Christian Abry
2008
Is pointing the root of the foot? Grounding the ``prosodic word'' as a pointing wordPDF
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, pages 3-9, 2008
Recently in the Vocalize-to-Localize framework (a functional stance just started in the Interaction Studies 2004-2005 issues we edited, Abry et al., 2004), we addressed the unification of two grounding attempts concerning the syllable and the foot in language ontogeny. Can the ...MORE ⇓
Recently in the Vocalize-to-Localize framework (a functional stance just started in the Interaction Studies 2004-2005 issues we edited, Abry et al., 2004), we addressed the unification of two grounding attempts concerning the syllable and the foot in language ontogeny. Can the movement time of the pointing strokes of a child be predicted from her babbling rhythm? The answer for 6 babies (6-18 months) was a 2:1 pointing-to-syllable ratio. Implications for the grounding of the first words within this Pointing Frame will be examined. More tentatively we will suggest that babbling for protophonology together with pointing for protosyntax pave the way to language.
2007
The vocal tract of newborn humans and Neanderthals: Acoustic capabilities and consequences for the debate on the origin of language. A reply to Lieberman (2007a)doi.orgPDF
Journal of Phonetics 35(4):564--581, 2007
Our work casts doubt on fundamental aspects of Lieberman's theory on emergence of speech and vocal tract architecture. While our results do not show that Neanderthals were able to speak, they show that their vocal tracts would not have prevented them from doing ...