The Voynich Ninja

(28-09-2018, 11:49 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello Zhe (I hope that's right),

I am assuming that Cantonese and Mandarin derive from a common ancestor, but even this I could not find, let alone when this was.
I also heard that the tones were introduced at some point in the past, and I have no information how long ago that was.

Hi René,

Yes, it’s right. I’m glad to be called in that way.

I’m not a profession at historical Chinese, but I could find some references on Wikipedia. Maybe these are not more than what you have already known, but I think it might be a good idea to copy and paste them here for other readers who came here by searching the keywords.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. says that “branches of the Chinese family such as Mandarin (including Standard Chinese, based on the speech of Beijing), Yue (including Cantonese) and Wu (including Shanghainese) can be largely treated as divergent developments from it”, where “it” refers to The Qieyun system (abbr. QYS, 601 AD).

The Wikipedia page also says that “most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period”, so I guess the QYS actually represents a phonology much more complex than any actual languages by then, because it tries to record different pronunciations in each Chinese variants, similar to what modern Vietnamese orthography does. What I can say is, in the era of QYS, Northern and Southern Chinese probably have already been quite different.

In Wikipedia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it says “large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC”. This might be a key point where Mandarin and Cantonese began to diverge.

In Wikipedia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it says “most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as a language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, which developed into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese”, so yes, the tones were introduced somewhere in the past, but it was much earlier than VMS.

In Wikipedia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it says “the four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed by Shen Yue around 500 AD”, so at least in 6th century, Mandarin Chinese have already had tones.

The 4-tone system’s being available in QYS suggests that Cantonese by then probably had tones as well, and is probably similar to what Mandarin had. In my opinion, this suggests a possibility that tones have been introduced before the large-scale migration in 214 BC.

(28-09-2018, 11:49 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am almost fluent in Thai, and this language has had an alphabet since the 15th Century.
The syllable structure is not quite as consistent as Chinese.

It’s nice to know that you are fluent in Thai.

May I ask what do you exactly mean by “syllable structure is not quite as consistent as Chinese”? What does “consistent” here mean? Would you give some examples?

(01-10-2018, 07:57 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems to me that Chinese works rather well in an aspect I am particularly interested in: reduplication.
In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I find 27 instances of exact reduplication:
 guāiguāi 
 tiāntiān 
 děngděng 
 cuìcuì 
 tiāntiān 
 gūlū gūlū,
 bǎ bǎ 
 báibái 
 bèngbèng 
 xiǎoxiǎo 
 jǐnjǐn 
 jiànjiàn 
 tiáotiáo 
 yīngyīng 
 tōutōu 
 chángcháng 
 wāwā 
 mànmàn 
 xìxì 
 tōutōu 
 qiāoqiāo 
 shēnshēn 
 zǒuzhe zǒuzhe,
 mànmàn 
 hǎohǎo 
 dìdì 
 yuǎnyuǎn 

The frequency of exact reduplication appears perfectly compatible with what is observed in the Voynch ms.
Is this pinyin text something you can easily read and understand? If so, could you please explain the meaning of some of these occurrences of reduplication?

Hi Marco,

Some of these words could be easily read, if the syllable has few homonyms. Others require contexts to understand.

• guāiguāi 乖乖 “obediently”
  
• tiāntiān 天天 “everyday”
  
• děngděng 等等 “et cetera”
  
• cuìcuì 脆脆 “brittle”
  
• tiāntiān 天天 “everyday”
  
• gūlū gūlū 咕噜咕噜 “onomatopoeia for glottal sounds”
  
• bǎ bǎ 粑粑 “shit” (This is wrong after checking the contexts. Should be two separate phrases 一把 把我 instead of one)
  
• báibái 拜拜 “bye-bye” or 白白 “white” (confirmed to be 白白 after checking the contexts)
  
• bèngbèng 蹦蹦 “jumping”
  
• xiǎoxiǎo 小小 “little”
  
• jǐnjǐn 仅仅 “only” (this is wrong after checking the contexts. Should be another homonym 紧紧 “firmly”)
  
• jiànjiàn 渐渐 “gradually”
  
• tiáotiáo 条条 “line-by-line”
  
• yīngyīng 嘤嘤 “onomatopoeia for crying”
  
• tōutōu 偷偷 “secretly”
  
• chángcháng 常常 “often, always” (this is wrong after checking the contexts. Should be another homonym 长长 “long”)
  
• wāwā 哇哇 “onomatopoeia for crying”
  
• mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
  
• xìxì 细细 “thin, fine”
  
