Oversized parentheses around tabular

Question

I'm having the following problem. I'm using a tabular environment to create a phrase structure rule (linguistics stuff, don't care about it) and I need parentheses for those parts in the rule which are optional. This is a demo code of what I'm using:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\symb}[2]{%
\begin{tabular}[t]{c}
\normalsize{#1}\\
\footnotesize{#2}
\end{tabular}}
% Optional rule support
\newcommand{\opt}[1]{\ensuremath{\left(#1\right)}}
% Macros
\newcommand{\ra}{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}
\newcommand{\ua}{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}
\newcommand{\da}{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}
\newcommand{\blank}{\ensuremath{\quad}}

\begin{document}
    \symb{IP}{}\blank
    \symb{\ra}{}\blank
    \opt{
        \begin{tabular}[t]{c}
            \normalsize{TopicP}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = \da}}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = (\ua TopicPath)}}
        \end{tabular}
    }\blank
    \opt{\symb{IP}{\ua = \da}}
\end{document}

I know the code isn't the most elegant thing you'll ever see. It's because I've had to modify a somewhat well-known macro used for LFG phrase structure rules... which sadly doesn't support more than one annotation. Thus, I'm using the tabular in order to have more than one annotation under the phrasal category (NP, IP, whatever).

Thanks!

Answer 1

Delete the optional [t] positioning argument from the tabulars; to keep the alignment of IP -> with the first line of the you can use another three row tabular, having \symb{IP}{}\blank\symb{\ra}{}\blank in the first row and two other empty rows:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\symb}[2]{%
\begin{tabular}{c}
\normalsize #1\\
\footnotesize #2
\end{tabular}}
% Optional rule support
\newcommand{\opt}[1]{\ensuremath{\left(#1\right)}}
% Macros
\newcommand{\ra}{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}
\newcommand{\ua}{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}
\newcommand{\da}{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}
\newcommand{\blank}{\quad}

\begin{document}
    \begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}
    \symb{IP}{}\blank
    \symb{\ra}{}\blank \\ \\
    \end{tabular}%
    \opt{
        \begin{tabular}{c}
            \normalsize{TopicP} \\
            \footnotesize \scshape (\ua topic) = \da\\
            \footnotesize \scshape (\ua topic) = (\ua TopicPath)
        \end{tabular}
    }\blank
    \opt{\symb{IP}{\ua = \da}}

\end{document}

I also changed the obsolete \sc to \scshape and suppressed some superfluous braces (\fontnotesize, \normalsize and \schape don't take arguments). Also, as egreg mentions in his comment, since \quad is not a math mode command, \newcommand{\blank}{\quad} is a more correct definition.

Answer 2

Remove the position specifier [t] in \begin{tabular}{c} everywhere:

\documentclass{article}

\newcommand{\symb}[2]{%
\begin{tabular}{c}
\normalsize{#1}\\
\footnotesize{#2}
\end{tabular}}
% Optional rule support
\newcommand{\opt}[1]{\ensuremath{\left(#1\right)}}
% Macros
\newcommand{\ra}{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}
\newcommand{\ua}{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}
\newcommand{\da}{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}
\newcommand{\blank}{\ensuremath{\quad}}

\begin{document}
    \symb{IP}{}\blank
    \symb{\ra}{}\blank
    \opt{
        \begin{tabular}{c}
            \normalsize{TopicP}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = \da}}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = (\ua TopicPath)}}
        \end{tabular}
    }\blank
    \opt{\symb{IP}{\ua = \da}}
\end{document}

The specifier [t] will align the tabular at the top, [c] at the center and [b] at the bottom as noted by cyberSingularity.

Answer 3

If you want top aligned tables with delimiters you can use delarray

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{delarray}

\newcommand{\symbx}[4]{%
\begin{tabular}[t]#1{c}#2
\normalsize{#3}\\
\footnotesize{#4}
\end{tabular}}
\newcommand\symb{\symbx{}{}}
\newcommand\bsymb{\symbx()}
% Optional rule support
\newcommand{\opt}[1]{\ensuremath{\left(#1\right)}}
% Macros
\newcommand{\ra}{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}
\newcommand{\ua}{\ensuremath{\uparrow}}
\newcommand{\da}{\ensuremath{\downarrow}}
\newcommand{\blank}{\ensuremath{\quad}}

\begin{document}
    \symb{IP}{}\blank
    \symb{\ra}{}\blank
        \begin{tabular}[t]({c})
            \normalsize{TopicP}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = \da}}\\
            \footnotesize{{\sc (\ua topic) = (\ua TopicPath)}}
        \end{tabular}
    \blank
    \bsymb{IP}{\ua = \da}
\end{document}