this message brought to you by the letter P

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 9, 2004, at 8:56 AM, James A. Landau wrote:

> In a message dated Thu, 8 Apr 2004 14:36:56 -0700, Grandpa Zwicky
> <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> complains:
>
>>  "Your Letter Link set contains 7 special letters which
>>  represent baby's first sounds (B, D, G, M, T, C, A). "
>
> the first four consonants are voiced, then unvoiced T (but voiced D is
> already in the list).  This is enough to make me suspicious of the
> entire list.
> Also is it a hard or a soft C?  .

well, it's a letter, not a sound.  in combination with the only
available vowel, A, it has to be pronounced "hard", i.e. as /k/.  so
that gives the consonant system
/               t       k
        b       d       g
        m                       /

which i think is unfair to /p/.  and maybe to /n/ as well.

(GAM)PAPA arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)