Dissociate Press is a Perl script based Markov filter based upon an EMACs script. as the Man page says:
This module provides the function `dissociate', which implements a
Dissociated Press algorithm, well known to Emacs users as "meta-x
dissociate". The algorithm here is by no means a straight port of
Emacs's `dissociate.el', but is instead merely inspired by it.
The Book of Proverbs has a worthy ancestor in the baked clay tablets which contain the Sumerian Proverbs A good sampling of these proverbs can be found in The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature at Oxford
I thought I'd give a sample of what Sumerian Proverbs look like after being "filtered" with the Dissociate Perl Script. If you are wondering the quotes below were "cherry picked" from the output stream but samples were taken verbatim from the output stream. I verified that none of the quotes below appeared in exactly the same form in the original input stream. Some punctuation has been added or removed but the "output streams were not tampered with.
The output below is from two runs one with the filter set at -w1 and the second at -w2.
Some of what you see below is nonsense. Some of it is interesting... to varying degrees.... there are also some actual fundamental "truths".
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A shepherd's sex appeal is his friend.
As long as you live you should not increase for mankind his food demands.
It is a curse resulting from a man's mouth taste bitter.
Let me tell you of my condition: it makes no difference.
You should not have given birth to fifty young.
The dry land did not know how to write your own good.
Fate is a dog, in a household of his friend?
How lowly is the poor? It is the food basket.
The claws of a cat can find a hole-- he makes a living, he offers a prayer. He is fearful, like a man.
The voice of the duck was not pleasant.
He does not fart... in her house.
Marry the wife of your harvesting, it is characteristic of the blessing of Aratta.
Do not make me uneasy. As long as you live, you should not eat his acquaintance.
Something offered is not offered. Something finished is not appreciated.
A runaway donkey, will not turn back.
The glory of the frog is the glory of the refugee.
Because I was flapping my arms like a bird flying around is your share.
A chattering girl is silenced by his mother.
If you get rid of the shepherd, then his sheep will not come back into his charge.
The clod on the other hand.
Like a whelping bitch.
Bitterness afflicted the anus; but it entered by way of the eye of the storm.
A chained dog starts a fight... with a wooden bat.
The poor man is not accepted.
Bring me my tools and I will live for today.
She who says "My expense" is her girl friend.
He who rents a donkey for a whole year kindles a fire. Those behind him don't say: "Where is the leader?"
The ruler of the city is Idibi. Its king's daughter cannot avoid the wasteland.
A king's property- What has been spoken in secret will be destroyed!
A disgraced scribe becomes an incantation priest. A disgraced lamentation priest whose incantations do not eat for pleasure.
A tenant established the field.
When he is dead, he is indeed a scribe!
O lion, your allies in the reed-beds will eat you.
The frog is the glory of the refugee.
A plant as sweet as a slave girl-- Let her eat the flesh of a wolf.
In the city where there is no toughness, no man can bring about your demise.
the poor man caused all kinds of illnesses on the rich man's work.
The young man said: "Ah god!" and the boat sinks.
Left-over clothes are the glory of the gardens.
No one can rival the wise man.
Whatever the man in authority said, it was not apparent to the slave girl of a lukur priestess. "Let me fill your new storehouse with interest. "
The wild cow at the top... it does not know Sumerian?
"I am one whose fate has not been destroyed, let more places be destroyed. In those places which have not been destroyed, belongs to my mistress.
The heart does not abandon the good.
The gecko wears a beard.
The dishonest man is destroyed by the treacherous man.
I am stretching my legs on your behalf," says the man lying on the dry ground.
"I'm fat!" would be the inheritance given to you.
One does not marry a three-year-old wife as a donkey
The steward does not know fear of god.
When the dishonest man stole silver; the honest man will earn his pay.
Who can compete with righteousness?
You should not increase evil by telling lies
When you walk behind, the vixen quenched her thirst.
In marrying a malicious son, an unhappy heart was assigned to me.
Punishment is assigned for the necromancer.
You are not one who stays in ones hand.
O mule, do you know your mother?
Wicked things are strong.
The lion who lives from birds and fish cannot sleep.
The young scribe is too concerned with feeding his hunger.
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Footnotes:
In a later post may try to simulate "a partially legible tablet... "
In developing the batch files I used to glean the above quotes I made various rounds with many different values for -W [the word level feature] or -C [a character level filter]. I ended up selecting to first post from the -w1 -w2 runs...
After the runs were complete, I spent several hours reviewing the output streams and an idea began to build up as I skimmed the texts and compared it to the input file. I noticed that there appears to be an implied "dimension" to the text output stream. Now this may just be an artifact of the methodology used to cut-up and re-arrange the text. But it also might imply something about language and language users... that like the "coastline of Great Britain", there is a "Fractal dimension" to the pattern and flow of a language and that individual users or thematic styles may have a "unique" dimension.
I'll have to think on this. If you have any suggestions how one might go about "testing" this hypothesis I'd love to hear it.
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