[split] What can the structural peculiarities of the VMS tell us about the nature of the underlying text

[tavie]

Agree with Patrick.  When people refer to 'LAAFU', they are not necessarily claiming the code switches from line to line.  I don't know anyone who believes that, and I don't recognize the types of LAAFU set out You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  LAAFU was a phrase used by Currier, and we can't be sure exactly what he meant by it.  Certainly, a possible inference is that the system varies line by line.  But that jars with the consistency of word types elsewhere in the line.

Several people on here simply use the phrase to mean that Voynichese is not flat, and that something unusual is going on at the line level that needs to be investigated.  Emma May Smith You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

On the "line break algorithm", if the scribe did regularly break the line rather than find a way to squeeze in a longer word (which has not been proved and should be carefully considered how it interacts with claims of abbreviation at line end as well), we still need to explain

1. why line start word types often do not resemble the word types that the scribe failed to squeeze in (i.e. ones underperforming at Line End)
   
2. why several line start word types are rarely seen in the middle of the row (we can see why they won't be at Line End but why not elsewhere?)
   
3. why daiin is more common at Line End and chol is not in Herbal A despite both being similar size (and indeed why initial d word types are more common the closer you get to Line End)
   
4. why the line start word appears to be impacted in many cases by the word above it
   

This points to multiple "mechanisms" at play, not merely a line break algorithm.  Altering the composition of the line start word that has been pushed from the end of the line above is not a side effect of it being shunted down:  there's a logic to longer words being demoted to the start of the next line but not for this to automatically cause their composition to be altered.  Something - or somethings - else must be behind this. 

There's still likely some medium and high hanging fruit up in the tree for us to pick that might shed further light on these "somethings", and that's not a waste of time.  

As a final note for any newcomers, we have accumulated a few LAAFU threads now which are worth reading:

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