@aparrish huh, that way of putting it seems like it could also describe the origin of the Markov chain! that syntactic tendencies of text were divorced from meaning was precisely the point Markov wanted to make, i think?

{ can't find a great ref but here's a short one: https://www.crummy.com/2013/02/22/0 }
{{ my own syntax is tending now to the oulipo-stiff, apologies! }}