2003-03-12Z2011-03-11T08:55:07Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2658This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/26582003-03-12ZPhonemic Coding Might Result From
Sensory-Motor Coupling DynamicsHuman sound systems are invariably phonemically coded. Furthermore,
phoneme inventories follow very particular tendancies. To explain
these phenomena, there existed so far three kinds of approaches :
``Chomskyan''/cognitive innatism, morpho-perceptual innatism
and the more recent approach of ``language as a complex cultural system
which adapts under the pressure of efficient communication''.
The two first approaches are clearly not satisfying, while
the third, even if much more convincing,
makes a lot of speculative assumptions and did not
really bring answers to the question of phonemic coding. We propose
here a new hypothesis based on a low-level model of
sensory-motor interactions. We show that certain very
simple and non language-specific neural devices
allow a population of agents to build signalling systems
without any functional pressure. Moreover, these systems
are phonemically coded. Using a realistic vowel articulatory
synthesizer, we show that the inventories of vowels
have striking similarities with human vowel systems.Pierre-Yves Oudeyer