Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T11:35:02.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Models of the evolution of speech and phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

W. Tecumseh Fitch
Affiliation:
Universität Wien, Austria
Get access

Summary

Evolving speech

In the previous chapters I first concluded that the vocal periphery, long emphasized in discussions of language evolution, played a minor role in the evolution of speech. A language-equipped brain could master, and communicate using, the vocal tract of a chimpanzee, or indeed a dog, quite adequately. Furthermore, the flexibility of the vocal apparatus attested in living mammals indicates that there is little hope of reconstructing the speech abilities of extinct hominids from their fossil remains. Finally, the discovery that several animal species possess a reconfigured vocal tract similar to our own, but do not use it in speech production, means that even if we could use fossils to determine when the larynx descended in hominid evolution, we could not necessarily deduce whether those hominids spoke. These relatively negative conclusions supported the positive conclusion that changes in the brain were crucial for the evolution of speech, and we then explored the neural and genetic bases that currently seem to be critical for vocal learning and imitation.

In this chapter, I will attempt to synthesize these diverse strands of evidence, and begin to investigate theories of the evolution of speech and basic phonology. I begin by considering models of speech evolution (often termed “theories,” despite lacking the gravitas normally associated with this term in science). My goal will be to evaluate the central innovations and insights in each model.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×