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Formal monkey linguistics: The debate

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schlenkerEtAl_16_Formal-M.2.pdf (408.6Kb)
Date
2016
Dewey
Probabilités et mathématiques appliquées
Sujet
primate linguistics; primate semantics; primate syntax; evolutionary primate linguistics; call evolution; evolution of language
Journal issue
Theoretical Linguistics
Volume
42
Number
1-2
Publication date
2016
Article pages
173-201
Publisher
De Gruyter
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tl-2016-0010
URI
https://basepub.dauphine.fr/handle/123456789/16348
Collections
  • CEREMADE : Publications
Metadata
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Author
Schlenker, Philippe
Chemla, Emmanuel
Schel, Anne M.
Fuller, James
Gautier, Jean-Pierre
Kuhn, Jeremy
Veselinović, Dunja
Arnold, Kate
Cäsar, Cristiane
Keenan, Sumir
Lemasson, Alban
Ouattara, Karim
Ryder, Robin J.
Zuberbühler, Klaus
Type
Article accepté pour publication ou publié
Abstract (EN)
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 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.

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