As a testament to the scope of Peter MacNeilage s scholarly work across his 40 year career, contributions to this tribute volume represent a broad spectrum of the seminal issues addressed by phonetic and evolutionary science over a number of years. Approaches to the problems raised by attempting to understand these fundamental topics are illustrated in the broad diversity of paradigms represented in the volume. This diversity in itself is a tribute to the breadth of scholarly questions pursued by MacNeilage across his career.

Chapters are arranged around five thematic areas. Two themes,...

As a testament to the scope of Peter MacNeilage's scholarly work across his 40 year career, contributions to this tribute volume represent a broad spectrum of the seminal issues addressed by phonetic and evolutionary science over a number of years. Approaches to the problems raised by attempting to understand these fundamental topics are illustrated in the broad diversity of paradigms represented in the volume. This diversity in itself is a tribute to the breadth of scholarly questions pursued by MacNeilage across his career.

Chapters are arranged around five thematic areas. Two...

The central assertion in this volume is that the young child uses general skills, scaffolded by adults, to acquire the complex knowledge of sound patterns and the goal-directed behaviors for communicating ideas through language and producing speech. A child s acquisition of phonology is seen as a product of her physical and social interaction capacities supported by input from adult models about ambient language sound patterns. Acquisition of phonological knowledge and behavior is a product of this function-oriented complex system. No "pre-existing" mental knowledge base is necessary for...