Tendential Strategies in Consonantal Inventories across Languages according to the Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior

The theory of Phonology as Human Behavior combines aspects of the “communication factor” and the “human factor” of Prague School and Martinet’s diachronic phonology which view language as a tool of communication that ecologically reflects the characteristics of its users. PHB provides a "motivation" for the distribution of sounds: i.e. why we produce the phonemes we do and why their distribution within language is nonrandom. We examine the phonemic systems of a wide range of diverse languages according to the following parameters: (1) The number of phonemes in the system. (2) The ratio of "easier" versus "more difficult" phonemes in the system. (3) The number and kinds of articulators we use in phonetic gestures and processes used to produce the more difficult phonemes. Our results demonstrate that the phonemic inventories and the phonotactic distribution of phonemes across languages reflect a compromise between the striving for maximum communication and minimal effort.