• tōutōu 偷偷 “secretly”
  
• qiāoqiāo 悄悄 “secretly”
  
• shēnshēn 深深 “deeply”
  
• zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”
  
• mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
  
• hǎohǎo 好好 “well”
  
• dìdì 弟弟 “younger brother”
  
• yuǎnyuǎn 远远 “from distance, distantly”
  

As you could see, most reduplication in Chinese are adjacents / adverbs (in Chinese, whether a modifier is an adjacent or an adverb depends on whether you’re modifying a noun or a verb, unless the meaning of the modifier could only be adjacent or adverb exclusively). There are also onomatopoeia reduplication, which are easy to understand. Verb reduplication and noun reduplication are very complicated, which I will not explain here.

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you gave me caused almost no difficulty reading, except some proper nouns and some old vocabularies that I do not recognize even written in Hanzi. With context, most pinyin texts are readable, though much slower.

Edit: I tried to read the pinyin text after removing tone marks. It is still readable, but even much slower. In the tonal version, I could determine a word usually within one or two following words, but in the tone-removed version, I sometimes have to read until the end of a sentence to determine what a word is in the beginning.

The list of consonants and vowels given above is the main argument for similarity between Voynich text and modern Chinese. The majority of consonants appear only at the start of syllables.
Syllables have a rigid structure, to such an extent that one can make a one-page table giving all possible patterns.


With Voynichese, there is a strong suspicion that the units of the language (or writing) are not just the symbols we see, but are combinations of symbols. The number of patters is also restricted. Trying to match Voynichese to Mandarin may not be too useful, because we need to look at languages from 600 years ago.

The point I made earlier, related to the similarity between Voynichese o- and qo- to Chinese yi 一 was mainly prompted by examples such as on this page:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There are lists of items being ordered, mainly preceded by 一个 (yi gè).
I could imagine that in recipes such frequent use of yi and a classifier word might be expected.

(01-10-2018, 11:15 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The list of consonants and vowels given above is the main argument for similarity between Voynich text and modern Chinese. The majority of consonants appear only at the start of syllables.
Syllables have a rigid structure, to such an extent that one can make a one-page table giving all possible patterns.

Hi René,

Yes, Mandarin Chinese has very limited syllables so that they can be written in one page. Wikipedia has this table You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., though I have never heard the 4 syllables (diang, lün, nia, shong) with note [table 2], the rest syllables seem all valid for me.

However, I think Voynichese has much more end-of-syllable consonants: b, d, g, l, m, n, r, s, u, while Mandarin Chinese in 14th century had only three end-of-syllable consonants: m, n, ng, and Modern Standard Chinese has only one: n.

I know that these Voynichese “consonants” may not be consonants at all. For example, they might be tone marks. That would be perfect for a Chinese theory: few end-of-syllable consonants, several tone marks. However, I think we need more solid evidences to say so, while it is totally perfect to keep it as a hypothesis.

Maybe some other languages also have majority of consonants appear only at the start of syllables, and they might be better candidates.

(01-10-2018, 11:15 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.With Voynichese, there is a strong suspicion that the units of the language (or writing) are not just the symbols we see, but are combinations of symbols.

Sorry, I don’t understand this. What do you mean by “not just the symbols we see, but are combinations of symbols”? I’m not linguist so maybe I’m missing some common knowledge here.

(01-10-2018, 11:15 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The number of patters is also restricted. Trying to match Voynichese to Mandarin may not be too useful, because we need to look at languages from 600 years ago.

Exactly. We need more resources, as much as possible, of that era. As I mentioned before, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (14th century) and Journey to the West (16th century) may be good resources. But, unfortunately, I have no idea where to find a long text resource from exactly 15th century.

(01-10-2018, 11:15 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The point I made earlier, related to the similarity between Voynichese o- and qo- to Chinese yi 一 was mainly prompted by examples such as on this page:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There are lists of items being ordered, mainly preceded by 一个 (yi gè).
I could imagine that in recipes such frequent use of yi and a classifier word might be expected.

I see your point. I agree that it would be highly possible that we could see frequent use of yi and a classifier word in some real recipes. However, to work in this direction, we probably have to answer these questions:

1. Where are two and three? They should probably be frequent as well.
2. Classifier words are quite limited. Are unique qo- words also limited?
3. Are qo- words more found in Herbal and Recipe pages, compared to cosmological and zodiac pages?

I don’t have answers to these questions, yet I don’t know how to find an answer. I hope I could be able to examine them in details.

