parallel copies using strings of syllabic signs. Were we to quantify this parallel text using
morphological units, we would find that some copies (using syllabic forms) would pro-
duce greater statistical values than other copies (using logographic forms). This would
present us with the problem that, while all copies essentially held the same amount of
meaning and differed only in terms of their orthography, our statistical results would be
skewed to represent the copies with more written morphemes (spelled out syllabically) as
showing a higher ratio of calculated units to variants than the copies with less written
morphemes (compressed within logograms).
Such a distorted statistical result might be permissible if the phenomenon just described
only occurred in a small number of cases, however it would appear that certain texts
regularly represent particular words with single logograms while parallel copies represent
the same words with multiple morphemes fully expressed with syllabic signs.^104 It there-
fore seems obvious to us that a system of quantification needs to be devised that can treat
a single logographic form as equal to a longer syllabic form, given that each form is iden-
(^104) For example, in the parallel copies of MUL.APIN we find that BM 86378 iii 9 represents the plural verb
innammāru with the compound logogram IGI.LÁ, while AO7540 ii 9 has IGIME, and K 6558 + Sm 1907
ii 6’ has IGI. Each text clearly means to write a plural verb, as the multiple subjects to which the verb refers
attest in each copy. If we are to base the quantification of our texts on morphology, we would count two
morphemes for the first two forms, and one morpheme for the third form. In so doing we create the mis-
taken impression in our statistical analysis that there is less information being communicated in the third
text, when in fact all texts communicate the same plural verb form and differ only in their orthography.
Another example occurs in the parallel copies of the 63rd tablet of Enūma Anu Enlil. BM 36395 regularly
represents the lexeme u""aram with the logogram ZAL, whereas the parallel texts K2321+K3032 and
W1924.802 consistently use the syllabic spelling u"-"a-ram. Another parallel text, K160, uses a mixture of
the two forms. There are, as would be expected in cuneiform writing, many other instances of the same
phenomenon to be found in our texts.