My thoughts on the VMS

[Emma May Smith]

I don't understand what the argument is for arbitrary spaces. Word structure is very strong and character position is often dependent on beginning, middle, and end.

Given that the writer of the manuscript was familiar with the concept of the word divider we must begin from the assumption that he was using it to divide words. There needs to be a strong argument contrary to this before we discard them as arbitrary.

Word structure is such a strong feature that it is one of the few problems in the text that we can easily think about. Starting by discarding it leaves us much worse off.