A syntactic rule in forest monkey communication
A syntactic rule in forest monkey communication
复制标题
森林猴交流的句法规则
作者：
K. Zuberbühler
抽象句法规则允许说话人将信号与现有意义结合起来，以创造无限数量的新意义。尽管在一些动物交流系统中也发现了组合规则，但它们从未被明确地与意义的同时变化联系在一起。目前的野外实验表明，野生戴安娜猴可能理解另一种灵长类动物坎贝尔猴C.Campbeli在自然交流中存在的组合规则引起的语义变化。坎贝尔的雄性猴子向豹、豹、冠鹰、冠头鹰和戴安娜猴子发出声音上不同的警报声，并用它们自己的相应警报声来响应这些叫声。然而，在不太危险的情况下，坎贝尔的雄性会在发出闹钟之前发出两声低沉而响亮的“轰鸣”声。播放轰隆声引入的坎贝尔的警报呼叫不再在戴安娜猴子中引发警报呼叫，这表明轰隆声已经影响了随后警报呼叫的语义特定性。然而，当轰鸣声先于戴安娜猴子的闹钟叫声时，它们作为语义修饰语不再有效，这表明它们只有与坎贝尔的闹钟叫声结合在一起才有意义。我讨论了这些发现对句法能力演变的影响。
Abstract Syntactic rules allow a speaker to combine signals with existing meanings to create an infinite number of new meanings. Even though combinatory rules have also been found in some animal communication systems, they have never been clearly linked to concurrent changes in meaning. The present field experiment indicates that wild Diana monkeys, Cercopithecus diana, may comprehend the semantic changes caused by a combinatory rule present in the natural communication of another primate, the Campbell's monkey, C. campbelli. Campbell's males give acoustically distinct alarm calls to leopards, Panthera pardus, and crowned-hawk eagles, Stephanoaetus coronatus, and Diana monkeys respond to these calls with their own corresponding alarm calls. However, in less dangerous situations, Campbell's males emit a pair of low, resounding ‘boom’ calls before their alarm calls. Playbacks of boom-introduced Campbell's alarm calls no longer elicited alarm calls in Diana monkeys, indicating that the booms have affected the semantic specificity of the subsequent alarm calls. When the booms preceded the alarm calls of Diana monkeys, however, they were no longer effective as semantic modifiers, indicating that they are meaningful only in conjunction with Campbell's alarm calls. I discuss the implications of these findings for the evolution of syntactic abilities.