Paragraphs and gallows

There is some necessary connection between the gallows glyphs and the division of the text into paragraphs. 

For a start, the glyphs themselves resemble glyphs used as PILCROWS (paragraph markers) in Latin manuscripts. 

Secondly, they very often seem to behave like pilcrows in the text. That is, a gallows glyph very often marks the beginning of a paragraph. 

Thirdly, where gallows glyphs begin a word at the start of a paragraph, it is usually redundant - if it is removed, a valid Voynich word remains. The gallows glyph has been added purely, it seems, because the word is the first in the paragraph.

Fourthly, the glyph forms [f] and [p] are almost always found in the first lines of paragraphs and have a general tendency to appear towards the top of paragraphs.

All of this says that the gallows glyphs are related to paragraph structures. They mark paragraphs and their behaviour in the text is specific to the paragraph structure, or is guided and shaped by the paragraph structure. 

Indeed, it is tempting to think that the gallows glyphs have been added to the glyph set for just this reason. They have been selected because they are pilcrows, because they traditionally concern paragraphs. 

We must ask why the gallows glyphs have been included? Why has the author taken paragraph markers from Latin texts and made them part of his constructed language? It would seem that they were selected for reasons to do with the division of the text into paragraphs. 

* * *

In view of this, and following from my previous work, I offer the following tentative conclusion:

There are two streams of text - one based on QOKEEDY and one based on CHOLDAIIN. 

The QOKEEDY text is designed to be written in paragraphs. That is why this keyword includes a gallows glyph.

The CHOLDAIIN text is designed to be written in lines. This is why this keyword can mutate to line-final forms. 

Once again, the text is pulled in two directions. One force is shaping it into paragraphs, and the other is shaping it into lines. 

This would be similar to, and perhaps related to, what I have noted previously: the QOKEEDY stream moves the text towards uniform CVCV consonant/vowel alternation, whereas the CHOLDAIIN stream interrupts consonant/vowel alternation. 

R.B.