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Human self-domestication refers to a new evolutionary hypothesis about human origins. According to this view, humans have experienced changes that are similar to those observed in domesticated mammals and that have provided us with many of the behavioural, and perhaps cognitive pre-requisites for supporting our complex social practices and advanced culture. At the core of this hypothesis is the claim that self-domestication is triggered by (and entails) a reduction in reactive aggression responses. The human self-domestication hypothesis has been recently used to explain how grammars became more sophisticated via a cultural mechanism. Nonetheless, less research has been done in the domain of phonology, even though animal evidence suggests that domestication favours call complex)ity too. In this paper, we hypothesise about the effects of our increased self-domestication on human prosody. We argue for a progressive complexification of prosody that parallels (and might be involved in a positive feed-back loop with) the complexification of grammar in response to a reduction in reactive aggression. We build on evidence of diverse nature, from language typology to brain function to language acquisition studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of CIRCULO de Linguistica Aplicada a la Comunicacion is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes the acoustic characteristics of sound [s] in the cities of: Medellín and Apartadó and explores the hypothesis that the articulation of /s/ will serve to distinguish between the dialects spoken in these two areas. The study analizes 943 [s] produced by a total amount of 32 speakers. The following parameters were considered in the analysis: Center of gravity, spectral peak, standard deviation of the spectrum, skewness, kurtosis, zero crossings and harmonic-noise ratio. Results suggest that: in syllable onset [s] is more apical in Medellín and more dentalised in Apartadó. Also, Medellín’s onset [s] is more sibilant. In coda position, there is no difference between the two dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]