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Schlenker P, Salis A, Leroux M, Coye C, Rizzi L, Steinert-Threlkeld S, Chemla E. Minimal Compositionality versus Bird Implicatures: two theories of ABC-D sequences in Japanese tits. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2024; 99:1278-1297. [PMID: 38545992 DOI: 10.1111/brv.13068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Revised: 02/14/2024] [Accepted: 02/16/2024] [Indexed: 07/06/2024]
Abstract
It was argued in a series of experimental studies that Japanese tits (Parus minor) have an ABC call that has an alert function, a D call that has a recruitment function, and an ABC-D call that is compositionally derived from ABC and D, and has a mobbing function. A key conclusion was that ABC-D differs from the combination of separate utterances of ABC and of D (e.g. as played by distinct but close loudspeakers). While the logic of the argument is arguably sound, no explicit rule has been proposed to derive the meaning of ABC-D from that of its parts. We compare two analyses. One posits a limited instance of semantic compositionality ('Minimal Compositionality'); the other does without compositionality, but uses instead a more sophisticated pragmatics ('Bird Implicatures'). Minimal Compositionality takes the composition of ABC and D to deviate only minimally from what would be found with two independent utterances: ABC means that 'there is something that licenses an alert', D means that 'there is something that licenses recruitment', and ABC-D means that 'there is something that licenses both an alert and recruitment'. By contrast, ABC and D as independent utterances yield something weaker, namely: 'there is something that licenses an alert, and there is something that licenses recruitment', without any 'binding' across the two utterances. The second theory, Bird Implicatures, only requires that ABC-D should be more informative than ABC, and/or than D. It builds on the idea, proposed for several monkey species, that a less-informative call competes with a more informative one (the 'Informativity Principle'): when produced alone, ABC and D trigger an inference that ABC-D is false. We explain how both Minimal Compositionality and Bird Implicatures could have evolved, and we compare the predictions of the two theories. Finally, we extend the discussion to some chimpanzee and meerkat sequences that might raise related theoretical problems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philippe Schlenker
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS-EHESS-CNRS), PSL University, 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
- Department of Linguistics, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | - Ambre Salis
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS-EHESS-CNRS), PSL University, 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
| | - Maël Leroux
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS-EHESS-CNRS), PSL University, 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
| | - Camille Coye
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS-EHESS-CNRS), PSL University, 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
| | - Luigi Rizzi
- Collège de France, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, Paris, 75005, France
- CISCL, University of Siena, Via Roma 56, Siena, 53100, Italy
| | - Shane Steinert-Threlkeld
- Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Guggenheim Hall 4th Floor Box, Seattle, WA, 352425, USA
| | - Emmanuel Chemla
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, LSCP (ENS-EHESS-CNRS), Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL University, Paris, France
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Schlenker P, Coye C, Leroux M, Chemla E. The ABC-D of animal linguistics: are syntax and compositionality for real? Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2023; 98:1142-1159. [PMID: 36960599 DOI: 10.1111/brv.12944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2022] [Revised: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/23/2023] [Indexed: 03/25/2023]
Abstract
In several animal species, an alarm call (e.g. ABC notes in the Japanese tit Parus minor) can be immediately followed by a recruitment call (e.g. D notes) to yield a complex call that triggers a third behaviour, namely mobbing. This has been taken to be an argument for animal syntax and compositionality (i.e. the property by which the meaning of a complex expression depends on the meaning of its parts and the way they are put together). Several additional discoveries were made across species. First, in some cases, animals respond with mobbing to the order alarm-recruitment but not to the order recruitment-alarm. Second, animals sometimes respond similarly to functionally analogous heterospecific calls they have never heard before, and/or to artificial hybrid sequences made of conspecific and heterospecific calls in the same order, thus adding an argument for the productivity of the relevant rules. We consider the details of these arguments for animal syntax and compositionality and argue that, with one important exception (Japanese tit ABC-D sequences), they currently remain ambiguous: there are reasonable alternatives on which each call is a separate utterance and is interpreted as such ('trivial compositionality'). More generally, we propose that future studies should argue for animal syntax and compositionality by explicitly pitting the target theory against two deflationary analyses: the 'only one expression' hypothesis posits that there is no combination in the first place, for example just a simplex ABCD call; while the 'separate utterances' hypothesis posits that there are separate expressions (e.g. ABC and D), but that they form separate utterances and are neither syntactically nor semantically combined.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philippe Schlenker
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
- PSL Research University, 60 Rue Mazarine, Paris, 75006, France
- Department of Linguistics, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | - Camille Coye
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
- PSL Research University, 60 Rue Mazarine, Paris, 75006, France
| | - Maël Leroux
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zürich, Affolternstrasse 56, Zürich, CH-8050, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zürich, Affolternstrasse 56, Zürich, CH-8050, Switzerland
| | - Emmanuel Chemla
- PSL Research University, 60 Rue Mazarine, Paris, 75006, France
- LSCP (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29, rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France
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