Each discussion concludes with a nuanced phonetic value for the sign.

Godart 1984 demonstrated that 7 (possibly 8) complex words (3 or more syllables) appear in both Linear A & B, and that therefore 12 signs have the same values in Linear B and A (DA, I, JA, KI, PA, PI, RO, RI, SE, SU, TA, O): RI & TA are two of those, but HLM assigns them completely different values (y/ye and s (th/z), respectively).

HLM derives phonetic values for Linear A signs based on their similarities with signs in various eastern Mediterranean and northeast African scripts (see above) as if such similarities constituted a demonstration that Linear A derived from those scripts -- similarities in the shape of written signs may not indicate similarities of phonetic value, even when it can be demonstrated that one script derived from another (e.g., Cyrilic from Greek, but Russian H [/n/] is not pronounced like Greek H [/ē/]).

HLM also assigns phonetic values to several ideograms (VIR, GRA, OLIV, OLE, VIN, etc.), of which only VIR & VIN seem to operate also as syllabograms.

Instead, Linear A probably derives many if not most of its signs from Cretan Hieroglyphic, which HLM occasionally mentions but whose relaltionship to Linear A he does not discuss at all. Most signs in Cretan Hieroglyphic are pictographs, whose names or sounds or other qualities may have determined the phonetic values (e.g., LinA 23 from CH *012 , bull head, "mu"; LinA 60 from CH *018 , dog head, "ra").

Duhoux, Companion to Linear B (2008), pp. 349-61, criticizes the recent translations of the new Theban texts because they introduce a religious interpretation of words imperfectly understood.