Abstract
Through syntax, i.e., the combination of words into larger phrases, language can express a limitless number of messages. Data in great apes, our closest-living relatives, are central to the reconstruction of syntax’s phylogenetic origins, yet are currently lacking. Here, we provide evidence for syntactic-like structuring in chimpanzee communication. Chimpanzees produce “alarm-huus” when surprised and “waa-barks” when potentially recruiting conspecifics during aggression or hunting. Anecdotal data suggested chimpanzees combine these calls specifically when encountering snakes. Using snake presentations, we confirm call combinations are produced when individuals encounter snakes and find that more individuals join the caller after hearing the combination. To test the meaning-bearing nature of the call combination, we use playbacks of artificially-constructed call combinations and both independent calls. Chimpanzees react most strongly to call combinations, showing longer looking responses, compared with both independent calls. We propose the “alarm-huu + waa-bark” represents a compositional syntactic-like structure, where the meaning of the call combination is derived from the meaning of its parts. Our work suggests that compositional structures may not have evolved de novo in the human lineage, but that the cognitive building-blocks facilitating syntax may have been present in our last common ancestor with chimpanzees.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2225 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-8 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 4 May 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 4 May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Riwan Leroux, Robert Seyfarth and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank UWA, UNCST and the President’s office for permission to conduct the study, the BCFS staff for their constant support and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) for providing core funding to BCFS. We are especially grateful to the field assistants: Geresomu Muhumuza, Monday Mbotella, Jackson Asua, Sam Adue and Denis Lomoro; without whom we could not have collected the data. We also thank Alice Bouchard, Adrian Soldati, Matthew Henderson, Marion De Vevey and Lotus Emam for their invaluable collaboration in the field that greatly facilitated experimentations, Andri Manser and the LiRI technology platform for statistical assistance, and Carel van Schaik and Balthasar Bickel for discussions. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_163850 & PP00P3_198912) to S.W.T. and the NCCR Evolving Language (SNSF Agreement #51NF40_180888).
Funding Information:
We thank Riwan Leroux, Robert Seyfarth and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank UWA, UNCST and the President’s office for permission to conduct the study, the BCFS staff for their constant support and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) for providing core funding to BCFS. We are especially grateful to the field assistants: Geresomu Muhumuza, Monday Mbotella, Jackson Asua, Sam Adue and Denis Lomoro; without whom we could not have collected the data. We also thank Alice Bouchard, Adrian Soldati, Matthew Henderson, Marion De Vevey and Lotus Emam for their invaluable collaboration in the field that greatly facilitated experimentations, Andri Manser and the LiRI technology platform for statistical assistance, and Carel van Schaik and Balthasar Bickel for discussions. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_163850 & PP00P3_198912) to S.W.T. and the NCCR Evolving Language (SNSF Agreement #51NF40_180888).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
Funding
We thank Riwan Leroux, Robert Seyfarth and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank UWA, UNCST and the President’s office for permission to conduct the study, the BCFS staff for their constant support and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) for providing core funding to BCFS. We are especially grateful to the field assistants: Geresomu Muhumuza, Monday Mbotella, Jackson Asua, Sam Adue and Denis Lomoro; without whom we could not have collected the data. We also thank Alice Bouchard, Adrian Soldati, Matthew Henderson, Marion De Vevey and Lotus Emam for their invaluable collaboration in the field that greatly facilitated experimentations, Andri Manser and the LiRI technology platform for statistical assistance, and Carel van Schaik and Balthasar Bickel for discussions. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_163850 & PP00P3_198912) to S.W.T. and the NCCR Evolving Language (SNSF Agreement #51NF40_180888). We thank Riwan Leroux, Robert Seyfarth and an anonymous reviewer for insightful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank UWA, UNCST and the President’s office for permission to conduct the study, the BCFS staff for their constant support and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) for providing core funding to BCFS. We are especially grateful to the field assistants: Geresomu Muhumuza, Monday Mbotella, Jackson Asua, Sam Adue and Denis Lomoro; without whom we could not have collected the data. We also thank Alice Bouchard, Adrian Soldati, Matthew Henderson, Marion De Vevey and Lotus Emam for their invaluable collaboration in the field that greatly facilitated experimentations, Andri Manser and the LiRI technology platform for statistical assistance, and Carel van Schaik and Balthasar Bickel for discussions. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_163850 & PP00P3_198912) to S.W.T. and the NCCR Evolving Language (SNSF Agreement #51NF40_180888).
Keywords
- Aggression
- Animals
- Humans
- Language
- Pan troglodytes/physiology
- Phylogeny
- Snakes
- Vocalization, Animal/physiology