Why not positional variation?

[dashstofsk]

I think this is improbable, because the frequency of -in or -iin endings is different from one word type to another.

Just for example (this happens all over the place): there are (RF1a-n text) 834 'daiin' and 202 'dain', with a ratio of about 4.1:1; 'aiin' and 'ain' behave similarly, with 529 and 123 occurences, about 4.3:1, but 'okaiin' and 'okain', with 205 and 126 occurrences have a ratio of 1.6:1, while 'qokaiin' and 'qokain' have 259 and 274 occurrences for a ratio of 0.95:1.

The ratios of niin words to in words is significantly different in languages A and B. In language A it is ~ 5.4:1, in language B it is ~ 1.6:1. Because we all know that daiin is more of a language A word the ratio daiin : dain for the whole manuscript is going to dependent more by its dominance in language A. What needs to be done is to tabulate the ratios separately for languages A and B. This is what I have done.

My hypothesis is that the author has a choice. He will end a word sometimes in iin and sometimes end it in in. For instance, he might be in more of a hurry when writing some pages, and this might sway him to write differently. Perhaps also with the belief that no-one will ever be able to read the manuscript he might just not care. The ratios aren't going to be exact. The significant fact is that for each language the top iin words are broadly in line order with the top in words.

I am including some output from language A. You will see that the variance in the ratios is less than in the language B output I gave earlier. 

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.