PS: They had a mistake. The classifier word for duck should be 只, not 支. 支 is for long, thin objects like pencil and chopsticks.

Thank you for your analysis of the pinyin reduplications, Zhe!
From these examples, it seems clear that reduplication is systematically used to generate words. In this text, the most frequent case seems converting an adjective into an adverb, e.g.
mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
where màn means "slow"

At least one case seems to involve duration:
zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”

From the little I have seen of reduplication in various languages, it seems to me that there is a set of functions that appear in unrelated languages. For instance, reduplicated adjectives generate adverbs in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. too.

I am under the impression that Voynichese reduplication is often seen from an Euro-centric point of view: since reduplication is rare or absent in languages like Latin or English, people conclude that it is "non-linguistic".
Evidence like that so kindly illustrated by Zhe points out that exact reduplication occurs in non European languages with a frequency comparable with that of the VMS. Time ago, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. observed that this might also be true for Thai.
Experiments I have run on the UDHR corpus point out that 60 out of 378 languages have exact repetition rates similar or higher to the VMS - see the X axis in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Voynich samples are plotted as blue diamonds, some European languages as orange circles).

In my opinion, reduplication is the most evident hint to the underlying language of Voynichese being "unexpected". While I don't believe there is much evidence supporting the idea that Voynichese is Mandarin Chinese, I am sure that this discussion can help us understand how different from Latin and English languages can be.

I am also greatly interested in the pseudo-reduplication phenomenon mentioned by Donjch, but my preference goes to a step-by-step approach. Exact reduplication is obviously easier to define and hence to analyse than pseudo-reduplication. Also, a limited investigation I described You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. points out that at least some occurrences of pseudo-reduplication appear to be the result of the interaction of LAAFU (line as a functional unit) and exact reduplication. On the basis of this, my opinion is that there could be other basic phenomena (like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) that alter exact reduplication to produce pseudo-reduplication.

I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about Voynichese prefixes being problematic when compared with Chinese are also relevant to this subject: it could very well be that there are other cases (not at line boundary) where exact reduplication is transformed into quasi-reduplication by the alteration of one of the two words in the pair.
Is pseudo-reduplication something that happens in Chinese? I.e. is it possible that instead of the exact repetition of a word (X becoming XX) one of the two occurrences is modified in the process (for instance resulting in something like pXX, XpX, XXp)?

(02-10-2018, 12:34 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From these examples, it seems clear that reduplication is systematically used to generate words. In this text, the most frequent case seems converting an adjective into an adverb, e.g.
mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly”
where màn means "slow"

At least one case seems to involve duration:
zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”

Hi, Marco.

Your observation is quite strong! Yes, in most cases, one-syllable adjacents turn into adverbs in reduplication, except where the adjacent cannot be an adverb. Let’s review the words in the pinyin text.

• guāiguāi 乖乖 “obediently” ← 乖 “obedient”
  
• cuìcuì 脆脆 “brittle” ← 脆 “brittle” cannot be an adverb
  
• báibái 白白 “white” ← 白 “white” cannot be an adverb
  
• xiǎoxiǎo 小小 “little” ← 小 “little” cannot be an adverb. Corresponding adverb is 少. Such irregularity might be one of few legacies of ancient Chinese
  
• jǐnjǐn 紧紧 “firmly” ← 紧 “firm”
  
• chángcháng 长长 “long” ← 长 “long” cannot be an adverb. In English, long can be used as an adverb when referring to time, but probably not for distance as in this case.
  
• mànmàn 慢慢 “slowly” ← 慢 “slow”
  
• xìxì 细细 “thin, fine” ← 细 “thin, fine” In English, both thin and fine could be both adjacent and adverb. *
  
• qiāoqiāo 悄悄 “secretly” ← 悄 “quiet, silent”
  
• shēnshēn 深深 “deeply” ← 深 “deep”
  
• hǎohǎo 好好 “well” ← 好 “good”
  
• yuǎnyuǎn 远远 “from distance, distantly” ← 远 “far away”
  

* For this example, I thought it was an adverb at first, but found it to be an adjacent because it is modifying a noun. See the rule 2 below.

But keep in mind that, as I mentioned before, whether a word is adjacent or adverb is finally decided by whether they are modifying nouns or verbs.

1. You may add an adverb indicator 地 or 点 to turn one-syllable adjacents into adverbs, as in 孩子们很乖地说 “children said obediently” and 快点走 “go quickly”
2. You may add an adjacent indicator 的 to turn reduplication adverbs into adjacents, as in 长着细细的凤眼 “having thin eyes”
3. It is still very natural to say 快走 “go quickly”, using one-syllable words as adverbs.

