Re: THEORY: language and the brain [Interesting article]

On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 00:52, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Huh.  Based on such descriptions as "halfway between l and r",
> I'd just assumed that [l] was an allophonic or dialectical variant
> of Japanese /4/; I haven't heard enough Japanese for it to be suspicious
> that I hadn't heard [l] firsthand.  But I guess it's just another case
> of non-phoneticists getting their "explanation" wrong. :)
Well, I've heard native speakers natively speaking Japanese in a real
life, and things like /rja/ (i.e. big RI, small ya) sounded exactly like
[lja] to me, but that could just be my non-rhotic ear playing tricks on
me.

> Speaking of Japanese phonology - I originally thought, based on the book
> I was using, that /u/ was, in fact, pronounced [u].  But then upon
> listening to some Japanese speech, I decided it was [y] instead.  Now,
> after listening to much more Japanese, I have decided it's actually
> [M].   Am I right yet?   Are two or more of the above allophonic
> variants?
[M] is the correct one, yes.

--
Tristan.

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