[Article] Glyph combinations across word breaks in the Voynich Manuscript

[Torsten]

...  I find your paper's failure to cite both his work on the subject and his proposed explanations quite incomprehensible, sorry. :-(

I have to disagree with this. The footnote is fully appropriate in my opinion.

Currier's work in general is amply cited in the paper. His specific opinion on the relation between word ends and word starts is strictly related to one part of the MS, namely the Biological pages. He presents the stats. He then says that he cannot think of any linguistic explanation.

I agree with Nick that this is indeed a mistake. Currier argues that the beginning of a word is related to the suffix of a previous word and that natural language doesn't behave this way. Also Emma and Marco come to the conclusion "that the second glyph in a combination depends on the first." (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 15). An example for natural language given in the paper is that the "preceding vowel before a word starting with a vowel is a common phenomenon" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 15) and the authors argue that "Glyphs at the start and end of words could be nulls intended to obscure the underlying text" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 18). There is no doubt that Currier's argumentation is highly relevant.

Another point is that Currier was studying the usage of 'words' before he discussed "Effects of the Ending of One 'Word' on the Beginning of the Next 'Word'". The paper does this the other way around. It examines the relation between glyphs but discusses the relation between words. How can you discuss something without studying it? 

Moreover the paper describes relevant differences between Currier A and B and argues that "word-break combinations are more predictable than for Latin and English, and also more predictable in Currier B than for Italian" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 14). It remains a mystery to me why the described observations should support "the possibility that the Voynich text is written a phonetically written language" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 18)?

Much more can be said about consecutive words in the Voynich manuscript. For instance Dr. Vladimir Sazonov has published an analysis of word dependency in 2003 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Sazonov result was that the number of times consecutive words start with the same initial glyphs or end with the same final glyphs is significant. His table 1. "Initial-Initial dependency" and table 3 "Final-Final dependency" show that "the words very often reproduce the same form (the same initial or the same final) in the next word. For example, -aiin or qo- or -dy can repeat many times with good density" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Another observation was published by Elmar Vogt in 2012: "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.". Vogt demonstrates that the first word of a line is longer than average and the second word is shorter than average (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). ...