(04-10-2020, 05:15 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you saying that you think there are no nouns in the Voynich?
Of course, no.
(04-10-2020, 05:15 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you saying that you think there are no names in the Voynich?
Not exactly, but rather there may be none of those where we most expect to find them. For example, there may be no plant names in the Herbal folios, no Zodiac sign names in the cosmo diagrams, etc.
(04-10-2020, 05:30 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not exactly, but rather there may be none of those where we most expect to find them. For example, there may be no plant names in the Herbal folios, no Zodiac sign names in the cosmo diagrams, etc.
That is a bold theory. Are you implying a referencing/lookup/index system? This seems to be one approach to viewing labels as numbers used as references. Or are you saying the text on a page does not necessarily correspond to that page, but rather a different page in the manuscript? Such that the text and drawings are jumbled up.
I still have to view labels as exactly what one would expect i.e names and then I am left to explain why things are the way that they are, which leaves me with nulls and homophonic sequences, as in a verbose cipher, as my best guess.
There are also quite a few other reasons I suspect null words that I have discussed elsewhere.
(04-10-2020, 06:44 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you implying a referencing/lookup/index system? This seems to be one approach to viewing labels as numbers used as references. Or are you saying the text on a page does not necessarily correspond to that page, but rather a different page in the manuscript? Such that the text and drawings are jumbled up.
No, none of those has to be implied. Just, when you describe a certain plant, you don't name it. Suppose 2v is water lily, and the text is about water lily, but there is no word "water lily" in the folio.
Same for stars. Suppose 68r1 is the star map, but there are no star names (the reader has to know them without labeling). Instead, the labels contain information about (let's say, just for the sake of a possible example) what good or evil spirits are associated with respective stars.
(04-10-2020, 07:45 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No, none of those has to be implied. Just, when you describe a certain plant, you don't name it. Suppose 2v is water lily, and the text is about water lily, but there is no word "water lily" in the folio.
Same for stars. Suppose 68r1 is the star map, but there are no star names (the reader has to know them without labeling). Instead, the labels contain information about (let's say, just for the sake of a possible example) what good or evil spirits are associated with respective stars.
Isn't it very unusual not to name things in manuscripts of that period? Without a name doesn't it make it rather difficult to know which plant/star etc. is being referred to?
When you say good and evil spirits it seems to me that you are swapping one name for another, but I thought you were suggesting that labels are adjectives. If you have names like good and evil spirits instead that it seems to me that you have the same problems to resolve.
I don't think opting for the radical solution of having no names resolves the problem with labels.
I think labels or labelese, as it is sometimes termed, is very important as I view it as Voynichese in its simplest form without the complexities of sentences. The only negative of working with labels is that it reduces the amount of text available to study.
(04-10-2020, 08:01 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Isn't it very unusual not to name things in manuscripts of that period?
Perhaps it is, but, once again, the Voynich manuscript is something already very unusual.
(04-10-2020, 08:01 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Without a name doesn't it make it rather difficult to know which plant/star etc. is being referred to?
No, it does not, provided there is a mnemonic which resolves to the name. Mnemonic systems is something quite well-used in the Renaissance.
Quote:When you say good and evil spirits it seems to me that you are swapping one name for another
Not swapping, but building an association of one to another. Developing this further, imagine that the point is that an f68r1/r2 label ceases (or, rather, might cease) to be a simple notion (be that noun or adjective, does not matter), and appears rather an "operator + notion" construct, like e.g. otol = o
over tol. For example otol might be "with tol" or "related to tol", while qotol might be "without tol". There's a thread in the forum where I develop this in more detail, can't remember its name offhand. This would explain the high proportion of o-starting labels.
(04-10-2020, 08:46 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not swapping, but building an association of one to another. Developing this further, imagine that the point is that an f68r1/r2 label ceases (or, rather, might cease) to be a simple notion (be that noun or adjective, does not matter), and appears rather an "operator + notion" construct, like e.g. otol = o over tol. For example otol might be "with tol" or "related to tol", while qotol might be "without tol". There's a thread in the forum where I develop this in more detail, can't remember its name offhand. This would explain the high proportion of o-starting labels.
I guess you know that these labels can be found against a variety of different drawings. So a plant may have the same label as a star, naked woman, a pipe etc. So in that instance if a label and an operator is an evil spirit you would need to explain why that label applies to all those different drawings. Then if otor means o+tor then one needs, I think, to explain the degree of similarity in spelling of tol, kol, tor and how they can have distinct meanings with such similar spellings.
The proximity on a page of labels spelled almost identically I find very suspicious.
(04-10-2020, 10:14 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So in that instance if a label and an operator is an evil spirit
No, you seem to not grab the idea.
A label and an operator is not an evil spirit.
Instead, an operator over an evil spirit is a label.
Suppose, the evil spirit is "vodka". And the operator is "o". The label would be "ovodka". If the operator means "related to", the label reads "related to vodka". It is to be understood that the object thus labeled, be that star, naked woman or a pipe (which btw I suppose to be blood vessels and various guts), is related to vodka. And it's absolutely of no surprise that a group of different and even inhomogenous objects may be related to the same object.
(04-10-2020, 10:14 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Then if otor means o+tor then one needs, I think, to explain the degree of similarity in spelling of tol, kol, tor and how they can have distinct meanings with such similar spellings.
Yes, that's the important question, and my best guess so far has been a nomenclator solution.
(04-10-2020, 10:24 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, that's the important question, and my best guess so far has been a nomenclator solution.
Well obviously we have different approaches. More broadly there are other reasons that I suspect there are null words such as the fact that circular text so often fits neatly all the way round, which is very hard to do in practice unless one uses some kind of filler and given that such text has repeated words or similarly spelled words that further makes sense to me.
Obviously there are problematic issues that Torsten Timm and others have explored. Though I don't go as far as to suggest all text is meaningless, just some in my opinion.
Mark means that after stripping the prefix "o" the remainders are spelled unusually similarly. tol, kol, tor - all those look similar to each other. I explained that this might be the consequence of a nomenclator solution. When you have a list of homogenous notions and invent vords to represent them, you possibly would construct them, in succession, quite similar to each other. E.g. "abc", "abd", "abe" etc.