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

On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 23:14, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Maybe we should do a list of all conlangers who've not have trouble with [T]
> and [D]?
I can remember myself and/or my older sister being taught [T] and [D].
Probably both of us. By Mum in the van. Before which, I think we
would've been saying [f] and [v]. However, I know that memory is screwed
because it happened before we got the van, but my memory is of it
happening as we were getting into it. So I doubt I had trouble with it;
it was just the last pair of sounds to master. I can also remember being
taught how to say 'hospital' (rather than hopsital).

> Till I learnt to say 'em properly, I used [d] for /D/, and for /T/ [t] and
> [f], with quite random distribution - I used to say [fIN] "thing" and
> [tINk] "think".
[f] and [v] would've been better, I think. At least that way you sound
like a native speaker, even if it's native Cockney :)

> I also, perhaps more creatively, had trouble with voiced fricatives. I still
> tend to devoice English /z/ and /Z/ way too often.
I have difficulty with [z] when before voiced stops[1] and tend to
devoice it then. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often in English.

--
Tristan.

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