VMs: Re: GC's request on Currier

["GC" <gc-@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Rene,

I think this type of research would have some bearing on original folio
order.  I've also noticed that on folios where it is evident that a
paragraph was added later, that paragraph can really mess up page stats,
since it usually doesn't belong to the set.  Just an unquantified
observation.

> I can and will do it, but again, it won't
> be as simple as 'A' vs. 'B'. I have never looked
> at 'hands', but I am of the opinion that it
> is quite a promising avenue for someone to see
> if there is some kind of progression in the hand-
> writing style in the MS (not necessarily in the
> order in which the pages are now).

I agree.  We need someone very skilled in this type of work to take a look.

GC



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rene Zandbergen" <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 1:59 PM
Subject: VMs: GC's request on Currier


> --- GC <gc-@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Rene,
> >
> > Sorry to wake you,  :-)
>
> Having one's mobile go off when E-mail arrives
> is one of these newfangled things I can live without
> (certainly for the VMs mailing list), so there
> is nothing to apologise for :-)
>
> > Your Currier "hands" listing demonstrates Currier's
> > identifications, but there are large gaps in the
> > information.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but
> > didn't you do extensive work in this area, and if
> > so, can you offer a brief chart, similar to the
> > Currier chart, that summarizes this effort?
> > [ ...]
> > Can we use the labels we discussed last year that
> > do not involve the words "hand" or "language" to
> > describe statistical groupings?  It's grown
> > beyond Currier, and as much as I think of him,
> > some of the misleading terminology should be
> > refreshed.
>
> This is a straightforward question, but a
> straightforward answer is not possible. It is,
> however, possible to be at least a bit systematic
> in answering this from my viewpoint:
>
> - Currier identified 'language' and 'hand'. The
>   first distinction is based on clearly defined
>   and verifiable criteria, but the term is a bit
>   unfortunate. The second distinction has a good
>   name (it does refer to the appearance of the
>   script) but his classification could be challenged.
>
> - Currier did not analyse the entire manuscript,
>   but presumably only those pages for which his
>   classification is now known.
>
> - We can do much better now (and more easily so
>   on the 'language' criterium) so I do see his
>   results as something of historic value rather
>   than 'state-of-the-art'.
>
> - As a result of my own analysis, I do not support
>   the dual-'language' hypothesis of Currier, but I
>   do understand that his conclusion was correct for
>   the subset of the data he had available (i.e. not
>   the entire MS had been transcribed).
>
> - I could attempt to classify the pages of the MS,
>   based on my analysis, but I would not be able
>   to state the classification criteria as clearly
>   as Currier did.
>
> As is probably known, I did the analysis on the
> basis of digraph statistics (not in Eva, but in
> something closer to Currier). Stolfi has done
> something similar, based on word statistics.
>
> My main conclusion was that the statistics show
> 'overlapping clusters' where the text statistics
> of pages with the same type of illustrations
> tend to be rather similar (with the notorious
> exception of the two types of herbal pages).
>
> I can and will do it, but again, it won't
> be as simple as 'A' vs. 'B'. I have never looked
> at 'hands', but I am of the opinion that it
> is quite a promising avenue for someone to see
> if there is some kind of progression in the hand-
> writing style in the MS (not necessarily in the
> order in which the pages are now).
>
> Cheers, Rene
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> ______________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
> unsubscribe vms-list

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list