What Do Monkey Calls Mean?

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• 作者：Philippe Schlenker¹ ; ² ; ^{Philippe.Schlenker@gmail.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Emmanuel Chemla³ ; Klaus Zuberbü ; hler⁴ ; ⁵
• 关键词：primate semantics ; primate call evolution ; primate implicatures ; primate linguistics ; evolution of meaning ; evolution of communication
• 刊名：Trends in Cognitive Sciences
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：20
• 期：12
• 页码：894-904
• 全文大小：1866 K

文摘

A field of primate linguistics is gradually emerging. It combines general questions and tools from theoretical linguistics with rich data gathered in experimental primatology. Analyses of several monkey systems have uncovered very simple morphological and syntactic rules and have led to the development of a primate semantics that asks new questions about the division of semantic labor between the literal meaning of monkey calls, additional mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment, and the environmental context. We show that comparative studies across species may validate this program and may in some cases help in reconstructing the evolution of monkey communication over millions of years.