Structural harmony and Neandertäl speech: A reply to Le May
✍ Scribed by Philip Lieberman
- Book ID
- 101459775
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1976
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 357 KB
- Volume
- 45
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0002-9483
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
The Neandertäl supralaryngeal vocal tract reconstruction reported by Lieberman and Crelin ('71) is based on the methods of comparative anatomy. Normal adult‐like humans have a skeletal morphology in harmony with the soft tissue of their vocal tracts. This is also the case for non‐human primates and human newborns who have a different skeletal morphology in harmony with a different vocal tract. The “bits and pieces” that together constitute functional complexes are under separate and complex genetic control. The conditions discussed by Le May ('75) can result in the retention of some features of the skeletal morphology of a newborn in association with an adult‐like supralaryngeal vocal tract. However, these examples cannot show how the soft tissue of the supralaryngeal hominid vocal tract would match the skeletal structure of a fossil hominid, if the fossil hominid population were subject to the same selectional forces operant on all living primates. The Neandertäl supralaryngeal tract is thus probably in harmony with its skeletal morphology and similar to that of a human newborn.