In sum, we could usually interpret reduplication words as adverb, and their one-syllable counterpart as adjacent, when no indicator is given. However, there are still expressions where one-syllable adverbs and two-syllable adjacents exist.

Maybe the difference between adjacents and adverbs are not so clear in Chinese as in European languages.

The last example, zǒuzhe zǒuzhe 走着走着 “while walking”, is a bit different.


走着 zǒuzhe itself could express “while walking” well enough, but

…着…着 ...zhe ...zhe, when two verbs are the same, is an expression, which emphasize that the verb will be interrupted suddenly or accidentally, or something unexpected will happen, usually in a bad way. In the pinyin text, the sentence is:

下午的太阳不像中午那么热，但是走着走着，我们都开始流汗，也觉得口渴。
The sun in the afternoon is not so hot as in the noon, but while walking, we began to sweat, and to feel thirsty.

As you could see, they did not expect the sun to be that hot at first, but they finally realized that they were wrong.

This is long, so I’ll put the rest in the next post.

One thing that emerges from this is that in Chinese (as in Thai), there are some 'modifier words', typically short syllables, that have some grammatical or syntactical function. These are mostly placed after other words (in Thai also more commonly before - the word order between the two languages is radically different).

They are used far more frequently than in most Germanic and Romance languages.

(Of course, Italian has a large array of suffixes for diminutives and noun/adjective-modifiers, but these are usually not very frequent. I mean things like -ino -ello -one -accio - astro and probably many more).

(02-10-2018, 12:34 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about Voynichese prefixes being problematic when compared with Chinese are also relevant to this subject: it could very well be that there are other cases (not at line boundary) where exact reduplication is transformed into quasi-reduplication by the alteration of one of the two words in the pair.
Is pseudo-reduplication something that happens in Chinese? I.e. is it possible that instead of the exact repetition of a word (X becoming XX) one of the two occurrences is modified in the process (for instance resulting in something like pXX, XpX, XXp)?

I’m not sure whether we could compare Chinese words with reduplication or quasi-reduplication to Voynichese words, because Chinese is written hanzi-by-hanzi, or syllable-by-syllable. But, yes, words with structures like ABB, AAB or AABB do exist. Search “叠词” for examples.

Before introducing them, I’d like to first introduce a grammar in Chinese: verb reduplication.

In Modern Standard Chinese, verb reduplication is used when

1. To try to do something: 走走看看吧。“Let’s try this way and see what will happen.” ← 走 “to go, to walk” 看 “to see”
   
2. To do something for a short while: 我就跑跑步，没干别的 “I ran for a while, but I didn’t do anything else.” ← 跑 “to run”
   
3. To list some actions together: 上学就是抽抽烟、喝喝酒、打打架、泡泡妞 “To go to school, is to smoke, to drink, to fight, and to flirt with girls.” ← 抽 “to smoke, to pick, to beat with a long and thin object” 喝 “to drink” 打 “to fight, to hit, to call”, 泡 “to flirt”
   
4. Imperative. 行行好，帮帮我们吧。“Please be kind. Help us.” ← 行 “to do”, 帮 “to help, to save”
   
5. To turn verb into adverb. 偷偷 “secretly” ← 偷 “to steal”
   
6. Other usages I do not know how to describe. 看看，我早说了吧。“See? I told you before!” ← 看 “to see”
   

As you could see, some of these reduplications are in AAB or AABB pattern.

Sometimes, the B part of AAB is a noun, and is used to make the verb of the A part more clear, when the verb has multiple meanings. Examples in Rule 2 and 3 probably fall into this category.

Sometimes, the B part of AAB is a noun, but is fixed with the verb. 好 in Rule 4 means “good”, while 行 means “to do”, so “行行好” literally means to do something good, and is translated into “be kind”. We usually do not use 坏 “bad” or other words together with 行 “to do”, so “行行好” is almost a fixed phrase and cannot be split.

The example in Rule 1 is not considered to be a word of AABB pattern, but two reduplication words, so you see “and” in translation.


Let’s go back to your question.


