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Every normally developing human infant solves the difficult problem of mapping their native-language phonology, but the neural mechanisms underpinning this behavior remain poorly understood. Here, motor constellation theory, an integrative neurophonological model, is presented, with the goal of explicating this issue. It is assumed that infants’ motor-auditory phonological mapping takes place through infants’ orosensory “reaching” for phonological elements observed in the language-specific ambient phonology, via reference to kinesthetic feedback from motor systems (e.g., articulators), and auditory feedback from resulting speech and speech-like sounds. Attempts are regulated by basal ganglion–cerebellar speech neural circuitry, and successful attempts at reproduction are enforced through dopaminergic signaling. Early in life, the pace of anatomical development constrains mapping such that complete language-specific phonological mapping is prohibited by infants’ undeveloped supralaryngeal vocal tract and undescended larynx; constraints gradually dissolve with age, enabling adult phonology. Where appropriate, reference is made to findings from animal and clinical models. Some implications for future modeling and simulation efforts, as well as clinical settings, are also discussed.

Evidence suggests that human non-verbal speech may be rich in iconicity. Here, we report results from two experiments aimed at testing whether perception of increasing and declining f0 can be iconically mapped onto motion events. We presented a sample of mixed-nationality participants (N = 118) with sets of two videos, where one pictured upward movement and the other downward movement. A disyllabic non-sense word prosodically resynthesized as increasing or declining in f0 was presented simultaneously with each video in a pair, and participants were tasked with guessing which of the two videos the word described. Results indicate that prosody is iconically associated with motion, such that motion-prosody congruent pairings were more readily selected than incongruent pairings (p < 0.033). However, the effect observed in our sample was primarily driven by selections of words with declining f0. A follow-up experiment with native Turkish speaking participants (N = 92) tested for the effect of language-specific metaphor for auditory pitch. Results showed no significant association between prosody and motion. Limitations of the experiment, and some implications for the motor theory of speech perception, and “gestural origins” theories of language evolution, are discussed.

This text reviews recent research in phonetic size-sound symbolism – non-arbitrary attributions of size properties to speech acoustic properties. Evidence from a wide range of research works is surveyed, and recent findings from research on the relationships between fundamental frequency, vowel articulation, consonant articulation, phonation type, mora count, and phonemic position, are discussed. It is argued that a satisfactory explanatory model of phonetic size-sound symbolism should meet two criteria: they should be able to explain both (1) the relationship between size and speech acoustics (Association criterion), and (2) the inconsistent findings observed across languages in the relevant literature (the Inconsistency criterion). Five theories are briefly discussed: The frequency code, Embodied cognition, Sound-meaning bootstrapping, Sapir-Whorf hypotheses, and Stochastic drift. It is contended that no currently available explanatory model of size-sound symbolism adequately meets both criteria (1) and (2), but that a combination of perspectives may provide much of the necessary depth. Future directions are also discussed.