LEC special event: John Ohala

It  has  long  been  observed  that  in  agonistic  situations  (face‐to‐face  competitive encounters)  size  and maturity  matters.    Animals,  including  humans,  exploit  their intrinsic  size  and  maturity  in  such  situations and  also  utilize  plastic  signals  (i.e., those  that  can  be  modified)  to  enhance  their  apparent  size.    Morton (1977) showed  convincingly  that  vocalizations  of  mammals  and  birds  could  also  be  used to  project apparent  size:    low  F0  to  convey  bigness  and  high  F0,  smallness (because F0  of  a  vibrating  mass  such  as the  vocal  cords  or,  in  birds,  the syringeal  membranes,  correlate  inversely  with  their  mass  and  these  in turn, correlate  with  overall  body  mass,  ceteris  paribus).    In  a  1984  paper  I  argue that humans  do  the same  and  called  this  the  ‘frequency  code’.    The  frequency  code, I argued,  helps  to  explain  cross‐language  use  of  F0  for  questions  vs.  statement, the  use  of  certain  vowels  and  consonants  in  sound symbolic  vocabulary  of  size (e.g.,  English  teeny  vs.  humongous),  the  origin  of  the  smile,  and  the sexual dimorphism  of  the  vocal  anatomy.      Although  I  will  have  to  abandon  the term  ‘frequency  code’,  I  now want  to  argue  that  plastic  and  cosmetic modification the  eyes  and  eyebrows  can  be  explained  by  similar principles  of  how  apparent size  and  maturity  can  be  conveyed.  If  true,  it  would  help  to  explain  (a) some the  facial  expressions  displayed  during  spoken  language  and  (b)  what  has been  called  the  “prosody”  of the  sign  language  of  the  deaf.  If  my  speculations are  accepted  they  have  implications  for  current controversies as to how emotions are expressed and, indeed, what counts as an emotion.