Origins of language: Wild chimps mirror linguistic structures in human language

[Jim__]

From phys.org

Chimpanzees Asanti and Akuna vocalizing. A new study shows that wild chimpanzees use a variety of call combinations to expand messaging. Credit: Liran Samuni, Taï Chimpanzee Project
______________________________________________________________________

...

The study reveals four ways in which chimpanzees alter meanings when combining single calls into 16 different two-call combinations, analogous to the key linguistic principles in human language.

Chimpanzees used compositional combinations that added meaning (e.g., A = feeding, B = resting, AB = feeding + resting) and clarified meaning (e.g., A = feeding or traveling, B = aggression, AB = traveling). They also used non-compositional idiomatic combinations that created entirely new meanings (e.g., A = resting, B = affiliation, AB = nesting).

Crucially, unlike previous studies which have mostly reported call combinations in limited situations such as predator encounters, the chimpanzees in this study expanded their meanings through the versatile combination of most of their single calls into a large diversity of call combinations used in a wide range of contexts.

"Our findings suggest a highly generative vocal communication system, unprecedented in the animal kingdom, which echoes recent findings in bonobos suggesting that complex combinatorial capacities were already present in the common ancestor of humans and these two great ape species," says Cédric Girard-Buttoz, first author on the study.

...