Open Peer Commentary MacNeilage: Evolution of speech
The frame/content model and syntactic evolution
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy a1 a1 Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
a.c-mcc@ling.canterbury.ac.nz
Abstract
The frame/content theory suggests that chewing was tinkered
into speaking. A simple extrapolation of this approach suggests that
syllable structure may have been tinkered into syntax. That would
explain the widely noted parallels between sentence structure and
syllable structure, and also the otherwise mysterious pervasiveness
of the grammatical distinction between sentences and noun
phrases.
