Liaisons in the Voynich text

[quimqu]

4. The start of a line behaves as if a word ending in n or r was there. A gallows word at the start of a line (or label, or ring) carries y or o 99% of the time. An a-word carries d 99%. An o-word almost never carries q. That is exactly what happens after a word ending in n, r, s or d. So the line starts with a fixed, fictitious contact, not with nothing.

Where are you getting these stats?  There are plenty of times where qo is at Line Start.  It is more common than it ought to be in Herbal A based on midline; it appears about as commonly as expected in Balneo; it is rarer than expected in Stars but still has over 50 instances.  Those three sections together by themselves give at least 450 qo at Line Start.  

(And sa is also common at Line Start in some sections, not just da)

Thanks Tavie,

You are right, I got point 4 wrong. I recounted it the simple way (every word starting with o or qo, no filtering) and qo at line start is at 48% of the o-words, so about the same as in the middle of the line. And it changes with the section like you say: 76% in balneo, 42% in herbal A, 31% in stars. I get 435 of them in those three sections, so same numbers as yours. My 99% for y/o before a gallows at line start was also wrong, it is 44%. It came from a filter I used that was throwing away most of the bare gallows words at line start, wich I didn't notice.

What stays is the labels and the restarts after a drawing: there q is almost gone (2% in labels) and gallows words carry y or o nearly allways (94-98%). So the "fictitious contact" thing is for labels and gaps, not for ordinary lines (what makes me think about something else... I had the theory that each line was independent from the rest, even in a paragraph... if qo appears at the beginning of inner paragraph lines... I'll double check). And yes, da and sa at line start (96% and 94%) are a line start habit, I don't think it is a liaison.

I'll edit point 4. Thanks for checking.