Nicola Davis at the Graun sez Bonobos may combine words in ways previously thought unique to humans:
Bonobos use a combination of calls to encourage peace with their partner during mating rituals, research suggests. The discovery is part of a study that suggests our close evolutionary cousins can string together vocalisations to produce phrases with meanings that go beyond the sum of their parts – something often considered unique to human language. “Human language is not as unique as we thought,” said Dr Mélissa Berthet, the first author of the research from the University of Zürich.
Writing in the journal Science, Berthet and colleagues said that in the human language, words were often combined to produce phrases that either had a meaning that was simply the sum of its parts, or a meaning that was related to, but differed from, those of the constituent words. “‘Blond dancer’ – it’s a person that is both blond and a dancer, you just have to add the meanings. But a ‘bad dancer’ is not a person that is bad and a dancer,” said Berthet. “So bad is really modifying the meaning of dancer here.” It was previously thought animals such as birds and chimpanzees were only able to produce the former type of combination, but scientists have found bonobos can create both.
The team recorded 700 vocalisations from 30 adult bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, checking the context of each against a list of 300 possible situations or descriptions. The results reveal bonobos have seven different types of call, used in 19 different combinations. Of these, 15 require further analysis, but four appear to follow the rules of human sentences. Yelps – thought to mean “let’s do that” – followed by grunts – thought to mean “look at what I am doing”, were combined to make “yelp-grunt”, which appeared to mean “let’s do what I’m doing”. The combination, the team said, reflected the sum of its parts and was used by bonobos to encourage others to build their night nests.
The other three combinations had a meaning apparently related to, but different from, their constituent calls. For example, the team found a peep – which roughly means “I would like to …” – followed by a whistle – appeared to mean “let’s stay together” – could be combined to create “peep-whistle”. This combination was used to smooth over tense social situations, such as during mating or displays of prowess. The team speculated its meaning was akin to “let’s find peace”.
The team said the findings in bonobos, together with the previous work in chimps, had implications for the evolution of language in humans, given all three species showed the ability to combine words or vocalisations to create phrases.
As the faithful reader may suspect, I am extremely dubious about all this, but hey, I report, you decide. Thanks, Trevor!
(We discussed the word bonobo in 2007.)
Also, yodeling monkeys.
(Not exactly, but close enough.)
No time for deep analysis, but the statistical evidence seems underwhelming. They compare with “chance”, but even calls without semantic content will have some sort of distribution, a correlation with the world it appears in. How do they separate that from “meaning”, and how does that affect the measure of compositionality? The colors in their graph are mostly in the lighter shades, i.e. inferred Euclidian distance minus chance is slightly above zero.
… a combination of calls to encourage peace with their partner during mating rituals, … Yelps – thought to mean “let’s do that” – followed by grunts – thought to mean “look at what I am doing”, were combined to make “yelp-grunt”, which appeared to mean “let’s do what I’m doing”.
So apes feel they have to ask politely ? Humans are more instinctual. They can skip the talk and just go for it. In my experience, discourse and sechs* are antagonistic. When I can have a good chat with someone about Luhmann, why spoil it by trying to get into his pants ?
*Akismet is so stupid. That’s all I had to write to escape moderation
Watch out, now Akismet hates you.
Honestly I think this
Open access Published: 22 December 2016
Everyday bat vocalizations contain information about emitter, addressee, context, and behavior
Yosef Prat, Mor Taub & Yossi Yovel
Nature Scientific Reports volume 6, Article number: 39419 (2016)
is more compelling.See also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNeD0EWyamc
On the other hand, I am also automatically sceptical of claims that Only Humans Do X. Competing dubiety.
Everyday bat vocalizations
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf
@ DE
Good call!
“Human language is not as unique as we thought,” said Dr Mélissa Berthet
Well, I never thought that. Who is this “we” you are making a power grab for ?
Such thoughtless tripe inflames my imagination. That’s how I came across the idea, in this context, that humans are more instinctual.
