The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[tavie]

As for the am, it may be an abbreviation like "etc." -- which the Scribe was allowed to insert at the end of a parag in place of certain unimportant words in order to avoid a very short final line, but might also have been used by the Author in the draft to avoid repetition or redundant phrases.  

But the am may also be a word of the language that is common at the end of sentences, like the "-ta" or "-desu" of Japanese, the "ist" of German... Since the end of a parag is also the end of a sentence, that would explain why am is common in that position.

But what I said in the post above was that I see the exact opposite:  final m m seems underrepresented at the ends of paragraph that we can see clearly (i.e. those with clear indents).  It does not seem common at paragraph end, let alone more likely to occur at paragraph end.  It underperforms.  Quite badly.    

This is what I see based on the Scribe 3 Stars section (all folios in Stars except 115r, where Lisa thought it might be two scribes).  Perhaps my stats are wrong since it's been a while since I gathered these particular ones, and they need double-checking.  But even allowing for errors, I don't see evidence for saying that paragraph ends are more likely to have final m.