Notes towards a grammar.
The Universal Template I have proposed - constructed from the paradigms QOKEEDY and CHOLDAIIN in contrapunctal cycles - is an undifferentiated field of possibilities. It accommodates any Voynichese whatsoever. But what are the rules that structure it into the actual text?
It is my contention that the rules of Voynichese, the rules that constitute the grammar, are implicit in the Template and specifically in the paradigms and their relations. We can work out the rules of the text from its model.
For a start, what is conspicuously lacking from the Template is a system of word breaks. The paradigms are presented in continuous cycles. What rules break the text up into words?
We learn from the paradigms. That's why they're paradigms. (I'm a good Platonist. My method is Platonic. Study the Forms, not the particulars.)
* * *
To this end, we can impose, or rather expose, further order by marking consonant/vowel alternation. It is implicit.
Noting that I use the terms 'consonant' and 'vowel' for covenience only. I do not think the text is linguistic, in fact, and this alternation is actually astrological, namely the alternation of positive (+) and negative (-), or male/female, or nocturnal/diurnal, at the base level of zodiacal symbolism.
But Voynichese is at least quasi-linguistic. It invites the categories 'consonant' and 'vowel'. Our paradigmatic words and thus our Template, can be analysed and understood accordingly.
* * *
In this regard, the paradigm QOKEEDY displays perfect CV alternation, except that EE is a double vowel (dipthong):
Q O K EE D Y
Whereas, in the CHOLDAIIN paradigm, the CV alternation is broken by the consonants LD:
CH O L D A IIN
From this we can extract two rules for making Voynich words:
1. Maintain CV alternation because both paradigms show CV alternation.
2. Vowels cluster into a single unit but consonants do not. Vowel clusters do not break CV alternation, but adjacent consonants do.
Vowels: O E A Y
Consonants: Q, K, D, CH, L, N.
In addition recall, there are some simple substitution rules based on the visual form of glyphs. CH can be SH or S, L and N can be R, N can be M, and so on.
This is a system of initials and finals, variants of consonants, deployed for marking the stream of CVCVCVCV into distinct words.
As well, any of the gallows can substitute for K.
The benched gallows are superimposed consonants: [ckh] = k + ch. This is a way of bonding two consonants without provoking a word break.
* * *
As a convention, I will show consonants in upper case and vowels in lower case.
This draws attention to the fact that the consonants include the tall gallows glyphs and that the consonants are all tall (with the exception of L) while vowels are all short glyphs.
QoKeeDy
CHoLDaIIN
Again:
Vowels can cluster and elide into a single unit.
But we see that it is the adjacent consonants that cause CHoLDaIIN to bifurcate into CHoL and DaIIN. We learn that two consonants provoke or imply a word break.
Similarly, in cycle, CHoLDaIIN does not flow. There is a double consonant: IIIN + CH, and adjacent consonants provoke a word break. There is thus a hard word break after N.
QoKeeDy, on the other hand, flows but does not stop. The alternation is continuous: yQyQyQ... There is no compulsion for a word break because there are no adjacent consonants.
Thus, a complication arises in both cases because we want to maintain CV alternation but at the same time divide the flow of the cycles into distinct words.
Therefore, the last glyph of QoKeeDy and the initial glyph of CHoLDaIIN are inherently mutable.
Again: this is to facilitate their cycles.
The vowel [y] is a pseudo-consonant. The consonant CH is a pseudo-vowel.
Specifically, [y] is a vowel after D but a consonant before Q. CH is a consonant before [o] but a vowel after N.
True Consonants: Q, K, D, L, N
Pseudo-Consonant: Y (y)
True vowels: o, e, a
Pseudo-vowel: [ch] CH
Here is the Universal Template with CV marked. But we must remember that the last glyph of QoKeeDy and the first glyph of CHoLDaIIN are mutable and can be either consonant or vowel as required.
* * *
Three Word Break Models
We have three implicit models of word breaks:
*The break after [y] in QoKeeDy
*The break after L in CHoL
*The break after N in DaIIN
*The break after N in DAIIN is hard and final.
*The break after Y in QoKeeDy is hard but implies continuation. It is cyclic. The final [y] implies the initial Q.
*The break after L in CHoL is soft and optional because CHoLDaIIN is a permitted form, but so is CHoL_DaIIN.
We see this in the distinct behavior of the glyphs N, [y] and L.
N is always final.
[y] is final, and initial (cyclic)
L may or may not be final.
The Glyph CH
Because N is a hard final, it is always implicit that CH is a vowel. It requires a word break to be a consonant.
This reveals an important rule:
CH is a consonant after word breaks but a vowel after consonants.
Specifically, it is a form of [ee]. When it follows a consonant, it follows the pattern Kee as Kch. When it follows a word break it hardens into a consonant.
* * *
Let us gather together these implicit rules into a short compendium:
*Maintain CV alternation.
*Vowels can cluster but consonants cannot, with the exception of L.
*Some adjacent consonants are permitted after the model LD. Otherwise, adjacent consonants provoke word breaks.
*[y] can be a vowel or a consonant.
*CH is a consonant after word breaks but a vowel after consonants.
* * *
Here is a selection of Voynich words with CV thus marked with vowels in red, noting how [y] and CH are mutable:
fachys
sheky
ykaiin
cthoary = tchoary
oteey
qokar
kchokchy
etodaiin
qokeody
otshchor
qokoldy
dchcthy = dchtchy
dytchor
ldals
podairol
Now we have a clearer view of how Voynichese forms in the field of possibilities. Valid words must conform to these rules, namely the rules of CV alternation.
Voynichese has persistent CV alternation to which valid configurations will conform and invalid configurations will not.
This, I contend - guided by the paradigmatic forms - is the basis of the grammar.
* * *
Turning to the Template, we need to apply the rule - vowels cluster - which might suggest vowel clusters must skip consonants in the underlying CV sequence.
We might suppose a vowel cluster will be, say, CVVVC which is actually CVCVCVC with intervening consonants implied.
But in our paradigm, QoKeeDY, we learn that the vowel cluster [ee] occupies only one position. It counts as a single unit. It is not VCV. [ee] is a single unit, and so is [eee].
This reveals that vowel clusters are divisions and only amount to a single configuration, occupying a single vowel space, a single position in words.
We adopt this as a rule:
Vowel clusters are single units and only occupy one position in the construction of words.
Thus in [kchokchy] the vowel cluster [cho] occupies only one position.
1st - k
2nd - cho
3rd - k
4th - ch
5th - y
Here are some demonstrations presented on the Template:
* * *
Voynichese is a closed system. Given the paradigmatic forms, I propose that we can extract the rules, the grammar, from first principles.
This must conform to the actual manifestations of the text, of course, but there is an underlying model of which we can give a coherent account, which reveals how the 'language' operates and which illuminates otherwise opaque data.
But we must remember that not only are there rules, there is an order of rules, a hierarchy of rules. It has logos.
In any case, the paradigms and the Template demonstrate great explanatory power.
R.B.
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