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Science 21 April 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5465, pp. 527 - 531
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5465.527
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Reports

On the Origin of Internal Structure of Word Forms

Peter F. MacNeilage, 1* Barbara L. Davis 2

This study shows that a corpus of proto-word forms shares four sequential sound patterns with words of modern languages and the first words of infants. Three of the patterns involve intrasyllabic consonant-vowel (CV) co-occurrence: labial (lip) consonants with central vowels, coronal (tongue front) consonants with front vowels, and dorsal (tongue back) consonants with back vowels. The fourth pattern is an intersyllabic preference for initiating words with a labial consonant-vowel-coronal consonant sequence (LC). The CV effects may be primarily biomechanically motivated. The LC effect may be self-organizational, with multivariate causality. The findings support the hypothesis that these four patterns were basic to the origin of words.

1 Department of Psychology,
2 Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: macneilage{at}psy.utexas.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)