vocant

plural vocants

1. human sciencesA vowel-like sound such as uttered by a preverbal infant.

   It is extremely difficult to identify the different vocants, partly because they are probably being produced in ways which differ from an adult speaker.

   2012, J. A. M. Martin, Voice, Speech, and Language in the Child, Springer, page 70

   3 more examples

   At an earlier stage still, during the first few months of life, the vowel-like and consonant-like sounds are usually so far removed from normal speech that even this convention is misleading. We will label these sounds vocants and closants and their transcription will be enclosed within double square brackets e.g. bə.

   [1981, J[ohn] A[ntony] M[ichael] Martin, “Vocal Behaviour and the Origins of Speech” (chapter 4), in Voice, Speech, and Language in the Child: Development and Disorder (Disorders of Human Communication; 4), Wien [Vienna]: Springer-Verlag, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 56–57

   Gradually, infants' repertoire of vocalizations incorporates speech-related features such as vowel-like sounds (vocants) and consonant-like sounds (closants); vocants and closants are then combined into syllable-like units called marginal syllables.

   2020, Eugenia Costa-Giomi, Lucia Benetti, “14: Home Musical Environment and Singing Development in Infancy”, in Frank A. Russo, Beatriz Ilari, Annabel J. Cohen, editors, The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, Volume I, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), unnumbered page

   In the first year of life, the most frequent vocalizations are low front, low back, and central vowel-like vocants. Though not true vowels, these vocants resemble /ɛ/, /æ/, /ɑ/, /ə/, and /ʌ/.

   2022, Margaret Fish, Amy Skinder-Meredith, Here's How to Treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech, 3rd edition, page 207