UNIVERSIDAD TÉCNICA DEL NORTE

FACULTAD DE ECUCACIÓN CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGÍA

MORPHOSYNTAX

Name: William Ricardo Panamá Pises

Course: 7th level
Date: 22-10-21

Study Questions

1. When did written language develop?

Written language began to develop around 5000 years ago

2. When can we say the human auditory system has begun working?
And from the 25th week of gestation, the hearing organ is already functional.

3. What did Darwin think early human communication was first based on?
Darwin is based on the fact that the first humans spent their time trying to meet others by
emitting sounds such as musical notes or rhythms

4. What two things did early humans need to take control of to produce intonation?
• Control of the respiratory system.
• Control of the vibration of the vocal folds.

5. What percentage of human breathing while speaking normally consists of in

breaths?
In human respiration, 10% is used for breaths and 90% is intended for exhalations that
produce speech.

6. What is the difference between the position of the larynx in humans and other
primates?
Unlike chimpanzees, whose larynx is very high, humans have it located in a clearly lower
position. This fact has several disadvantages, including the inability to breathe while
swallowing. In other words, humans, due to their lower larynx, are much more likely
than apes to choke to death.

7. Why are interjections such as Ooh! or Yuck! considered to be unlikely sources of

human speech sounds?
These sounds that people make when they are surprised are not natural of speech and are
not used frequently and therefore it is considered that their source is unlikely in our
language.

8. What is the basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory of language origin?
The Bow-Wow theory is an early theory that tries to explain, as the Big-Bang theory
tries to explain the origin of the universe, a mystery not so cosmic but so peculiar: how
humans began to use language, how we began to pronounce what we can consider the
origin of our ability to communicate. Early human tried to imitate sounds and then used
them to refer to those objects.

9. Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the
original human language?
Said sound or "word" is not properly human or does not come from any human source,
from here various people have suggested that perhaps children have heard it from goats

10. Where is the pharynx and how did it become an important part of human sound
production?
The pharynx is a hollow tube that begins behind the nose, runs down the neck, and ends at
the top of the windpipe and esophagus. The three parts of the pharynx are the nasopharynx,
the oropharynx and the hypopharynx and this part of the human body is very important
because it has developed so much as to allow communication

11. Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign language
would be cited in support of the innateness hypothesis?
Because being deaf children do not perceive sounds and would not have the ability to
learn any language, from that they can be used in this theory since it would be verified
that the ability to communicate is innate

12. With which of the seven “sources” would you associate the following quotation?
Chewing, licking, and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities,
which, in terms of casual observation, have obvious similarities with speech.
(MacNeilage, 1998)
The Physical Adaptation Source