22-11-2019, 08:25 PM
Thank you for clarifying, Nick.
Since this thread focuses on word-initial benches, I did not think of considering occurrences in other positions. Unless I messed up something, it seems the histogram for all words-with-benches is rather similar to that for word-initial benches only.
bench-d is considerably more frequent than for word-initial benches only and I agree that this deviation looks significant. Overall, with respect to immediately following characters, the two benches behave similarly but not identically: we have seen that this is the case also with other behaviours (e.g. the preference of ch-words to occur at line end). The idea that the two benches are totally identical and arbitrarily interchangeable would explain the similarity but not the differences. As you say, these differences are "incompatible with the suggestion that ch and sh are essentially expressing the same thing". The similarity is very strong in some respects and must be explained. Some differences are large enough to be significant and must be explained as well.
Since this thread focuses on word-initial benches, I did not think of considering occurrences in other positions. Unless I messed up something, it seems the histogram for all words-with-benches is rather similar to that for word-initial benches only.
bench-d is considerably more frequent than for word-initial benches only and I agree that this deviation looks significant. Overall, with respect to immediately following characters, the two benches behave similarly but not identically: we have seen that this is the case also with other behaviours (e.g. the preference of ch-words to occur at line end). The idea that the two benches are totally identical and arbitrarily interchangeable would explain the similarity but not the differences. As you say, these differences are "incompatible with the suggestion that ch and sh are essentially expressing the same thing". The similarity is very strong in some respects and must be explained. Some differences are large enough to be significant and must be explained as well.