Biological Foundations For Human Speech
The descended larynx was formerly viewed as a structure unique to the human vocal tract and essential to the development of speech and language. However, it has been found in other species, including some aquatic mammals and large deer (e.g. Red Deer), and the larynx has been observed to descend during vocalizations in dogs, goats, and alligators. In humans, the descended larynx extends the length of the vocal tract and expands the variety of sounds humans can produce. Some scholars claim that the ubiquity of nonverbal communication in humans stands as evidence of the non-essentiality of the descended larynx to the development of language.
The descended larynx has non-linguistic functions as well, possibly exaggerating the apparent size of an animal (through vocalizations with lower than expected pitch). Thus, although it plays an important role in speech production, expanding the variety of sounds humans can produce, it may not have evolved specifically for this purpose, as has been suggested by Jeffrey Laitman, and as per Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002), could be an example of preadaptation.
Read more about this topic: Origin Of Language
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