Hi Stolfi,
while examining the structure of the VMS, I noticed a pattern that is likely already known, but I’d like to ask how it fits with your China hypothesis.
It concerns the influence of the glyphs preceding the Edy family on the probability that the next unit after the final “y” is “qo.”
For example, “y | qo” occurs only moderately frequently overall. However, depending on certain contexts on the left side, the probability increases sharply:
y | qo: about 22% overall
k e d y | qo: about 28 %
ch e d y | qo: about 38%
e e d y | qo: about 39 %
sh e d y | qo: about 51%
The interesting point, then, is not simply that “qo” occurs after “y,” but that the characters preceding “edy” seem to influence the choice of the following “qo” unit across the entire visible range.
How would this fit in with the idea of a phonetic transcription of Chinese? Of course, Chinese has a syllabic structure, limited final sounds, and dependencies that extend across syllable boundaries. But this specific effect seems different to me: The visible boundary after “y” is almost always present, yet the subsequent starting unit “qo” appears to be strongly conditioned by the preceding left-hand context, and that is unusual.
Would your Chinese reference text predict this kind of conditioned transition across the (syllable) boundary?
Or am I misunderstanding something?
while examining the structure of the VMS, I noticed a pattern that is likely already known, but I’d like to ask how it fits with your China hypothesis.
It concerns the influence of the glyphs preceding the Edy family on the probability that the next unit after the final “y” is “qo.”
For example, “y | qo” occurs only moderately frequently overall. However, depending on certain contexts on the left side, the probability increases sharply:
y | qo: about 22% overall
k e d y | qo: about 28 %
ch e d y | qo: about 38%
e e d y | qo: about 39 %
sh e d y | qo: about 51%
The interesting point, then, is not simply that “qo” occurs after “y,” but that the characters preceding “edy” seem to influence the choice of the following “qo” unit across the entire visible range.
How would this fit in with the idea of a phonetic transcription of Chinese? Of course, Chinese has a syllabic structure, limited final sounds, and dependencies that extend across syllable boundaries. But this specific effect seems different to me: The visible boundary after “y” is almost always present, yet the subsequent starting unit “qo” appears to be strongly conditioned by the preceding left-hand context, and that is unusual.
Would your Chinese reference text predict this kind of conditioned transition across the (syllable) boundary?
Or am I misunderstanding something?