Article

Human vowels and great ape vowel-like calls reflect species-unique constraints on production

2025-05-26

Abstract excerpt

<p>This paper introduces the “phonetic equifinality” problem in speech evolution, namely, how similar ostensibly speech-like sounds can be produced by different species, while their execution is still subject to distinct articulatory constraints. Several (nonhuman) great ape vocalizations share acoustic and perceptual similarities with human speech sounds. However, their vocal tract morphology—featuring a species-...

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Literature Corpus work: a661b967-c40e-5186-8dbc-04f30baae410
DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/qru5h_v1

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