Just wondering (re: "busghetti")

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jan 2, 2007, at 5:30 AM, Charlie Doyle wrote:

> ... My (barely) 2-year-old grandson is afraid of [neks].  I can't
> decide whether he fails to hear the initial /s/ or is just unable
> to articulate it.

almost surely the problem is in mental control of articulation (not
even in articulation itself).  try talking about snakes as [neks] and
see how that sits with him.  with luck, you'll get a response along
the lines of "NO NO, not [neks] -- *[neks]*!"  this is classic child
language acquisition stuff.

arnold

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