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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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Season does not influence the response of great tits (Parus major) to allopatric mobbing calls. J ETHOL 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s10164-022-00752-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
AbstractMany species of birds emit mobbing calls to recruit prey to join mobbing events. This anti-predator strategy often involves several species and, therefore, implies heterospecific communication. Some species of tit exhibit a sensitivity to allopatric mobbing calls, suggesting that heterospecific recognition is based on an innate component. To date, however, we have no information on whether the perception of allopatric calls varies with season, despite seasonality playing an important role in the perception of heterospecific call in some species. In this study, I investigate the responses of European great tits (Parus major) to the calls of a North American bird species, the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), during two seasons: spring and in autumn (breeding and non-breeding seasons, respectively). Great tits approached the sound source during both seasons, with no significant difference in response between seasons. These findings indicate that season does not influence the response of birds to allopatric calls, and will help to shed light on the evolution of interspecific communication.
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Which acoustic parameters modify the great tit’s response to conspecific combinatorial mobbing calls? Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-022-03157-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
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Williams H, Lachlan RF. Evidence for cumulative cultural evolution in bird song. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20200322. [PMID: 34894731 PMCID: PMC8666912 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2021] [Accepted: 10/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
In studies of cumulative cultural evolution in non-human animals, the focus is most often on incremental changes that increase the efficacy of an existing form of socially learned behaviour, such as the refinement of migratory pathways. In this paper, we compare the songs of different species to describe patterns of evolution in the acoustic structure of bird songs, and explore the question of what building blocks might underlie cumulative cultural evolution of bird song using a comparative approach. We suggest that three steps occurred: first, imitation of independent sounds, or notes, via social learning; second, the formation of categories of note types; and third, assembling note types into sequences with defined structures. Simple sequences can then be repeated to form simple songs or concatenated with other sequences to form segmented songs, increasing complexity. Variant forms of both the notes and the sequencing rules may then arise due to copy errors and innovation. Some variants may become established in the population because of learning biases or selection, increasing signal efficiency, or because of cultural drift. Cumulative cultural evolution of bird songs thus arises from cognitive processes such as vocal imitation, categorization during memorization and learning biases applied to basic acoustic building blocks. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather Williams
- Biology Department, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA
| | - Robert F. Lachlan
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, London TW20 0EX, UK
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Dutour M, Kalb N, Salis A, Randler C. Number of callers may affect the response to conspecific mobbing calls in great tits (Parus major). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-02969-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
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