Thank you for your comment, Koen!
Labels are fairly consistent with the main text. The subject was discussed in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. different prefixes in labels and main-text are shown: the main differences are that labels have less frequent q- and more frequent o- ch- sh-. Since q- appears to be a prefix that is sometimes added to o- words, the difference in q- and o- appear to be consistent. What happens with ch- and sh- is more difficult to explain, but it does not seem to be enough to conclude that labels are not words. I think it's the kind of variability that one can expect when comparing a specific category of words (e.g. nouns) with a larger vocabulary.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Stolfi shows that label tokens are longer than main-text tokens (fewer short words and more long words in label). The distribution of word-types is a nearly identical binomial for labels and main-text.
If labels are abbreviated, the same words appear to also be abbreviated in the main text: I am not aware of evidence suggesting that they are written in full in the main text. But yes, some form of general abbreviation / truncation / abjad together with a verbose cipher seems like a possibility.
Personally, I find it difficult to believe that labels are not significant while the rest of the text is. I find total meaninglessness or total meaningfulness more plausibile. But this could just be my biased subjective preference. Of course, everything is possible.
(10-08-2020, 03:52 PM)Koen G wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The labels are one thing I would not get too hung up on. We don't know if they are supposed to be nouns labelling the thing they are with. They also seem to have different properties than the main text, although I must admit I never understood the degree to which this is the case.
I see only one way they could get away with really short labels, and that is if the name of the labelled thing is known from the text (where it is written in full) or from general culture.
Labels are fairly consistent with the main text. The subject was discussed in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. different prefixes in labels and main-text are shown: the main differences are that labels have less frequent q- and more frequent o- ch- sh-. Since q- appears to be a prefix that is sometimes added to o- words, the difference in q- and o- appear to be consistent. What happens with ch- and sh- is more difficult to explain, but it does not seem to be enough to conclude that labels are not words. I think it's the kind of variability that one can expect when comparing a specific category of words (e.g. nouns) with a larger vocabulary.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Stolfi shows that label tokens are longer than main-text tokens (fewer short words and more long words in label). The distribution of word-types is a nearly identical binomial for labels and main-text.
If labels are abbreviated, the same words appear to also be abbreviated in the main text: I am not aware of evidence suggesting that they are written in full in the main text. But yes, some form of general abbreviation / truncation / abjad together with a verbose cipher seems like a possibility.
Personally, I find it difficult to believe that labels are not significant while the rest of the text is. I find total meaninglessness or total meaningfulness more plausibile. But this could just be my biased subjective preference. Of course, everything is possible.