Embedded structure and the evolution of phonology

This paper explores a structure ubiquitous in grammar, the embedded tree, and develops a proposal for how such embedded structures played a fundamental role in the evolution of consonants and vowels. Assuming that linguistic capabilities emerged as a cognitive system from a simply reactive system and that such a transition required the construction of an internal mapping of the system body (cf. Cruse 2003), we propose that this mapping was determined through articulation and acoustics. By creating distinctions between articulators in the vocal tract or by acoustic features of sounds, and then embedding these distinctions, the various possible properties of consonants and vowels emerged. These embedded distinctions represent paradigmatic options for the production of sounds, which provide the basic building blocks for prosodic structure. By anchoring these embedded structures in the anatomy and physiology of the vocal tract, the evolution of phonology itself can be explained by extra-linguistic factors.

[1]  Andrew Damerell Carstairs.  The Origins of Complex Language: An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables, and Truth , 1999 .

[2]  Bernd Fritzsch,et al.  The Evolution of the amphibian auditory system , 1988 .

[3]  Philip Lieberman,et al.  The Biology and Evolution of Language , 1984 .

[4]  Gunnar Fant,et al.  Acoustic Theory Of Speech Production , 1960 .

[5]  W. Hoese,et al.  Birdsong: motor function and the evolution of communication , 1992 .

[6]  Peter Ladefoged,et al.  Linguistic Phonetic Descriptions of Clicks , 1984 .

[7]  J. H. Long,et al.  Kinematics of birdsong: functional correlation of cranial movements and acoustic features in sparrows. , 1993, The Journal of experimental biology.

[8]  Luciano Fadiga,et al.  The mirror system in humans , 2002 .

[9]  N. Pierce.  Origin of Species , 1914, Nature.

[10]  P. Lieberman.  The Origins of Complex Language: An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables, and Truth , 2000 .

[11]  Peter F. MacNeilage,et al.  Contingencies governing the production of fricatives, affricates, and liquids in babbling , 2000, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[12]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions. , 1996, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[13]  G. K. Iverson,et al.  Aspiration and laryngeal representation in Germanic , 1995, Phonology.

[14]  P. MacNeilage,et al.  Motor Explanations of Babbling and Early Speech Patterns , 1993 .

[15]  Noam Chomsky.  Review of B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior , 1959 .

[16]  Kenneth Webb,et al.  Evolution of Communication Simulation of Adaptive Behavior – Project Report , 2004 .

[17]  Holk Cruse,et al.  The evolution of cognition - a hypothesis , 2003, Cogn. Sci..

[18]  B. Lindblom.  Phonetic Universals in Vowel Systems , 1986 .

[19]  J. Laver.  The phonetic description of voice quality , 1980 .

[20]  Ian Maddieson,et al.  Revision of the IPA: linguo-labials as a test case , 1987, Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

[21]  P. Ladefoged.  Preliminaries to linguistic phonetics , 1967 .

[22]  R. Suthers,et al.  Individual Variation in Vocal Tract Resonance May Assist Oilbirds in Recognizing Echoes of Their Own Sonar Clicks , 1988 .

[23]  I R MacKay.  Tenseness in Vowels: an Ultrasonic Study , 1977, Phonetica.

[24]  P. MacNeilage,et al.  The frame/content theory of evolution of speech production , 1998, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[25]  M. Arbib,et al.  Language within our grasp , 1998, Trends in Neurosciences.

[26]  Ian Maddieson,et al.  Patterns of sounds , 1986 .

[27]  Wolfgang Kehrein,et al.  Phonological Representation and Phonetic Phasing : Affricates and Laryngeals , 2002 .

[28]  John Laver,et al.  Principles of Phonetics: Principles of transcription , 1994 .

[29]  Vittorio Gallese,et al.  Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language , 2002 .

[30]  R. Laboissière,et al.  Learning to Speak: Speech Production and Sensori-Motor Representations , 1997 .

[31]  P. Ladefoged,et al.  Fundamental problems in phonetics , 1977 .

[32]  Linda Lombardi,et al.  Laryngeal neutralization and syllable wellformedness , 1995 .

[33]  M. Studdert-Kennedy,et al.  The evolutionary emergence of language : social function and the origins of linguistic form , 2000 .

[34]  P. Ladefoged,et al.  The sounds of the world's languages , 1996 .

[35]  Peter F. MacNeilage,et al.  Acquisition of Speech Production: Frames, Then Content , 2018, Attention and Performance XIII.

[36]  J. Morton,et al.  Developmental Neurocognition: Speech and Face Processing in the First Year of Life , 2008 .

[37]  Peter F. MacNeilage,et al.  The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Evolution of Speech: The Relation Between Ontogeny and Phylogeny , 2000 .

[38]  Jean E. Andruski,et al.  Phonation types in production of phonological tone: the case of Green Mong , 2000, Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

[39]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Action recognition in the premotor cortex. , 1996, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[40]  J. Locke,et al.  Phonological acquisition and change , 1983 .

[41]  F. D. Saussure,et al.  Course in general linguistics : Cours de linguistique générale(Orig.) , 1966 .

[42]  Jan-Olof Svantesson.  Kammu phonology and morphology , 1983 .