Speech sounds through time: from traditional accounts to embodied perspectives

This article aims to present a historiographic reflection on the trajectory of speech sounds in linguistic studies, from the earliest systematic records to morecontemporary approaches. The starting point is the work of Panini, whose Sanskrit grammar represents one of the earliest known attempts at a systematic description of linguistic sounds. The analysis continues with the 19th-century Neogrammarians, who established a scientific model of sound change and laying the groundwork for what is now recognized as historical phonology. At the turn of the 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure’s contribution redefined the role of sound in linguistic theory by integrating it into the linguistic sign within a relational and structural system. The article then examines the contributions of Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant, and Morris Halle, who introduced the notion of acoustically based distinctive features, developing a phonological model strongly supported by the spectrographic analysis of speech. This model was reinterpreted by Chomsky and Halle from an articulatory perspective, within the framework of generative phonology. This way, sound came to be conceived as a set of abstract articulatory features capable of explaining both phonological regularities and constraints in natural languages. This paper also considers contributions from speech perception schools, such as the psychoacoustic theory, the motor theory, and the direct realist theory. These perspectives investigate speech sounds based on mental, motor, and gestural dimensions, emphasizing the relationship between perceived sounds, the articulatory movements that generate them, and the sensory mechanisms involved in their decoding. The final part of the text highlights gestural proposals that conceptualize the speech sound as an acoustic-articulatory gesture and seek to overcome traditional divisions between phonetics and phonology. The discussion emphasizes the role of gestural borders inthe symbolic projection of sounds, the importance of the auditory-acoustic link, and the processes of gestural realignment and reconfiguration through which phonological regularities become grammaticalized. As a major contribution, the article also introduces a perspective that incorporates pragmatic and contextual elements into the perception of sounds, proposing a view of speech sounds as embodied indices, socially situated and symbolically charged. Ultimately, sound is portrayed as a omplex phenomenon that articulates physical, social, perceptual, and indexical dimensions of verbal language.