What do monkey calls mean?

Philippe Schlenker; Emmanuel Chemla; Klaus Zuberbühler

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.004

What do monkey calls mean?

Philippe Schlenker, Emmanuel Chemla, Klaus Zuberbühler

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

A field of primate linguistics is gradually emerging. It combines general questions and tools from theoretical linguistics with rich data gathered in experimental primatology. Analyses of several monkey systems have uncovered very simple morphological and syntactic rules, and they have led to the development of a primate semantics which asks new questions about the division of semantic labor between the literal meaning of monkey calls, additional mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment, and the environmental context. We show that comparative studies across species may validate this program, and may in some cases help reconstruct the evolution of monkey communication over millions of years.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	894-904
Number of pages	11
Journal	Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume	20
Issue number	12
Early online date	9 Nov 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.004
Publication status	Published - Dec 2016

Keywords

Primate semantics
Primate call evolution
Primate implicatures
Primate linguistics
Evolution of meaning
Evolution of communication

Access to Document

10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.004

Zuberbueler_2016_TCS_WhatDoMonkeyCallsMean_AAM
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.004
Accepted author manuscript, 537 KB

Cite this

@article{ad719477f4584676975e9494945dc633,

title = "What do monkey calls mean?",

abstract = "A field of primate linguistics is gradually emerging. It combines general questions and tools from theoretical linguistics with rich data gathered in experimental primatology. Analyses of several monkey systems have uncovered very simple morphological and syntactic rules, and they have led to the development of a primate semantics which asks new questions about the division of semantic labor between the literal meaning of monkey calls, additional mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment, and the environmental context. We show that comparative studies across species may validate this program, and may in some cases help reconstruct the evolution of monkey communication over millions of years. ",

keywords = "Primate semantics, Primate call evolution, Primate implicatures, Primate linguistics, Evolution of meaning, Evolution of communication",

author = "Philippe Schlenker and Emmanuel Chemla and Klaus Zuberb{\"u}hler",

note = "Grant acknowledgements: Chemla and Schlenker: Research by Schlenker and Chemla was conducted at Institut d{\textquoteright}Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Sup{\'e}rieure – PSL Research University. Institut d{\textquoteright}Etudes Cognitives is supported by grants ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC et ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL. Schlenker: The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Coucil under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007- 2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n°324115-FRONTSEM (PI:Schlenker). Zuberb{\"u}hler: The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under ERC grant {\textquoteleft}Prilang 283871{\textquoteright} and also from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant {\textquoteleft}FN 310030\_143359/1{\textquoteright}. The project also benefited from the support of the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en C{\^o}te d'Ivoire and Ta{\"i} Monkey Project.",

year = "2016",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.004",

language = "English",

volume = "20",

pages = "894--904",

journal = "Trends in Cognitive Sciences",

issn = "1364-6613",