Formal monkey linguistics: The debate

Abstract

We explain why general techniques from formal linguistics can and should be applied to the analysis of monkey communication -in the areas of syntax and especially semantics. An informed look at our recent proposals shows that such techniques needn't rely excessively on categories of human Theoretical Linguistics 2016; 42(1-2): 173-201 Brought to you by | Utrecht University Library Authenticated Download Date | 11/24/16 3:04 PM language: syntax and semantics provide versatile formal tools that go beyond the specificities of human linguistics. We argue that "formal monkey linguistics" can yield new insights into monkey morphology, syntax, and semantics, as well as raise provocative new questions about the existence of a pragmatic, competition-based component in these communication systems. Finally, we argue that evolutionary questions, which are highly speculative in human language, can be addressed in an empirically satisfying fashion in primate linguistics, and we lay out problems that should be addressed at the interface between evolutionary primate linguistics and formal analyses of language evolution.

What Do Monkey Calls Mean?

“…This explains why pyow-hack sequences are indicative of group movement; no idioms are posited, but competition principles are crucial (see [33] for a more detailed analysis). The Urgency Principle is speculative at this point, but it is noteworthy that it might explain some constraints on alert calls found in other species, notably in birds ( [28][34] [35]). …”

“…In particular, we posited rules of pragmatic competition that enrich the meaning of some calls whose core informational content is by itself compatible with a broad range of situations. An alternative is to take these calls to provide specific instructions about precise actions, which might be appropriate for a broad range of situations (such as looking around; [45] [28]). Further experimental studies should help distinguish among these proposals.…”

“…• Second, as in every scientific endeavor there are two main criteria of success for a theory: its parsimony; and its ability to make correct predictions ( [28][45]). To be concrete, consider the case of Campbell's krak (Box 1a), and compare two theories: (i) krak has a ground threat meaning in the Tai forest, but a meaning of general alert on Tiwai island (Dialectal Variation Theory); (ii) krak has a general alert meaning on both sites, but is enriched by the Informativity Principle when this does not yield a useless meaning (Uniform Theory).…”

“…There are important dissimilarities and some limited similarities between the two systems ( [5] [28][47] [48]). …”

“…As will be seen below, we posit several general, non-context specific calls, against Context specificity; and the meanings we posit almost never pertain directly to predator classes, against the Nominal requirement. Finally, against the Externality requirement, nothing in our approach precludes emotional meanings that pertain to the state of the mind of the caller rather than to an external event (such emotional meanings certainly exist in human language, where so-called "expressives" have been the object of detailed study -see [28] for discussion). On the other hand, at this point our discussion says nothing of the existence of a monkey pragmatics, as the very notion of a pragmatics might presuppose cognitive abilities that go beyond the monkeys' capacities; but we will see below that there might be evidence for a monkey proto-pragmatics.…”