Solving the Veronese Riddle
Decoding Medieval Context-Dependent Semantics
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Abstract
Problem. This paper examines the eighth-century Veronese Riddle not as a static artifact, but as a signal from a network of knowledge. While Classical Latin represented the visible cathedral of formal language, the riddle signals the logic of an underlying "mycelial network" of vernacular communication, where meaning is bound by local context. This paper treats the riddle as an early, informal prototype of Deferred Semantic Binding.
Method. The analysis introduces Deferred Semantic Binding Language, an abstraction layer that keeps symbols semantically dormant until a runtime key ([[CONTEXT:writing]]) binds them. The riddle is modelled as a four-step tokencontext pipeline and executed in a reference parser.
Results. The DSBL model reproduces the classical solution (ngers → page → ink) and formalises the scribe as an archetypal contextual operator, a role now echoed by modern API gatekeepers.
Contributions.
- a formal DSBL encoding of the riddle;
- a computational bridge between medieval text practices and network-society theory.
Treating binding time as a design variable, the results show that deferred semantics is not a modern invention
Citation
Petersson, J. (2025). Solving the Veronese Riddle: A DSBL Approach to Medieval Context-Dependent Semantics. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15930510
Research Context
The eighth-century Veronese Riddle represents one of the earliest examples of vernacular writing in medieval Europe. This work applies computational linguistics and context-dependent semantic theory to decode the riddle's solution and its underlying logic as a prototype of deferred binding systems.
This research contributes to the broader DSBL framework for context-dependent symbol activation, with implications for understanding both historical communication patterns and modern distributed consensus mechanisms. The technical specification of the underlying protocol is detailed in the core framework paper.