ;
\node (v1) at (3,-1) {V} ;
\node (c2) at (4,-1) {C} ;
\node (v2) at (5,-1) {V} ;
\node (c3) at (6,-1) {C} ;
\node (c4) at (7,-1) {C} ;
\node (v3) at (8,-1) {V} ;
\node (c5) at (9,-1) {C} ;
\node (l1) at (1,-2) {ɬ} ;
\node (l2) at (3,-2) {ə} ;
\node (l3) at (4,-2) {w} ;
\node (l4) at (5,-2) {a} ;
\node (l5) at (6,-2) {w} ;
\node (l6) at (7,-2) {n} ;
\node (l7) at (8,-2) {ə} ;
\node (l8) at (9,-2) {n} ;
\draw (c1) -- (s1) ;
\draw (v1) -- (s1) ;
\draw (c2) -- (s2) ;
\draw (v2) -- (s2) ;
\draw (c3) -- (s2) ;
\draw (c4) -- (s3) ;
\draw (v3) -- (s3) ;
\draw (c5) -- (s3) ;

\draw (c1) -- (l1) ;
\draw[dotted] (v1) -- (l2) ;
\draw (c2) -- (l3) ;
\draw (v2) -- (l4) ;
\draw (c3) -- (l5) ;
\draw (c4) -- (l6) ;
\draw (v3) -- (l7) ;
\draw (c5) -- (l8) ;


\draw (c1) -- (v1) -- (c2) -- (v2) -- (c3) -- (c4) -- (v3) -- (c5) ;

\end{tikzpicture}

Which produces:

But there are one remaining issues:

It would be good to have the space between the CV and CVC to be the same.

Any suggestions?

Use the node names to draw the lines, e.g. \draw (s1) -- (c1); — Torbjørn T., Jun 28 '18 at 13:57
See e.g. Autosegmental Representation in tikz-qtree. btw I've never seen the horizontal lines between elements. Is there a published source for this sort of representation? — Alan Munn, Jun 28 '18 at 14:17
By the way, as you've specified the coordinates of every node explicitly, changing the spacing is just a matter of changing the coordinates. Move c1 and l1 to x=2 (they are currently at x=1), and s1 to x=2.5 (currently at x=2). — Torbjørn T., Jun 28 '18 at 14:23

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 28 '18 at 14:17

I feel there are probably more elegant ways of doing this, but you can do it with tikz-qtree. Below I used three \Trees inside the same tikzpicture, with the two last ones shifted right. The horizontal connections between the Cs and Vs are made manually, by making them named nodes and using \draw.

I did not add the proper symbols in the leaves, as I don't know what is required to make them work. And looking at the screenshot, the amount of shifting could be fine tuned a bit.

\documentclass[border=5mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz-qtree}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
  sibling distance=1em
]
\Tree[.$\sigma$ [.\node(c1){C}; [.n ] ] [.\node(v1) {V}; [.e ] ] ]

\begin{scope}[xshift=2cm]
\Tree[.$\sigma$ [.\node(c2){C}; [.n ] ] [.\node(v2) {V}; \edge[dashed]; [.e ] ] [.\node(c3){C}; [.e ] ] ]
\end{scope}
\begin{scope}[xshift=4.5cm]
\Tree[.$\sigma$ [.\node(c4){C}; [.n ] ] [.\node(v3) {V}; [.e ] ] [.\node(c5){C}; [.e ] ] ]
\end{scope}

\draw (c1) -- (v1) -- (c2) -- (v2) -- (c3) -- (c4) -- (v3) -- (c5);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Drawing syllable diagrammes in LaTeX

1 Answers1