A key to understand the VMS

[Torsten]

Torsten: my hypothesis (that Voynichese combines scribal abbreviation with strong elements of verbose cipher, along with other cipher tricks) does explain in a properly forward sense pretty much all the properties that you are focused on. So your by-now-much-repeated claim that autocopying is the only explanation for these behaviours is simply not true.

First, to say only that you can explain everything is not an explanation for anything. Secondly, that the autocopying hypotheses is the only possible explanation are your words. I only say that from the observations I know I came to the conclusion that the autocopying hypotheses is a possible explanation for the VMS.  BTW: Where have you published the observation that similar word types for the VMS build a network and your explanation for it?

I think the reason your explanation makes Emma May Smith want to ragequit is that by focusing so heavily on the connectivity of the network of Voynichese words, you seem to have lost sight of the frequency counts of nodes. You are not talking about a network where all paths have equal weights: you are talking about a network where there are some often spectacularly divergent values.

The frequency count of the words is a central observation in my paper [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. This observation was the reason for me to build the grid and the network graph. 

You expect that it should be possible to calculate the exact frequencies for each word. Why did you expect that? In my eyes this would indicate a level of order in the VMS I would expect for a cipher. Therefore such a level of order would be a counter argument for the autocopy hypotheses. The autocopying hypotheses on the other hand suggests that the VMS was written manually. For someone writing the script by copying words already written there was no need to count the number of times he was writing this or that word. Therefore it is expected for the auto-copying hypothesis that the frequencies for the word types vary. 

To argue with a  network of equal weights means that you expect that each change has the same chance and didn't see that a human mind would have his own preferences and that even if multiple words are possible you can still only write one word at a time. A balanced multi dimensional network in all dimensions is therefore impossible. Even for a computer it would require some iterations to calculate such a network. A google search for "balanced networks" show that this is a topic on its own. Therefore you ask for something impossible to reach manually if you didn't write a text using some simple palindromes only.

I'm sorry, but your attempted post-rationalization of why eol/ole/leo are sensible in terms of autocopying (but elo/oel/loe are not) makes no sense to me whatsover.

First, please don't ask a question and then call the answer post-rationalization.

Second, the script has elements like the four gallow glyphs where for each element multiple invertible replacement exists [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. In this way also 'ol', 'al', 'ar', 'or' build such a cycle of four elements which can replace each other. But it is a fact that beside 'al' also 'ail' exists and beside 'ar' also 'air'. Therefore this observation alone is a counter argument to your idea of some irreducible tokens. Since multiple changes are possible the network is multidimensional. Therefore it is not easy to draw it in two-dimensions. Sometimes it helps if you reorder the nodes:

                                               aiiin ( 41) daiiin ( 17)
aiil (  1) daiil (  1) aiir ( 23) daiir  ( 23) aiin  (469) daiin  (863)
ail  (  5) dail  (  2) air  ( 74) dair   (106) ain   ( 89) dain   (211)
al   (260) dal   (253) ar   (350) dar    (318) an    (  7) dan    ( 20)

ol   (537) dol   (117) or   (363) dor    ( 73) on    (---) don    (---)
oil  (---) doil  (---) oir  (  2) doir   (---) oin   (  4) doin   (  4)
oiil (---) doiil (---) oiir (  4) doiir  (  8) oiin  ( 33) doiin  ( 19)
                                               oiiin (---) doiiin (  3)

'ch' is interchangeable with 'ee' and 'ee' is interchangeable with 'eee' [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. Therefore 'ch' is not to far from 'che'. Since only 'chol' exists in the VMS but not the words 'ochl', 'chlo' or 'loch' the sequences 'oel', 'elo' and 'loe' are less likely for the VMS. The word 'lcho' only exists three times. Therefore a sequence 'leo' is also less likely.

The most frequent word containing 'eol' is 'cheol' (172 times). For 'eor' this most frequent word is 'cheor' (100 times). In the case of 'eal' it is  'cheal' (30 times) and in the case of 'ear' it is 'chear' (51 times). As more frequent a word is as more similar words exist for it. Moreover since 'cheol' (172 times) is frequent also the word 'Sheol' (114 times) is frequently used:

char ( 72) chear ( 51) cheear ( 1)   okar (129) okear ( 7) okeear ( 2)   qokar (152) qokear ( 6) qokeear ( 2) 
chal ( 48) cheal ( 30) cheeal ( 2)   okal (138) okeal (12) okeeal ( 1)   qokal (191) qokeal ( 4) qokeeal ( 1)
cham ( 20) cheam (  5) cheeam (--)   okam ( 26) okeam ( 2) okeeam ( 2)   qokam ( 25) qokeam (--) qokeeam ( 1) 
chos ( 38) cheos ( 33) cheeos ( 7)   okos (  8) okeos (14) okeeos ( 6)   qokos (  1) qokeos ( 5) qokeeos ( 4)
chor (219) cheor (100) cheeor (14)   okor ( 34) okeor (22) okeeor (14)   qokor ( 36) qokeor (21) qokeeor (10)   
chol (396) cheol (172) cheeol ( 9)   okol ( 82) okeol (66) okeeol (18)   qokol (104) qokeol (52) qokeeol (11)

shar ( 34) shear ( 21) sheear ( 2)   otar (141) otear ( 4) oteear (--)   qotar ( 63) qotear ( 2) qoteear (--)
shar ( 34) shear ( 21) sheear ( 2)   otal (143) oteal ( 6) oteeal ( 2)   qotal ( 59) qoteal ( 2) qoteeal ( 1)
sham (  7) sheam (  2) sheeam (--)   otam ( 47) oteam (--) oteeam ( 2)   qotam ( 12) qoteam (--) qoteeam (--)
shos ( 10) sheos ( 17) sheeos ( 1)   otos (  4) oteos (29) oteeos (10)   qotos (  1) qoteos ( 1) qoteeos ( 3)
shor ( 97) sheor ( 51) sheeor ( 9)   otor ( 46) oteor (12) oteeor ( 4)   qotor ( 29) qoteor ( 5) qoteeor (--)
shol (186) sheol (114) sheeol (14)   otol ( 86) oteol (42) oteeol ( 9)   qotol ( 47) qoteol (12) qoteeol ( 5)

In this way the result fits with the autocopy hypotheses:
eol 961  eor 464  eal 140  ear 171
ole  39  ore 11   ale  10  are   7

Beside 'ol' there are 1116 words starting with 'ol-' and 3092 words ending with '-ol'. With other words 'ol' is more frequently used at the end then at the beginning. Therefore it is no surprise that also more words with 'ol' after 'e' exists then words with 'e' after 'ol'. Because 'ol' occurs more frequently at the end of a word then at it beginning the glyph sequence 'eol' is more frequent then the glyph sequence 'ole'. 

Why exactly this explanation makes no sense to you?