Relations among pattern studies?

[Emma May Smith]

My hypothesis is that spaces are inserted into a continuous stream of glyphs to make it easier to parse, but that they don't add any information beyond that, much like the commas in the numeral 1,234,567.  But it's just a hypothesis, and it could certainly be tested more robustly than I've tried to do.  I have not, for example, experimented to see what would happen if a space were treated as another option in transitional probability matrices.  I also haven't tried to work out or model any "rules" for spacing that extend beyond the single glyphs to either side of each potential breakpoint.  There's a lot more that could be investigated here.

I think the problem I have is squaring this with how spaces are distributed. Some glyphs demand spaces---before [q] and after [n]---some glyphs reject spaces---after [ch] or (mostly) before [e]---while others have no strong preference. I suppose this can be put down to the scribe's esthetic sense, but it would need to be shared by all five scribes. As the first two options don't change throughout the text, only the last of the three options is under their control in the way you describe.

I agree that the spaces may well not be informational---they're either too determined or too optional---but they still could be meaningful. That is, they tell us about the method of creation rather than the content of the message. Having said this, I don't disagree with ignoring them for the purposes of the model if they are exterior to it.