A mathematical approach to double words, conditional logic and the missing pages

[Jorge_Stolfi]

The point raised by @dashstofks in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and later @nablator in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (on which word is more often duplicated in the text) is yet to be adressed.

I haven't checked the whole VMS, but in the Starred Parags section chol occurs 131 times, cholchol occurs 2 times (expected ~0).  As noted above, daiin occurs 415 times and daiindaiin occurs 10 times (expected ~3).  Looking for them as strings, ignoring spaces and line breaks but keeping parag breaks, with the three "corrections" mentioned previously.

I think this discrepancy about chol and daiin shows the importance of analyzing each section separately.  For all we know, the VMS is a compilation of several separate ur-books, each with specific topic, style, format, etc.   As far as we can tell, the only thing in common among all sections is the script and (partly) the language/spelling/encryption, and the fact that they were compiled by the same Author and penned by the same Scribe.  

We cannot even assume that the ur-books were composed by the same person or in the same country and century.  Herbal-A may be a Basque herbal from the 12th century, while herbal-B may may be a Mingrelian one from the 10th, both translated into Voynichese and merged by the Author into a single herbal.  

Anyway, the great differences in topic and format alone should cause most statistics to differ  from section to section.  Statistics computed over the whole VMS are likely to be more confusing than illuminating.

All the best, --stolfi