Animal linguistics: Exploring referentiality and compositionality in bird calls
Animal linguistics: Exploring referentiality and compositionality in bird calls
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动物语言学：探索鸟类叫声的指称性和组合性
DOI：
10.1111/1440-1703.12200
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Suzuki Toshitaka N.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kenji Toyota;Maria Cuenca Cambronero;Vignesh Dhandapani;Antonio Suppa;Valeria Rossi;John K. Colbourne;Luisa Orsini.;豊田賢治;Suzuki Toshitaka N.
语言进化理论的建立是一个持续的科学挑战。在这方面，一个有益的方法是通过将语言与近亲的语音交流系统进行比较来寻找语言能力的起源（即，大猩猩）。然而，语言的几个关键能力似乎在非人类灵长类动物中缺失，这限制了研究的范围，例如直接的系统发育比较。进一步的信息化方法在于识别遗传距离远的动物的趋同特征并进行比较研究。这一方法对于建立语言能力发展的一般规则特别有用。在这篇文章中，我回顾了最近的研究结果的语言能力在雀形目鸟类，日本山雀（山雀）。野外实验表明，日本山雀在遇到捕食性蛇时会发出独特的警报叫声，这有助于提高叫声接收者对蛇状物体的视觉注意力。此外，山雀经常根据排序规则将联合收割机离散类型的有意义的呼叫组合成固定排序的序列，向接收者传达合成信息。这些发现表明，语言的两个核心能力，即指称性和组合性，在鸟类谱系中独立进化。我描述了如何在实地条件下检查这些语言能力，并讨论了如何这样的研究可能有助于探索语言的起源和演变。
Establishing the theory of language evolution is an ongoing challenge in science. One profitable approach in this regard is to seek the origins of linguistic capabilities by comparing language with the vocal communication systems of closely related relatives (i.e., the great apes). However, several key capabilities of language appear to be absent in non‐human primates, which limits the range of studies, such as direct phylogenetic comparison. A further informative approach lies in identifying convergent features in phylogenetically distant animals and conducting comparative studies. This approach is particularly useful with respect to establishing general rules for the evolution of linguistic capabilities. In this article, I review recent findings on linguistic capabilities in a passerine bird species, the Japanese tit (Parus minor). Field experiments have revealed that Japanese tits produce unique alarm calls when encountering predatory snakes, which serve to enhance the visual attention of call receivers with respect to snake‐like objects. Moreover, tits often combine discrete types of meaningful calls into fixed‐ordered sequences according to an ordering rule, conveying a compositional message to receivers. These findings indicate that two core capabilities of language, namely, referentiality and compositionality, have independently evolved in the avian lineage. I describe how these linguistic capabilities can be examined under field conditions and discuss how such research may contribute to exploring the origins and evolution of language.