Comment #13 on issue 3160 by [email protected]: chord names pushed into the staff
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=3160
Assuming that we want to preserve space between the vertical axis groups, the issue is that Align_interface::get_minimum_translations is returning no translation between the full lyrics and the empty lyrics. This causes the minimum distance of the spring representing a system to be too short. This translation is, however, read into the spacing spec for the chord names (and the phantom lyrics, although we can't see it because its empty), forcing them down on the next staff.
The solution will likely be in getting get_minimum_translations to report better minimum translations, but it'll take me time to figure that out...