I suppose some people feel they have to negotiate with the vibrator before turning it on. That’s pretty unique.
You’re no longer on deck.
… the halls with Boston Charlie ?
… the general human weakness for explanations of what is incomprehensible in terms suited for
what is familiar and well understood, though entirely different. This has led to the acceptance of implausible accounts of the mental largely because they would permit familiar kinds of reduction. [Nagel]
The excerpt from the Graun article surreptitiously implies this: since what bonobos are exercising is “language”, and humans exercise “language” as well, then “language” can be reduced to yelps and grunts.
Why not, provided the yelps and grunts can be understood ?
That would be Charlie “Broadway” Wagner.
“Human language is not as unique as we thought,”
So, then, Berthet appears to believe that uniqueness is a continuum.
Please excuse me while I ignore the rest of her scientific precision.
(Hmmm….Has she taught her bonobos to “Just say no”?
@cuchuflete: Has she taught her bonobos to “Just say no”?
A fabulous idea. How do they say “That’s so gross!” ?
Who is this “we” …?
Berthet appears to believe that uniqueness is a continuum
While this all strikes me as the usual tediously familiar grotesquely overstated journalistic nonsense in re animals and language, I actually have no difficulty at all with the idea that quite a few of the very many moving parts which go to make up human communication abilities (including language) are shared with other animals.
In fact, I would think that just about the only people who actually would have difficulties would be Strict and Particular Chomskyites, who object on religious grounds. (We can respect their piety without sharing their doctrines. I’m Mr Irenical, me.)
Strict and Particular Chomskyites
I almost missed the High Calvinist vibes there. Thank goodness for the Internet, when you have a sense that there’s more to a phrase than meets the eye. Hanserd Knollys and such people.
The National Geographic Channel presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c9H2bdnvPI
has IIRC a few quick amazingly informative shots of bonobo life.
[I have a pretty vivid imagination but.]
In principle, you could perfectly well be a Non-Strict yet Particular Baptist (John Bunyan was, more or less) or a Strict but Not-Particular Baptist, but these quadrants of the graph appear to be thinly populated. Probably a sign of the End Times.
I see your Particular Baptists and raise you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussites
[Blessed be…]
Hussites
I’d never heard of the holy spoon mentioned there. “It is also called a cochlear, Latin for ‘spoon'”.
A German slang word for ear is der Löffel (which is also hunters’ jargon for a hare’s ear). To box someone’s ears: jemandem eins hinter die Löffel geben (or just ohrfeigen).
I feel culturally enriched.
Almost anyone sounds much grander if you add “of Prague” to their name, Rabbis, Golems, Hussites …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_of_Prague
(A very brave man, in fact.)
Defenestrations are Better in Prague too. (Also an original Hussite invention.)
A German slang word for ear is der Löffel
The “spoon” derivation is a mere folk etymology. The word is known to be borrowed from Konkomba litafal “ear.”
A German website says the Konkomba were originally acephalic (Historisch betrachtet waren die Konkomba eine akephale Gesellschaft). I suppose they grew ears after they grew heads.
Of course. Anything else would have been silly.
Ecclesiastical personalities were getting themselves into trouble in Prague via excessive bravery as recently as the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorazd_Pavl%C3%ADk
He no doubt made use of that sort of spoon more Sundays than not.
It’s the affair narrated in Laurent Binet’s very good debut novel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHhH
To box someone’s ears: jemandem eins hinter die Löffel geben (or just ohrfeigen)
Tɛɛg X tʋbir “pull X’s ear” is a standard idiom for “punish X” in Kusaal.
The ear is entirely metaphorical, and is in fact only ever singular, no matter how many people you punish. Says Leviticus, in one of the less plot-driven passages in the Bible translation:
asɛɛ ka ba tɛɛg dau la nɛ pu’a la tʋbir
except and they pull man the with woman the ear
“the man and the woman must be punished.”
