From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!venice!gumby.dsd.trw.com!deneva!willow.sdd.trw.com!shrdlu Wed Oct 14 14:58:19 EDT 1992
Article 7181 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True)
Subject: Re: "Mama"
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References: <1b1kk8INNgf7@smaug.West.Sun.COM> <1992Oct8.175921.28043@gallant.apple.com> <1992Oct9.025636.27460@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 15:51:10 GMT
Lines: 23

In article <1992Oct9.025636.27460@news.media.mit.edu>
  nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis) writes:
>In article <1992Oct8.175921.28043@gallant.apple.com>
    enea1@applelink.apple.com (Horace Enea) writes:

[deleted stuff about how babies learn to say ma]

I can't take it any more. I am not a linguist, but I have seen this
thread come up at least twice on sci.lang (the linguistics newsgroup),
wherein it is always resoundingly defeated. Not every culture uses the
phoneme "ma" in the word for mother. There are some languages in which
the infant sound for mother has no recognizable "m" or "a" sound at
all. Piaget was not a linguist, and there seems to be no linguistic
evidence that nursing causes a baby to use the word mama. Babies would
call their mothers "ooooo" if anything; I've been there, and the mouth
is just not shaped in any way that would cause the sound "ma" to come
out.

-- 
George Bush, the environmentalist: 1000 points of blight.

shrdlu@rowan.sdd.trw.com (Lynda L. True)
Work Phone - (310) 812-1660 or (310) 812-1570


