Sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns

In this chapter, we explore the relationships between sensorimotor constraints and the organization of sound patterns. An investigation of universal tendencies found in languages of the world reveals some recurrent patterns that are hypothesized to be related to the speaker’s production mechanism and the listener’s perceptual system. Linguistic/phonemic representations would thus be tightly related to physical and peripheral constraints, suggesting that the origins of languages are to be found, at least partly, in the human body.