In defense of etymological speculation

[Mark A Mandel]

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Alice Faber wrote:

        [Mark M]
#>Is "ayup" often pronounced with a glottal stop FOLLOWED by labial
#>closure? If so, the [p] would be nearly or totally inaudible.
#
#I don't have native intuitions about this. My gut feeling, though, is
#that the consonant is unreleased (hence, virtually inaudible) *and*
#the vowel is very short, which means that there *must* be a following
#voiceless consonant (in English). So, you end up with a /t/ percept
#without a [t]. So to speak.

But a smile without a cat? :-)

-- Mark