[Article] New Paper: Subtle Signs of Scribal Intent...

[asteckley]

I want to push back slightly on the use of the term "intent" as implying that the scribes are choosing shorter words to make them fit before the drawing element or for some reason achieve a given line length. If one thinks (as I do) that spaces are inserted in some algorithmic way and that the algorithm operates at the level of lines (or interrupted lines), then last words will tend to be shorter for no other reason than because they're the left-over bit of text at the end.

I understand what you are saying there. And that particular interpretation of the word intent did occur to me.

But my use of the word intent was meant at a "higher level" so to speak.  So at a lower-lower level there might be (or not be) an "intent" to choose a short word. And, as you suggest, that kind of intent isn't really a factor if the feature is a result of an algorithmic process -- or what I refer to as a "simulation device". But at a higher-level, "intent" refers to the intention to convey meaningful content vs the intention to make a document that only appears to be be meaningful content. (If the latter is the scribe's intent, then one way to do it would be to use an  algorithm/simulation-device.)