Re: Initial /?/ (was: Number)
| From: | Shreyas Sampat <nsampat@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, August 7, 2001, 1:34 |
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: 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.
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Shreyas