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The Motor Core of Speech: A Comparison of Serial Organization Patterns in Infants and Languages
Author(s) -
MacNeilage Peter F.,
Davis Barbara L.,
Kinney Ashlynn,
Matyear Christine L.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00129
Subject(s) - psychology , communication , language development , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , linguistics , philosophy
Comparison of serial organization of infant babbling and early speech with that of 10 languages reveals four movement‐related design features reflecting a deep evolutionary heritage: (1) the cyclical consonant–vowel alternation underlying the syllable, a “Frame” for speech consisting of mandibular oscillation, possibly evolving from ingestive cyclicities (e.g., chewing) via visuofacial communicative cyclicities (e.g., lipsmacks); (2) three intracyclical consonant–vowel co‐occurrence preferences reflecting basic biomechanical constraints — coronal consonants–front vowels, dorsal consonants–back vowels, and labial consonants–central vowels; (3) a developmental progression from above‐chance to below‐chance levels of intercyclical consonant repetition; (4) an ease‐related labial consonant–vowel– coronal consonant sequence preference for word initiation. These design features presumably result from self‐organizational responses to selection pressures, primarily determined by motor factors. No explanation for these design features is available from Universal Grammar, and, except for feature 3, perceptual‐motor learning seems to have only a limited causal role in acquisition of any design feature.