For the birds?

[jess tauber]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090430/sc_livescience/dancingwiththebirds

So apparently vocal mimicry and dancing skills go hand in hand (or is that foot in mouth, etc.), according to some of the other things I've read on the web. Tecumseh Fitch is impressed (what does Chomsky have to say? Do we need to care?).

Increased tempo associated with different mass of body. Low frequency with whole body movement, mid with head only and high with foot only. Hmm- same order that the parts evolved in over phylogeny? Related in any way perhaps to the ontogenic sequence observed with gesture by McNeill? What about frequency sweeping in sonar-using animals? Is active usage opposite in direction to development. Jakobson's phonological hierarchy starting with labials and /a/?

Iconically, initial labials in ideophones strongly associate with maximal degrees of freedom of movement of a body, while high frequency phones minimal ones (in different dimensions)- the opposite is true for final segments in ideophones in many languages.

How 'bout brain waves vs. conciousness and control?

I wonder how Eugene Morton's Motivation Structure Theory, and John Ohala's Frequency Theory would fit here too. Any clashes, or does all of this fit into a nice seamless whole?

Jess Tauber