I think the render should probably be able to handle the new control settings be added in: openwebwork/webwork2#1174 :
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{parseAlternatives}
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{convertFullWidthCharacters}
The settings and the changes to PG are intended to support the use of some Unicode characters are equivalents for "standard" ones, which will be optionally handled by PG in PG 2.16 (PR to develop at present).
See: