Baby Talk?

What is it about babies, pets, certain inanimate objects, etc that makes "baby talk" seem so appealing? Whenever I address baby Nora directly, it is almost never in the same manner that I would another individual; instead I descend into "baby talk," in which "l's" and "r's" are frequently replaced with "w's" and questions seem so indirect and nonsensical. A common example might be "Cute wittle Baby Nowa, why are you gwowing up so fast?" Why do we feel the need to address entities which cannot answer us in kind in such an unusual way?
I suspect it stems primarily from our fundamental need to communicate in some way or another with those things which are most important to us. We seem to classify the "intelligence" of a given thing- a person, animal, computer, weapon, etc- by how well it can communicate, and baby talk is a situation where we project the illusion of communication onto something which does not possess the same communicative skill set as ourselves. We must communicate effectively to maintain our status, livelihood, relationships- indeed, our very lives (for those who doubt this fact, I can suggest several excellent pieces of reading material, beginning with Hamlet). So when we talk in "baby talk," it would stand to reason that it is not so much for the benefit of the child (any voice recognition or formative language skills on the part of the young one could surely be derived equally, if not more precisely, from "normal talk"), but for our own justification. Since Nora cannot answer me back, then am I not in essence having a conversation with myself? And since such a concept outside of "baby talk" is frowned upon as ridiculous and occasionally dangerous in today's society, how then can I rationalize it except by making my very speech sound ridiculous? Thus, when I quote Yoda and ask my daughter, "Baby Nowa, how you get so big eating food of this kind?", I am in essence attempting to nullify the absurdity of my action by becoming laughable in content and delivery as well.
Well, I wanted to get that question off my chest- I hear Nora waking up, so I have to go, but for anyone looking for something fascinating to ponder, go to http://www.wikipedia.org/ and look up the entry for Norman Borlaug. I had never heard of this fascinating individual until my favorite columnist, Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quaterback mentioned him in this week's column(to read it, cut and paste this link into your browser): http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/070821
However, after reading the impact of Borlaug's work on the world during his lifetime, it is difficult to disagree with Easterbrook that Borlaug is one of the three greatest Americans of the 20th Century (along with Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr.).
May God Bless you all!
-David