Deconstruction of benched gallows

[ThomasCoon]

Back again. I looked up all the unique [qo+benched gallows] vords to see if there are parallel [qo+gallows+ch] vords.
Here are the results: there are 41 unique [qo+bench] vords in the VMS, and 32 of them have [qo+gallows+ch] parallels - that is a 78% match:

qocthy -->     qotchy
qocthol -->    qotchol
qoctholy -->    -------
qocthey -->    qotchey
qocthedy -->    qotchedy
qoctheol -->    qotcheol
qocthey -->     qotchey
qocthes -->     qotches
qocthdy -->    qotchdy
qoctho -->    qotcho
qocthsy -->    -------
qocthody -->    qotchody
qocthor -->    qotchor
qoctheody -->    -------

qockhy -->    qokchy
qochhdy -->    qokchdy
qockhhdy -->    -------
qockhey -->    qokchey
qockhom -->    -------
qockhor -->    qokchor
qockho -->    qokcho
qockheol -->    qokcheol
qockhhy -->    --------
qockhedy -->    qokchedy
qockhol -->    qokchol
qockheey -->    qokcheey
qockhos -->    qokchos
qockhoy -->    --------
qockhol -->    qokchol
qockhody -->    qokchody
qockheor -->    qokcheor
qockhal -->    qokchal
qockhed -->    qokched
qockheos -->    --------
qockheedy -->     qokcheedy

qocphy -->    qopchy
qocphody -->    qopchody
qocphdy -->    qopchdy
qocphee    -->    -------
qocphey -->    qopchey
qocfhey -->    qofchey

So, while this doesn't conclusively prove that [benched gallows] = [gallows+ch], I can offer three pieces of objective, statistically-backed evidence that support this interpretation:

1) There is a clear statistical tendency for a gallows to follow [qo]
2) 78% (almost 4 out of 5) [qo+benched gallows] vords have a [qo+gallows+ch] parallel.
3) [qo+benched gallows] words can appear in similar environments as [qo+gallows+ch] words.

Anton, you are correct that that is a possibility - I will edit my post. Also, what you propose may not necessarily be mutually exclusive to options 1 and 2 (both things could occur simultaneously). Also, in the screenshot, the second <qodaiin> word is somewhere in between <y> and <q> - it doesn't have the characteristic tail of <y> nor the characteristic loop of the <q>. So, it is a bad example, and I should have found a better one.

david, I vaguely account for this in option 3: that two separate characters can be written together to represent a unique sound. Was this what you were going for when you said "If we take k and ch to be distinct phonetic letters, then there could be a mixture of phonetics to allow the glyphs to be combined in a certain fashion"?