For AAB phrases, see rules above if A is verb, else:

• If both A and B are adjecents / adverbs, it simply emphasizes the adjacent / adverb: 晶晶亮 “blinging” ← 晶 “clear, crystal” 亮 “bright”
  
• If A is adjacent / adverb but B is noun, it is probably a phrase for a common thing: 毛毛雨 “drizzling” ← 毛 “hair, fur” 雨 “rain”
  
• If A is adjacent / adverb but B is verb, the final result is usually still an adjacent or adverb: 团团转 “anxious, anxiously” ← 团 “circle, in a circle” 转 “to walk around, to turn around”
  
• If A is onomatopoeia, and B is verb, the final result is usually still a verb: 哇哇叫 “crying loudly” ← 哇哇 “onomatopoeia for crying” 叫 “to cry”
  
• If A is onomatopoeia, and B is noun, the final result is usually still a noun: 啦啦队 “cheergirls” ← 啦啦 “onomatopoeia for cheering” 队 “team, group” / 碰碰车 “bumper cars” ← 碰碰 “onomatopoeia for bumping” 车 “car”
  

For ABB phrases:

• If both A and B are adjecents / adverbs, it simply emphasizes the adjacent / adverb: 亮盈盈 “very bright” ← 亮 “bright” 盈 “full”
  
• If A is adjacent / adverb, but B is onomatopoeia, it usually emphasizes the adjacent / adverb: 黑乎乎 “very dark” ← 黑 “dark” 乎乎 “onomatopoeia for oppressive things” / 黏乎乎 “very sticky” ← 黏 “sticky” / 胖乎乎 “chubby” ← 胖 “fat”
  
• If A is verb, but B is onomatopoeia, it usually emphasizes the way the verb is committed: 笑哈哈 “a clear, loud laughter, to laugh clearly and loudly” ← 笑 “laughter, to laugh” 哈哈 “haha”
  
• If A is 一 “one” and B is noun classifier, it means B-by-B, each B, every B, etc. 一个个 “everyone” ← 个 “general noun classifier for basically everything”
  

For ABA phrases:

• Sometimes, we can insert 一 “one” in AA and it becomes ABA. Final meanings remain unchanged. This usage applies from Rule 1 to Rule 4.
  
• Watch out for pseudo-ABA phrases! 三月三 “March the third” / 五成五 “55 percent (literally 5.5 per ten)” / 七千七 “seven thousand and seven hundred” / 九点九 “9.9”
  

For ABAB phrases:

• It is usually formed from double two-syllable verbs. See verb reduplication Rule 1 to 4 at the beginning of this post.
  

For AABB phrases:

• If AB is a verb, it usually forms a adjacent / adverb. See Rule 5 of verb reduplication: 吞吞吐吐 “hesitate in speaking” ← 吞吐 “take in and send out in large quantities” (I know this is counter-intuitive, but it is the fact)
  
• If AB is an adjacent / adverb, the final result is probably an emphasized version of the adjacent / adverb: 干干净净 “very clean” ← 干净 “clean”  / 长长久久 “forever” ← 长久 “for long”
  

If you find anything that does not fall into any category above, please do not hesitate to ask me.

(03-10-2018, 07:55 AM)ChenZheChina Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I’m not sure whether we could compare Chinese words with reduplication or quasi-reduplication to Voynichese words, because Chinese is written hanzi-by-hanzi, or syllable-by-syllable. But, yes, words with structures like ABB, AAB or AABB do exist. Search “叠词” for examples.

Thank you, Zhe!
The problem you mention is very significant for pseudo-reduplication.

These are the numbers I presented You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for exact reduplication and some forms of pseudo-reduplication in the Voynich manuscript:

PREFIX-1ST  pW.W
PREFIX-2ND  W.pW
SUFFIX-1ST  Ws.W
SUFFIX-2ND  W.Ws

            COUNT
EXACT         262
PREFIX-1ST    216
PREFIX-2ND    182
SUFFIX-1ST     38
SUFFIX-2ND     63

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I discussed this histogram, that details the prefixes and suffixes involved in quasi-reduplication).

"pre" refers to an alteration of the 1st word
"post" refers to an alteration of the 2nd word

Clearly, q- correlates with quasi-reduplication.

An analysis of exact reduplication I posted You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. points out that qo- also correlates with exact repetition: it is twice as frequent in exact reduplication than it typically is!



If I understood correctly Zhe's discussion of Chinese reduplication and pseudo-reduplication, my impression is that Chinese is not compatible with what we can observe in Voynichese. For instance:

• q- does not behave as a syllable, but as a modifier of 'o': it almost exclusively occurs as 'qo-'. But quasi reduplication in Chinese involves the addition of a whole syllable.
  
• q- almost appears to be a "reduplication marker". Whatever the reason for the correlation of q- with exact reduplication and quasi-reduplication, nothing similar happens in Chinese.
  

