Thanks to you both for your replies. I was trying to keep it simple, but I should've added more information, I think. Here goes:

The data come from a LaTeX file, which uses a package called "Expex" which formats interlinear analyses of a non-English language.

The following two examples show how the data is laid out. The first line "\gla" is the object language, the second line "\glb" is the underlying form, the third line "\glc" is the morpheme gloss, the fourth line "\glc" is the word translation (the package doesn't allow "\gld" for whatever reason), and the last line "\glft" is the sentence translation. As you see, the number of words varies from example to example, just as natural language sentences may be shorter, or longer.

Each "word" is enclosed in curly brackets in the first two lines (though other sets of curly brackets may be nested within words), but only separated by spaces in the second two lines. The curly brackets are necessary to delimit words in the first two lines since some latex commands (e.g. "\ts" below) require blank spaces after them.

Code:

\gla {itl\'i\textglotstop } {k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} {t\textschwa cx\textsuperscript{w}\'u\texthalflength\texthalflength y.}// 
\glb {itl\'i\textglotstop } {k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} {tc+\ts x\textsuperscript{w}\'uy}//
\glc \textsc{dem} \textsc{rep} \textsc{loc}+go //
\glc from.there they.say came.over.this.way //
\glft `They said he was coming along.' //

\gla {u\textbeltl } {cut} {k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} {al\'a\textglotstop } {lut} {i\textglotstop } {q\'aqx\textsuperscript{w}\textschwa lx} {ka\textglotstop} {cx\textsuperscript{w}uys} {i\textglotstop } {l} {siw\textbeltl k\textsuperscript{w}.} //
\glb {u\textbeltl } {cut} {k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} {al\'a\textglotstop } {lut} {i\textglotstop } {q\'a(\tb)\ts qx\textsuperscript{w}lx} {ki\textglotstop} {c\textendash \ts x\textsuperscript{w}uy\textendash s} {i\textglotstop } {l} {siw\textbeltl k\textsuperscript{w}} //
\glc \textsc{conj} say \textsc{rep} \textsc{dem} \textsc{neg} \textsc{det} fish \textsc{comp.obl} \textsc{cust}\textendash go\textendash \textsc{3sg.poss} \textsc{det} \textsc{loc} water //
\glc and he.said they.say here no the fish where.that they.come the through water //
\glft `Coyote said there will be no fish going through the water here.' //

The \glft line may be ignored, but what I'd like exactly is the following, where "&" denotes a column separator in LaTeX and "\\" indicates a newline. Each line has 4 "words", i.e. the nth word in each of the first four lines in the examples above.

Code:

{itl\'i\textglotstop } & {itl\'i\textglotstop } & \textsc{dem} & from.there \\
{k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} & {k\textsuperscript{w}uk\textsuperscript{w}} &  \textsc{rep} & they.say \\

Etcetera. Once the first example is done, the second example would be appended to the above list. Eventually each line will be sorted alphabetically by the first "column". It'd also be nice to be able to choose which input lines to include in the output, though I'd greatly appreciate any more assistance you could give in obtaining the basic result just outlined. Thanks again.