Inic Ome netlanliztli

[Frances Karttunen]

Dear Michael,

It's true we can't reproduce the phonetics of 16th century Nahuatl speech,
but we CAN tell something about the systematic phonology.  Nahuatl pays
attention to whether words begin with vowels or consonants/glides ([y] is
in the latter category).  As far as Nahuatl prefixes are concerned, words
beginning with phonemic /i/ function as though they begin with vowels
(even if the /i/ is often orthographically represented with "y"), and those
that actually begin with /y/ function as though they begin with consonants.

Fran