---

One more question about Chinese. Voynichese also presents three or more exact or slightly altered repetitions of the same word. For instance:
<f89r2.P1.3;H>     toy.daiin.daiin.daiin.ody.qokeey.cheoldy.qody.cheor.s.ain.daiin.oky.cheody.cheoky=
<f95r1.P.8;H>      olkor.chdaiin.chol.kaiin.qokeedy.qoky.chedy.lchedy.chedy.alod-

I count 9 occurrences of a single word being exactly repeated three times and 1 occurrence of the same word repeated four times (the famous You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
If one allows for slight alterations (as in the f.95r1 example above), the numbers increase according to how loosely one defines "quasi-repetition". I think that significant quasi-repetitions with three consecutive occurrences averagely appear once in 1000 words (and possibly more).

Are word repetitions with 3 or more occurrences something that happens in Chinese too? If so, how frequent are they in comparison with exact reduplication?

(04-10-2018, 09:25 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If I understood correctly Zhe's discussion of Chinese reduplication and pseudo-reduplication, my impression is that Chinese is not compatible with what we can observe in Voynichese. For instance:

• q- does not behave as a syllable, but as a modifier of 'o': it almost exclusively occurs as 'qo-'. But quasi reduplication in Chinese involves the addition of a whole syllable.
  
• q- almost appears to be a "reduplication marker". Whatever the reason for the correlation of q- with exact reduplication and quasi-reduplication, nothing similar happens in Chinese.
  

Yes, I think you got it. Unless we can say EVA-q is a syllable, there will be a huge gap between Chinese reduplication and Voynichese reduplication.  

(04-10-2018, 09:25 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One more question about Chinese. Voynichese also presents three or more exact or slightly altered repetitions of the same word. For instance:
<f89r2.P1.3;H>     toy.daiin.daiin.daiin.ody.qokeey.cheoldy.qody.cheor.s.ain.daiin.oky.cheody.cheoky=
<f95r1.P.8;H>      olkor.chdaiin.chol.kaiin.qokeedy.qoky.chedy.lchedy.chedy.alod-

I count 9 occurrences of a single word being exactly repeated three times and 1 occurrence of the same word repeated four times (the famous You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
If one allows for slight alterations (as in the f.95r1 examples above), the numbers increase according to how one defines "quasi-repetition". I think that significant quasi-repetitions with three consecutive occurrences averagely appear once in 1000 words and possibly more.

Are word repetitions with 3 or more occurrences something that is observed in Chinese too?

Yes, but it requires some intentional construction like the English sentence “I saw a saw saw a saw”, and probably won’t be common in daily usage.

Remember the “bǎ bǎ” phrase in the pinyin text? I thought it to be a reduplication at first, but later realized that those are two parts of different words. The first “bǎ” is a measure word, or noun classifier word, for some actions. The second “bǎ” is an object marker; the next word following it will be the object of the action. So if you do some action, expressing using an object marker, to an object whose name begins with a third “bǎ”, you will get this:

wǒ yī bǎ bǎ bǎ bǎ zhù le
我一把把把把住了。

把：(measure word for actions holding something)
把：(object marker)
把：(noun) handle of a bicycle or tricycle
把：(verb) to hold

And this sentence means: I quickly took the handle with one action and hold it still.

Other examples are:

guò jǐ tiān tiāntiān tiānqì bù hǎo
过几天天天天气不好。

天：(measure word for days)
天天：(adverb) everyday
天气：(noun) weather

Translation: The weather will be bad everyday in several days.

nǐ dà-dàda dà guò nǐ dà-gūgu
你大大大大过你大姑姑。

大 (first and last)：(adjacent) first-, elder-
大大：(noun) brother of father
大 (penultimate)：(adjacent) older

Translation: Your first paternal uncle is older than your first paternal aunt.

But I think, generally speaking, people will try to avoid clusters with 3 same characters when writing, because it might cause some confusion and lower reading speed of the reader. Sentences above could be rewritten into:

wǒ yī bǎ jiù bǎ bǎ gěi bǎ zhù le
我一把就把把给把住了。← 就 jiù “cause-effect marker” 给 gěi “verb marker”

guò jǐ tiān měitiān dōu tiānqì bù hǎo
过几天每天都天气不好。← 每 měi “per, each” 都 dōu “all”

nǐ dà-bóbo dà guò nǐ dà-gūgu
你大伯伯大过你大姑姑。← 伯伯 “another word for brother of father”

with various techniques.