Vocal tract anatomy and language: Non-linguistic factors may influence language diversity and evolution
Dan Dediu (MPI Nijmegen)
Tuesday 11 October 2016, 11:00–12:30
1.17 Dugald Stewart Building
Lately, there are several strands of evidence emerging that seems to suggest that language is also shaped by non-linguistic factors, and I will explore in this talk several such proposals, focusing on a particular subtype, namely biases with a biological component. I will give a glimpse of work-in-progress exploring the link between vocal tract anatomy and physiology and phonetic/phonological diversity and discuss the relevance of such “biased cultural evolution” for understand language evolution, language change and the present-day linguistic diversity.