Re: Phonemes

"John Atkinson" <johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:CXPte.24825$F7.930
@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

(snip)

>> Can you clarify a little more on this? I'm not sure how
>> physiologically vs. neurologically would be different?
>
> "Physiologically": Their mouth, tongue, and vocal chords would have no
> trouble producing them, and their ears would have no trouble
> distinguishing them.

Thanks. I'm not sure about having no trouble distinguishing them.

>
> "Neurologically": Does the language organ in their brains have
> sufficient synapses (or whatever) to deal with such a large number of
> basic units? I certainly don't know enough about how it works to say --
> or even whether the question is answerable at all, or whether it's
> well-posed.
>
>
Well, if they can distinguish them, I don't see a problem. After all, we
have no trouble handling, (usually), the large number of distinct
meaningful forms. If that makes any sense.

--
The next meetings of the Heinlein Readers Group
Thursday 6/23/05 @ 9:00 P.M. EST and
Saturday 6/25/05 @ 5:00 P.M. EST
The topic for this discussion will be:
"Nature in Heinlein".
See: http://heinleinsociety.org/readersgroup/index.html

.

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