Differentiation Between Agents and Patients in the Putative Two-Word Stage of Language Evolution

Gabrić, Petar

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684022

Cited by 1 publication

(3 citation statements)

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“…Specifically, Progovac believes that such linguistic phenomena form a kind of "protosyntax" which was present at least from Homo heidelbergensis (i.e., the phylogenetically intermediate species between Homo erectus and anatomically modern humans). Similar, yet less elaborate proposals have been made by others as well (e.g., Barham and Everett 2020;Benítez-Burraco and Progovac 2020;Botha 2020;Dediu and Levinson 2013Everett 2017;Gabrić 2019Gabrić , 2021aGabrić et al 2018Gabrić et al , 2021Gil 2008Gil , 2009Michlich 2018). The current reinterpretation of Brutus's communication suggests the possibility that such or similar communicational behaviors might have been present before the human-chimpanzee split and, by extension, in hominins predating Homo sapiens, although not necessarily in the vocal modality.…”

Section: Final Argumentssupporting

confidence: 80%

“…Gabrić 2021a). This is why semantic compositionality is fundamental to language and why it may have been present in the earliest stages of language evolution (Gabrić 2019(Gabrić , 2021aGabrić et al 2021;Hurford 2012;Jackendoff and Wittenberg 2014;Progovac 2015Progovac , 2016Progovac , 2019. In one view of language functioning, any combination of at least two elements forming an utterance (in that case, sentence) follows at least some rule, implying that semantic compositionality is intrinsic to linguistic communication.…”

Section: Semantic Compositionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Otherwise, and in this particular context, the receiver could never be able to tell who did what to whom and the relative functionality of such a communicational system would be questionable (cf. Gabrić 2021a ). This is why semantic compositionality is fundamental to language and why it may have been present in the earliest stages of language evolution (Gabrić 2019 , 2021a , b , c , d ; Gabrić et al 2021 ; Hurford 2012 ; Jackendoff and Wittenberg 2014 ; Progovac 2015 , 2016 , 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Overlooked evidence for semantic compositionality and signal reduction in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Gabrić

2021

Anim Cogn

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Recent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality.

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