ABSTRACT
In so far as manifestations which form the basis of the future speech are concerned, it has to be emphasised that they do not form a separate unit but are strongly integrated with all the other movements referred to. To separate emotional cries from instinctive ones is justified by the appearance of the first definite sets of reactions in speech and voice. The philologists may recognise other speech-sounds which normally occur in other languages of a different evolutionary level. The common idea that single ‘speech-sounds’ are primitive units which, when arranged in sequences result in ‘syllables’ or ‘words,’ is due to an abstraction induced by the operations of reading and writing. It does not seem to have any onto- or phylogenetic basis. Speech is so important a social link as to make the child adopt the group speech, or else speech loses its raison d’etre. Thus whenever natural utterances crop up, they are opposed by conventional speech.
