VMs: Why VMs spaces behave like normal word spaces

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(I wrote:)

> >The idea that spaces might not be word boundaries
> >came up because the spaces always tend to follow
> >(and precede) certain characters with high
> >probability.

[snipped] 

> >It is not difficult to show that this qualitative
> >statement is actually incorrect (quantitatively).
> 
> Rather, it is not difficult to show that this
> qualitative statement is 
> actually weak (quantitatively). Sure, there is some
> correlation, but at the 
> same time there is weak correlation in lots of
> different directions - you 
> can probably find (weak) statistical support for
> pretty much any vaguely 
> plausible theory you devise.

Actually, there is a simple calculation that can
be made. Let me explain in words without the
numerical results and the corresponding graphs.

The variation of characters that follow and precede
characters are expressed by the entropy. It's a
conditional entropy, for any given character of
the alphabet.

In a Latin text, the variation of characters 
preceding and following consonants is somewhat
lower than the variation of characters preceding
and following vowels. This very property is 
exploited (in a way) by Sukhotin's algorithm to
separate vowels and consonants. Interestingly,
the space character has a variation in preceding
and  following characters which is marginally
higher still than that of vowels.

That last property is also observed in the Voynich
MS. I made the calculation many years ago.
I made a 'scatter plot' (every point representing 
a character of the alphabet) plotting conditional
entropy of the preceding character vs. that of
the following character. The character that 
appeared furthest to the upper right was the space
character, both in Latin and in Voynichese.

So, I don't see anything particularly suspicious in
the VMs spaces.

Cheers, Rene

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