Embodiment, not imitation, leads to the replication of timing phenomena

Abstract

In many languages, a spoken vowel is shorter before phonologically voiceless consonants than before voiced ones. In West Germanic languages, including English, tense and lax vowels have different lengths and there is a characteristic 'stress-timed' rhythm. For these phenomena and some others, it is generally assumed that time is the controlled variable for production, and that children replicate these speech behaviors through the reproduction of timing patterns abstracted from the adult input (i.e. by imitation). The developmental data does not support these assumptions, and an imitative mechanism would present a young speaker with a highly complex challenge. Instead, these behaviors are more plausibly the result of the embodiment of speech. Embodiment goes beyond laryngeal and articulatory function. A child's speech breathing is not a scaled-down version of the adult model but a distinctly different skill, and one that must be learnt during speech production. Similarly, the aerodynamic setting of child speech differs significantly from that of adults. The constraints that these factors impose become manifest in speech as changes in timing, but these changes are epiphenomenal, not modelled directly. Phenomena particular to West Germanic languages reflect the style of speech breathing these languages require of a child.