Not excessively stretch vertical space between elements in gb4e (glossing verse text; issue w/ enumitem)

Question

Part of my data is verse text which I'd prefer to gloss line by line. I toyed with this setup (MWE):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{gb4e}

\begin{document}

\begin{exe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \\
        of endowments and of tithe even \\
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \\
        would\_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \\
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}

\end{document}

This produces a line-by-line gloss as desired, however, the space between the \gll's and before \trans may stretch to stupid lengths—like about 10 mm. Is there a convenient way to keep vertical space between the elements reasonable, say, fix it at .5\baselineskip, without plastering examples with \vspace{-somevalue} manually? My current document setup already has

\renewcommand{\eachwordtwo}{\rule[-.5\baselineskip]{0pt}{0pt}}

to increase the space between glosses comprising multiple lines of running text.

---

EDIT

The most relevant actual settings as requested by @gernot. I tracked my problem down to the enumitem package preventing the manipulation of whitespace in the exe environment:

\documentclass{memoir}

\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{gb4e}

\begin{document}
\OnehalfSpacing

\begin{exe}
\topsep=0pt
\partopsep=0pt
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \\
        of endowments and of tithe even \\
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \\
        would\_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \\
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}

\end{document}

With enumitem:

Without enumitem:

Answer 1

If you want to have control over the line breaks by using several \glls in a row, define an environment compactexe as follows (to be put into the preamble) and use it instead of the exe environment.

\makeatletter
\newenvironment{compactexe}{%
  \begin{exe}%
    \topsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    \partopsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    % Otherwise, if package enumitem is used:
    \expandafter\def\expandafter\@listi\expandafter{%
      \@listi
      \topsep=0pt
    }%
}{%
  \end{exe}%
}
\makeatother

If you don't care for the line breaks, use just a single \gll followed by the complete first line, \\, the complete second line, and another \\. The package will introduce line breaks as needed.

In the example below, both versions are illustrated.

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{gb4e}
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{compactexe}{%
  \begin{exe}%
    \topsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    \partopsep=0pt% if package enumitem is not used
    % Otherwise, if package enumitem is used:
    \expandafter\def\expandafter\@listi\expandafter{%
      \@listi
      \topsep=0pt
    }%
}{%
  \end{exe}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

\begin{compactexe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. \\
        of endowments and of tithe even \\
    \gll wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar. \\
        would\_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \\
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{compactexe}

\begin{exe}
\ex \gll der wídem vnd der zehent gar. wærn \textbf{baidev} \textbf{warn} bar.\\
        of endowments and of tithe even 
        would\_be.PL both-NOM.PL.N.ST child[NOM.PL.NEUT] bereft \\
    \trans `the children would be bereft of endowments and thithes'
\end{exe}

\end{document}