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Re: Initial /?/ (was: Number)

From:Shreyas Sampat <nsampat@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 7, 2001, 1:34
:     Yes, but say I went up to my friend and said, "I want to go to the
: movies."  How on Earth would I be able to tell whether "I" began with a
: glottal stop or not?  Would there be a noticeable difference?  We do hear
: some words in isolation at the beggining of utterances.  If we didn't,
then
: we'd just never stop speaking.

Context, maybe.  One would probably be able to guess the sensical word, and
if the /?/ was some sort of non-trivial grammatical marker, then possibly
one form would be ungrammatical.  There's a possibiity that the phonology
would mark it somehow, but humans are intelligent enough that it isn't
mandatory.

---
Shreyas