Re: [ADS-L] ah/ awe

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/1/06 9:33:43 PM, truespel at HOTMAIL.COM writes:


> Basically it's a quest to
> retain what we can of the alphabetic principal.  This is important for
> language learners.  Studies have been interpreted to show that it's the
> deviation from the alphabetic principal that is "causing" 50% of the
> dyslexia in Englsih.
> 

I have no idea what the "alphabetical principal" is supposed to mean, much 
less how dislexia could be caused by the caught/cot merger. Given that the 
rounded vowel is spelled so many different ways and the unrounded vowel is spelled 
so many different other ways, it doesn't make sense that the merger would 
cause problems in learning to read (which is of course different from dislexia, 
which would have to do with the reversal of letters, not the elimination of a 
phoneme from a phonemic inventory). In fact, the elimination of a phonological 
contrast should make the learning process easier, since there is one fewer 
distinction that learners need to make in matching up the various spellings with 
their own pronunciation.

Anybody who says "pee-neumonia" must get lots of blank stares. Not to be 
confused with stairs.

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