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Phonation takes precedence over articulation in development as well as evolution of language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2014

D. Kimbrough Oller
D. Kimbrough Oller*
Affiliation:
School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38105. [email protected]://umwa.memphis.edu/fcv/viewprofile.php?uuid=koller Institute for Intelligent Systems, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152 Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, A-3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria.
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Abstract

Early human vocal development is characterized first by emerging control of phonation and later by prosodic and supraglottal articulation. The target article has missed the opportunity to use these facts in the characterization of evolution in language-specific brain mechanisms. Phonation appears to be the initial human-specific brain change for language, and it was presumably a key target of selection in early hominin evolution.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 6 , December 2014 , pp. 567 - 568
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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