The original questioner said he was doing a critical edition. If he's
using EDMAC or LEDMAC then perhaps I can note that EDMAC does some work to
avoid setting footnote text in "restricted horizontal mode". Restricted
horizontal mode does a number of annoying things to text, including (I
think) things affecting hyphenation; Plain TeX goes to some lengths to set
footnotes in unrestricted mode. But LaTeX doesn't bother with these
niceties. However, EDMAC does.
Best,
Dominik
The attached fnfix.sty file fixes LaTeX footnotes so that they're set in
unrestricted horizontal mode.
% LaTeX style to redefine the \footnote command such that it allows the
% altering of catcodes.
% From: Joerg-Martin Schwarz <@MVS.GSI.DE:UPH508@DDOHRZ11.BITNET>
% August 1992
%
\long\def\@footnotetext{\insert\footins\bgroup\reset@font\footnotesize
%% erased '#1' here^
\interlinepenalty\interfootnotelinepenalty
\splittopskip\footnotesep
\splitmaxdepth \dp\strutbox \floatingpenalty \@MM
\hsize\columnwidth \@parboxrestore
\edef\@currentlabel{\csname p@footnote\endcsname\@thefnmark}\@makefntext
\bgroup\rule{\z@}{\footnotesep}\ignorespaces
%%%% #1\strut\egroup\egroup} replaced by:
\futurelet\next\fo@t}
\def\@foot{% Will be moved after the argument #1 by an \aftergroup!
\strut\egroup\egroup}%% (See below '<='
%The mechanism of parsing the following argument has been
%copied from plain.tex
%\def\vfootnote#1{\insert\footins\bgroup
% \interlinepenalty\interfootnotelinepenalty
% \splittopskip\ht\strutbox % top baseline for broken footnotes
% \splitmaxdepth\dp\strutbox \floatingpenalty\@MM
% \leftskip\z@skip \rightskip\z@skip \spaceskip\z@skip \xspaceskip\z@skip
% \textindent{#1}\footstrut\futurelet\next\fo@t}
%%%%%%% It is these commands^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
%%%%%%% that take care of parsing the following argument
%% check if argument is x or {xxxxxxxx}:
\def\fo@t{\ifcat\bgroup\noexpand\next \let\next\f@@t
\else\let\next\f@t\fi \next}
\def\f@@t{\bgroup\aftergroup\@foot\let\next}%% <==
\def\f@t#1{#1\@foot}
%\def\@foot{\strut\egroup}
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