European Studies in Phonetics and Speech Communication, edited by G. Bloothooft, V. Hazan, D. Huber, and J. Llisterri, Utrecht, Netherlands.
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Abstract
Language is a biological system and as such brings a complex evolutionary history into the present. Humans are predisposed to produce and perceive speech, and they acquire by two years of age a system that we have as yet been unable to duplicate in machines. The evidence points to a neurological specialization for speech. Such a specialization makes humans typical members of the biological world: Behaviors that become communicative acts in animals tend to come under separate neurological control (Wilson, 1975), and it is likely that every species has a specialization for communication with its own kind.
