Abstract This article studies the potential motivation (or, on the contrary, accidentality) of the consonantal nature of conative animal calls (CACs) as contrasted with the vocalic nature of interjections. The authors examine this issue by drawing on data from Gorwaa and locating them within a broader typological context. The evidence presented suggests that Gorwaa CACs exhibit a markedly consonantal character, manifested through a set of more specific phonetic properties, which stands in stark contrast with the vocalic character of interjections; and both correlations are not accidental. The close relationship of interjections with vocalicity and that of CACs with consonantality stems from the more general distinct tendencies of the two categories towards sonority. Such opposite sonority tendencies are, in turn, motivated: in the case of interjections, by the similarity of more sonorous phones with emotive cries; and in the case of CACs, by the acoustic suitability of less sonorous phones for alerting, drawing attention, and chasing away interlocutors and the mimicry (or morphism) of noises made by animals (the less sonorous properties of which stem in turn from their own acoustic suitability and an animal′s physio-anatomy).
Andrason et al. (Wed,) studied this question.