Identifying function words

[-JKP-]

What I would suggest offhand is to look for the word "and". It is a universal word (not like an article), it is frequent (sometimes, and the more so in the past, being used in exchange for words such as "then", "so" etc.). And it should be ubiquitous - namely, it should be found even in texts of highly conspective nature which may lack articles or prepositions.

How can it be located? I can think of searching it in between vords relating to homogenous objects - such e.g. as the "Voynich stars". One could just map all the f68r1 and f68r2 objects and see what are the vords joining them (if any).

I am not sure this is totally universal as a "word".
See for instance You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (XII Century).

Definitely not universal as a "word" as Marco points out.

In Latin, for example, "and" is very frequently indicated by the number 7 and attached to the word that follows, and also stands for the letters "et" as in etiam (written 7iam). Thus, the same symbol is used for two different functions and doesn't necessarily ever stand alone because the same convention is used in other languages that may use a word other than "et" for "and", but which still uses the Latin scribal 7 symbol to express it.


In some languages "and" is a single or double character added to the beginning of a word. In English we are used to putting "and" between words, but it's not always done that way, sometimes adding a character to the beginning of the first of the two words that go together represents "and" and once again, it is not a separate word, it is attached to other words in much the same way as a prefix is attached to words rather than standing alone.