Justifying left-to-right text in ExPex free translation with default right-to-left language

Question

This question is a follow up to this question, which asked about justifying all the glosses. The solution worked for justifying \gla, \glb, and \glc but not for \glft. The problem is clearly because the default language is Hebrew \setdefaultlanguage{hebrew}, but I don't know how to get around it.

MWE:

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{ragged2e}

\usepackage{expex}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{hebrew}
\setotherlanguage{english}
\newfontfamily\hebrewfont[Script=Hebrew]{FrankRuehl}
\newfontfamily\englishfont{Corbel}

\begin{document}

\lingset{
    everygla=\Large,
    everyglb=\footnotesize\englishfont,
    everyglc=\footnotesize\englishfont,
    everyglft=\small,
    glftpos=right,
    glwordalign=center,
    glhangindent=0em,
}

\definelingstyle{justified}{
    glrightskip=0pt,glspace=0.5em plus 3em minus 0.15em,
    everyglft=\justifying\noindent
}

\exdisplay[lingstyle=justified]

\begingl
  \gla אאאא בבגגגגב גגגג דדדדדדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאאאאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדדדדדד אאאאאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבגגגגבב גגגג דדדדדד //

  \glb aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd //

  \glc aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd  //

\glft
    \textenglish{Some English text so that you can see whether the hyphenation and justification provided by \LaTeX{} are actually working in this free translation. Some English text so that you can see whether the hyphenation and justification provided by \LaTeX{} are actually working in this free translation.} //
\endgl

\xe

\end{document}

OUTPUT:

As you can see, the Hebrew gloss is nicely justified, but the English free translation is ragged left, even though in a fully English environment it comes out fully justified.

Answer 1

I have tried a lot of things to get the justification to work in the \glft when the example is in a RTL language (either through the document's default language or a \begin{hebrew}...\end{hebrew} environment that surrounds the example), but I haven't been successful. I also tried putting it in a side panel following the code in section 12.3 of the expex manual, but that didn't help either.

What I would suggest would be to use the paracol package rather than expex itself to split your translation into a second column. This way your translation column won't be constrained by expex at all.

In the example below, I created interlinear and translation environments that subsume commands from paracol, expex, and general formatting so that your code can be simpler. I don't have FrankRuehl so I used Ezra SIL for the Hebrew font instead.

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{english}
\setotherlanguage{hebrew}
\newfontfamily\hebrewfont[Script=Hebrew]{Ezra SIL}
\newfontfamily\englishfont{Corbel}

\usepackage{microtype} % for better automatic spacing in the narrow justified column

\usepackage{expex}

\lingset{
    everygla=\Large,
    everyglb=\footnotesize\englishfont,
    everyglc=\footnotesize\englishfont,
    glwordalign=center,
    glhangindent=0em,
    glrightskip=0pt,
    glspace=0.5em plus 3em minus 0.15em,
}

\usepackage{paracol}

\newenvironment{interlinear}%
    {\begin{leftcolumn*}\begin{hebrew}\exdisplay\begingl}%
    {\endgl\xe\end{hebrew}\end{leftcolumn*}}
\newenvironment{translation}%
    {\begin{rightcolumn}\small\noindent\ignorespaces}%
    {\end{rightcolumn}}

\begin{document}

%   \columnratio{0.6} % 0.6 is the default value for expex's ssratio, so if you want that ratio, uncomment this and adjust as needed
%   \setlength{\columnsep}{3em} % this is the default value for expex's sssep, so if you want that amount of column separation, uncomment this and adjust as needed
\begin{paracol}{2}

\begin{interlinear}
  \gla אאאא בבגגגגב גגגג דדדדדדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאאאאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבבב גגגג דדדדדדדד אאאאאאא בבבב גגגג דדדד אאאא בבגגגגבב גגגג דדדדדד //

  \glb aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd //

  \glc aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd aaaa bbbb gggg dddd  //
\end{interlinear}

\begin{translation}
    Some English text so that you can see whether the hyphenation and justification provided by \LaTeX{} are actually working in this free translation. Some English text so that you can see whether the hyphenation and justification provided by \LaTeX{} are actually working in this free translation.
\end{translation}

\end{paracol}

\end{document}