Oller constructs a new infrastructural model of vocal communication systems that permits provocative reconceptualizations of the ways infant vocalizations progress systematically toward speech, insightful comparaisons between..

Contents: Preface. Interpretation of Communication Systems: The Role of Infrastructural Modeling. Myths About Babbling and the Tradition of Transcription. Reversing the Field: The Recognition of Protophones. Infraphonology: Overview and Central Results. Keys to an Infrastructural Approach: Infraphonology as a Basis for Vocal Comparisons. The Grounding of Vocal and Gestural Development in Biology and Experience: Physical Foundations for Speech and Sign Language. Canalization Results: The Stability of Protophone Development in a Variety of Contexts. Limits on the Disruption of the Canalized Pattern of Babbling. An Expanded View of the Landscape in Infant Vocalizations: Infrastructure for Sounds and Functions in Babbling. Protophones and Other Vocalizations. Primate Vocalizations in the Perspective of Infraphonology and Infrasemiotics. Infrastructural Properties of Communication in Humans and Nonhuman Primates. Possible Stages of Vocal Evolution in the Human Family. Comparing Fixed Vocal Signals Across Humans and Other Modern Primate Species. Infrastructural Pursuits in Vocal Development and Evolution.