Kohler K.J. 1996. The development of sound systems in human language. Paper given at the Evolution of Human Language Conference held in Edinburgh, April 1996.  Home/Search   Document Not in Database   Summary   Related Articles

....single out the basic click mechanism from relatively frequent mechanisms such as implosiveness, ejectivity or plain voicing in stops. It has even been claimed that clicks should rightfully be counted as members of the set of basic sound elements which are rooted in primary vegetative functions (Kohler, 1996). It is rather unusual that clicks should be absent from the overwhelming majority of the world s languages, but at the same time be so dominant in the remaining ones. One approach to this problem has been to propose that clicks are primitive in the sense of being survivors of some precursor of ....

....example, there is no obvious reason why clicks would survive precisely in the part of the world where the first language may have emerged. Another view has been that the apparent articulatory and perceptual advantages of the clicks are outweighed by other, less favorable factors. For example, Kohler (1996) has suggested that the clicks may be limited in their ability to form an integral part of the syntagmatic organization of utterances, particularly in terms of coarticulation in syllabic units. While such factors may, in principle, constitute a reason for a sound type to occur sparsely, they do ....

Kohler K.J. 1996. The development of sound systems in human language. Paper given at the Evolution of Human Language Conference held in Edinburgh, April 1996.

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