Konkomba litafal “ear”
Because Hatters have an insatiable appetite for Comparative Oti-Volta, I am happy to reveal that Konkomba litafal, though it does indeed mean “ear”, is in fact “earhole” etymologically. The -fal component is cognate with Kusaal vɔndʋg “hole in the ground, burrow” (obviously.)
I am unclear about whether it is also related to Kusaal vɔɔnr “hole” as in gbinvɔɔnr “arsehole.” These are deep waters.
@DE, re Jerome of Prague, cf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Leiden
A sort of patron saint of incels and Tates. I have to say that I can see Franz von Waldeck’s point here. A robust approach to such people does seem justifiable.
There’s another write-up of this work by its principal author in her native language here (complete with a couple of examples of the bonobo noises):
https://theconversation.com/les-bonobos-font-des-phrases-presque-comme-nous-253648
It’s difficult to tell precisely what it is that Berthet (and colleagues) are trying to find.
On the one side of the range we have an utterance, say
(1) “what a beautiful hat! I’m sooo tired…” – replace those with grunts or whatever
made of two parts which for the speaker (!) are completely independent.
Importantly, they’re not independent for the listener: she won’t “think the same” and “react the same way” as if they were said with a pause (half a hour) between them. She for one thing, will think less about each of the two topics:) She won’t react on any two events that happen simultaneously the same way as if they happened with a pause, so if we want to speak of their independence, it’s easier to speak of their independence for the speaker.
On the other side of the range we have a word
(2) “no”
made of two phonemes. Here meanings (if there were any) of “n” and “o” has absolutely nothing to do with the meaning of the sequence.
Again, replace “n” and “o” with appropriate grunts (to obtain ape “words” and ape phonology).
What’s happening in “what a beautiful hat! I’m sooo tired…” and in “no” is easier to define.
But both dancers, the blond and the bad one are somewhere in between. So does Berthet means that my “no” example is interesting – that if apes use grunts as I used “n” and “o”, that is very interesting – and (1) is not interesting?
Or does she mean that something interesting happens in-between (1) and (2)?
Two parts, each has a meaning, but for the speaker they together mean some third thing and are not independent, but this third thing somehow has to do with meanings of each part? (I believe, true for both dancers).
Working with this “something” is going to be trickier. At least as long as we want to define precisely what interesting thing we’re trying to find and how it is different from some other less interesting thing.
“I believe, true for both dancers” – even if we treat “blond dancer” as two parts “blond! dancer!”, these two are at least united by the convention (I don’t know about ape language, but in English also by certain linguistical means) that both refer to same person.
Yes, for “bad” the convention is that it is not a quality of a person (or not her quality other than as a dancer: in this interpretation “dancer” restricts badness) but the quality of her dance.
But it’s much easier to speak about such things when we’re discussing English and not, for example, what happens to meanings of grunts for an ape when she speaks.
Peace and mating made me think of a certain lady. 5 seconds in one bed were enough for a quarrel between us. We intended to sleep in the bed (it was night, there were not any other beds around and in my circle a boy and girl in one bed don’t alwasy mean “sex”) but we both most definitely thought how much worse the quarrel would have been if the plan was sex.
Next time (and in a different bed) she placed a human-sized toy shark between us, to guard the peace. Both were relieved.
Rupert Yelp-Grunt would be a good name for a Tory PPS. Sadly, the whiff of scandal would be likely to derail his political ambitions in these censorious days.
Did he take only the worst of both Yelps and Grunts rather than getting all their qualities?
(speaking of what is “human language” and what is not…)
@de
It is clear what name Yelp-Grunt would be called in private. But are you sure he is not a Labour MP?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Russell-Moyle
—
‘In December 2019, Russell-Moyle sparked controversy when he said he was not a “cunt” in refusing to call for the immediate resignation of Jeremy Corbyn, during an exchange on instant messenger with a former party member, which was leaked to The Sun.’
—
cuntroversy
Thread won.