title: Prolegomena to a theory of the sound pattern of the first spoken language.
abstract: Although it would seem fundamental to the understanding of human beings, there has been virtually no attempt, in modern science, to develop a theory regarding the sound pattern of the first language. As a step towards such a theory, I suggest that ontogeny may recapitulate phylogeny. I propose that the pattern of open/close alternation of the mandible underlying the syllable which first appears in infants at the babbling stage is the missing link in the evolution of speech from ancestral primate vocal signals. In addition, I suggest that the conjoint set of sounds and sound patterns favored in babbling and early words, and in the world's languages, constitutes, in effect, the fossil record of true speech, and I provide a tentative enumeration of this set.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, University of Texas, Austin 78712.
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: MacNeilage
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal