Thoughts on [m, g] as [in, ain]? (Stolfi)

[Koen G]

It looks like Stolfi leaned towards seeing EVA-m and g as shortened versions of in-clusters. To me this feels right intuitively. But I wonder, has anyone looked into this further? Are there any objections or better solutions? 


For reference, here is the section I'm referring to, from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

About m and g
It seems that the letter m is inordinately common at the end of lines, and before interruptions in the text due to intruding figures. The letter m, like the IN groups, is almost always preceded by a or o (862 tokens in 950, 91%). We note also that dam and am are the most common -am words, just as daiin and aiin are the most common -aiin words. Perhaps m is an abbreviation for iin (and/or other IN groups), used where space is tight.

On the other hand, the truth may not be that simple. of the 950 tokens that contain m, 56 (5.8%) are preceded by ai or aii rather than a alone.

The rare letter g, like m, occurs almost exclusively at the end of words (24 tokens out of 27); however, unlike m, it is not preceded by a. We note that g looks like an m, except that the leftmost stroke is rounded like that of an a. Perhaps g is an abbreviation of am?

There are 32 tokens that end in m, but not as am, om, or im. It is possible that these tokens are actually instances of g that were mistakenly transcribed as m --- a fairly common mistake.