# Subscript like math but without the minus sign

There are several questions regarding subscripts on Stack Exchange, but I did not find an answer to my specific problem.

I want to write something about P_1 ... P_n and then about R_en-1 ... R_en-q.

1-q is a range of numbers that are specific for English (en is a shorthand for English). So "1" and "q" are supposed to look like the "1" and "n" that are used in P_1 and P_n. The "-" in "en-1" should not be a minus sign.

I tried the following (with textit and without):

UG = P$_1$ $\wedge$ P$_2$ $\wedge$ \ldots{} $\wedge$ P$_n$ $\wedge$
R$_{\textit{en-1}}$ $\vee$ \ldots{} $\vee$ R$_{\textit{en-q}}$

But I get either a minus sign and too much space around the "-" or a different font for the numbers.

How is this done properly?

One comment pointed me to the question about dashes and this helped. I put the "-" in an \mbox.

UG = P$_1$ $\wedge$ P$_2$ $\wedge$ \ldots{} $\wedge$ P$_n$ $\wedge$
(R$_{en\mbox{-}1}$ $\vee$ \ldots{} $\vee$ R$_{en\mbox{-}q}$

But it is not perfect, the dash seems to be too high:

Is there a way to fix that?

• See also: stackoverflow.com/questions/436823/… – Ben Greenman Dec 21 '15 at 8:54
• Out of interest, can you provide an example of this notation in a published work of mathematics? It appears somewhat unusual to me, partially because of the ambiguity that requires you to ask the question in the first place. "Normally" I'd expect to see either $R_{en,q}$ or $R_{{en}_q}$ or similar. – Will Robertson Dec 21 '15 at 8:59
• This is not mathematics, it is linguistics. Linguists do funny things ... =;-) – Stefan Müller Dec 21 '15 at 9:01
• And UG = Universal Grammar? – TRiG Dec 21 '15 at 16:07
• @StefanMüller And En=English, De=Deutsch? – wythagoras Dec 21 '15 at 19:57

I would do something like this (use \mathit if the "en" should be italic too)

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand\mathdash{\text{\normalfont -}}
\begin{document}

$\mathrm{UG} = \mathrm{P}_1 \wedge \mathrm{P}_2 \wedge \ldots{} \wedge \mathrm{P}_n \wedge \mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{en}\mathdash1}\vee \ldots{} \vee \mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{en}\mathdash q}$

\end{document}

You may appreciate a different way for typing in your code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{xparse}

\NewDocumentCommand{\lingf}{sm}{% linguistic formula
\IfBooleanT{#1}{$}% \begingroup \mathgroup0 #2% \endgroup \IfBooleanT{#1}{$}%
}
\NewDocumentCommand{\ls}{om}{% linguistic subscript
_{\text{$\IfValueT{#1}{\textit{#1-}}#2$}}%
}

\begin{document}

% \lingf* makes an inline formula
\lingf*{
UG = P\ls{1} \wedge P\ls{2} \wedge \dots \wedge P\ls{n} \wedge
R\ls[en]{1}\vee \dots \vee R\ls[en]{q}
}

% \lingf can be used inside math mode
\begin{align*}
\lingf{UG} ={}& \lingf{P\ls{1} \wedge P\ls{2} \wedge \dots \wedge P\ls{n} \wedge{}}\\
& \lingf{R\ls[en]{1}\vee \dots \vee R\ls[en]{q}}
\end{align*}

\end{document}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
%\usepackage{unicode-math}%  if using xelatex/lualatex
\begin{document}
$\mathrm{UG} = \mathrm{P}_1 \wedge \mathrm{P}_2 \wedge \ldots \wedge \mathrm{P}_n \wedge \mathrm{R}_{en\text{-}1} \vee \ldots \vee \mathrm{R}_{en\text{-}q}$
\end{document}

in this special case you can also use en\text-1 and en\text-q