Émergence des systèmes phonologiques

In this paper, it is shown that the speech production system can be explained from deforming an acoustic tube with the objective of producing sounds with both ieconomy of effortî and maximum acoustic contrast between one another. This deductive approach automatically infers standard places of articulation for vowels and consonants, thereby identifying physical bases for phonological distinctions. A brief discussion of the implications of the findings concludes the paper.
Carré René. Émergence des systèmes phonologiques.. In: Langages, 36ᵉ année, n°146, 2002. L'origine du langage, sous la direction de Bernard Laks et Bernard Victorri. pp. 70-79.