Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity

This chapter points to vocalisation as the basis for language evolution, but focuses on the mechanics involved in producing the sounds of human language. A key pre-adaptation for language was the evolution of a system in which a limited set of discrete elements could be combined into an unlimited number of different larger units, giving rise to discrete infinity. The ability for vocal language draws on ancient mammalian oral capacities for sucking, licking, chewing, and swallowing. Subsequent evolutionary pressures for more intelligible information exchanges through vocalisations would then have led to a further differentiation of the vocal tract. This resulted in the evolution of six different brain-controlled motor systems to modify the configuration of the vocal tract, comprising the lips, tongue lip, tongue body, tongue root,velum, and the larynx. Different configurations of these discrete systems result in different phonetic gestures. Subsequent expansion, elaboration, and combination of phonetic gestures into larger complex structures would have occurred through processes of cultural evolution involving attunement among speakers through vocal mimicry.