Re: Human Language. (long post)
Phillip Bigelow (bh162@scn.org)
Fri, 03 Jan 1997 18:27:25 -0800
Thomas Clarke wrote:
>
> In article <32CBCEDB.53B5@earthlink.net> Michael McBroom <bodhi@earthlink.net>
> writes:
> > ... I'll wager that otters, beavers, seals,
> > sea lions, walruses, dugongs, and manatees (did I leave any out?) all
> > use the standard plan vocal tract.
There is no standard plan vocal tract in aquatic animals (see below).
Tom Clarke wrote:
> Starting with a suggestion by Alistair Hardy she has written
> that much can be explained about the differences betweeen man
> and ape if an aquatic or semi-aquatic episode is postulated.
> Aquatic animals (think of pigs)
Pigs are not aquatic animals, and paleontologically, there is no
evidence that this clade was even semi-aquatic.
> In addition, "otters, beavers, seals, sea lions, walruses, dugongs,
> and manatees" etc tend to have a respiratory tract like that of humans.
Wrong. As for the lutrines, they have the conventional carnivoran
laryngeal/pharyngeal morphology. Beavers have the typical rodent
lar/phar morphology. Only SOME pinnipeds have a superio-inferiorly-
"relaxed" lar/phar morphology, which is NOT as similar to
the human descended structure as some believe. MOST pinnipeds
have a modified lar/phar structure that is different from land
arctoids, but it is more similar to land arctoids than it is
to humans.
Manatees have a laryngeal/pharyngeal structure that is different
from BOTH humans AND pinnipeds.
There is no definative "aquatic" larygeal/pharyngeal structure
common to aquatic or semi-aquatic animals to base such a claim on.
> I find Morgan's ideas interesting. For a more complete account see
> William Calvin's web page
> http://weber.u.washington.edu/~wcalvin/bk3.html
And for a counter-argument, I am sure that Tom would heartily
recommend this URL:
http://www.inforamp.net/~jimmoore
I know that Tom, as well as I, like to analyze both sides of this
issue.
Happy New Year, everybody!
<pb>
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