Abstract
Cäsar et al. (2013) show that the structure of Titi monkey call sequences can, with just two call types (A and B), reflect information about predator type and predator location. Using the general methods of Schlenker et al. (2014, 2016, to appear), we ask what these observations show about the ‘linguistic’ structure of Titi calls. We first demonstrate that the simplest behavioral assumptions make it challenging to provide lexical specifications for A- and B-calls: B-calls rather clearly have the distribution of highly underspecified calls; but A-calls are also found in highly heterogeneous contexts (e.g. they are triggered by ‘cat in the canopy’ and ‘raptor on the ground’ situations). We discuss two possible solutions to the problem. One posits that entire sequences are endowed with meanings that are not compositionally derived from their individual parts (a related idea was proposed by Arnold and Zuberbühler to analyze pyow-hack sequences in Putty-nosed monkeys). The second solution, which we consider to be superior, takes sequences to have no structure besides concatenation: the B-call is a general call, the A-call is used for serious non-ground threats, and each call reflects information about the environment at the time at which it is uttered. The composition of Cäsar et al.’s sequences is seen to follow from the interaction between call meaning, rules of competition among calls, and more sophisticated assumptions about the environmental context. In the end, a detailed analysis of the division of labor between semantics, pragmatics and the environmental context yields a simple and explanatory analysis of sequences that initially seemed to display a complex mapping between syntax and semantics.
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Notes
A combination of expressions is (weakly) compositional if its meaning is a function of the meaning of its elementary parts and the way they are put together. See for instance Heim and Kratzer (1998) for a textbook introduction to a compositional analysis of meaning in human language.
In addition, Schlenker et al. (to appear) argue that Black-and-White Colobus sequences might involve complex calls. In a nutshell, their argument is that snort-roar sequences have a broader distribution than either of their component parts, which makes it difficult for the meaning of the whole to be obtained by conjoining the meanings of the parts. While they do not claim to decide the issue, they leave open the possibility that in snort-roar sequences snort and roar should be likened to phonemes—in which case snort-roar sequences would be phonologically (but not necessarily morphologically or syntactically) complex.
Besides noting that some calls are more general than others, Wheeler and Fischer propose an interesting generalization: “across species it tends to be the call associated with terrestrial predators that is given in other contexts, whereas the call associated with aerial predators tends to be context-specific and meet the criteria of functional reference” (Wheeler and Fischer 2012:200). This generalization holds true in our preferred analysis of Titi calls, as it did in the final analysis of Campbell’s calls in Schlenker et al. (2014).
We worked as follows. Primatologists on the team of authors provided the data. Linguists analyzed them and sought to find an analysis, but they were initially puzzled by the great difficulties they had in finding lexical specifications for individual calls (a problem that was not noted in Cäsar et al. 2013). After realizing that the difficulty was quite fundamental, as explained in Sect. 4, they explored an analysis with a less direct connection between call use and call context, thanks to the assumptions about the environmental context discussed in Sect. 5.2. It was when the primatologists on the team confirmed that there was independent evidence for these assumptions that the final analysis was adopted.
Importantly, in most cases Cäsar could confirm that the calls were produced by only one individual, especially the first 30 calls under discussion here. For details, see Cäsar et al. (2013:2–3, Table 1) of that paper’s online supplementary materials.
The term ‘lexicon’ pertains to the smallest units that carry information, with no implication that monkey calls are similar to human words.
For simplicity, we disregard hokoo from the present discussion; see Schlenker et al. (2014) for details.
As they write, “in their simplest version scalar implicatures only require that subjects have at their disposal (i) a notion of satisfaction (to determine whether a sentence S—e.g. p or q—is compatible with the situation at hand); (ii) a notion of scalar alternatives (to determine whether the sentence \(S'\) (e.g. p and q) competes with the sentence S); and (iii) a notion of entailment (to determine whether \(S'\) is more informative than S). These three ingredients could suffice to yield the inference that if p or q was uttered, the more informative statement p and q is false.”.
World knowledge plays a crucial role to determine whether pragmatic strengthening should be applied or not. In a nutshell, Schlenker et al. (2014) posit that the reason pragmatic strengthening fails to be applied on Tiwai island is that it would yield a strengthened meaning which is almost never applicable, because there are no ground predators in that environment.
As was mentioned in connection with the generalizations in (1) and (2), our data—including those reproduced in the Appendix—are based on the first 30 calls of any sequence. But after the 30th call, the patterns obtained with A and B calls just repeat the end of the 30-call sequence, hence our generalizations are unaffected by the restriction to the first 30 calls.
The conditions on k and n are more stringent in (14) than in (15) because in (14) we wish to guarantee that \(\mathrm{A}^{k}\mathrm{B}^{m}\) has the right number of calls to serve as a competitor to \(\mathrm{A}^{n}\) and to \(\mathrm{B}^{n}\); since competitors are defined in (13) by call-for-call replacement, this leads to the condition the condition k + m = n.
This is a rough approximation, obtained by multiplying N by L, with
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N = the average number of inter-call intervals heard between the first call of the sequence and the first B-call—hence N = 12.6 − 1 = 11.6, since the first B-call appears on average in position 12.6;
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L = inter-call average length computed over all sequences (= 1.437 s).
The result is \(N\times L = 16.7~\mbox{s}\).
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Note that the lexical meaning of \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\) is weaker than (and hence compatible with) that of \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\mathrm{B}^{++}\). One could thus argue that the informational component these two sequence types have in common licenses the appropriate reaction as long as the ambiguity has not been resolved. But our analysis crucially hinges on the fact that the lexical meaning of \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\) is pragmatically enriched with the negation of \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\mathrm{B}^{++}\). For behavioral purposes, it is this enriched meaning that presumably matter. But the enriched meaning of \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\) is clearly incompatible with that \(\mathrm{A}^{++}\mathrm{B}^{++}\), which implies that the proposed strategy won’t help much.
The authors describe both a ‘searching’ and a ‘sit-and-wait’ strategy, but it seems clear that even the latter involves attacks from above (as the authors write, the predators ‘drop down’ on the monkeys).
We used Mann-Whitney tests using each call as an independent data point. The structure of the data forces us to merge all groups into one for these analyses, rather than studying a possible group effect (there is no group for which there is more than 3 calls for two of the situations). But we have no reason to believe that there exists such a group effect.
There are fewer calls in (naturalistic) ‘calling/perched raptor’ than in (experimental) ‘raptor in the canopy’ situations (W = 11.5, p = .16). If this difference were significant, it could be because in the former case the trigger disappears more quickly than in the second, which involves raptor models.
Note however that some naturalistic situations give rise to stereotyped sequences, as can be seen in the naturalistic Eagle-related sequences in (23a)(iii)–(iv).
An anonymous referee suggests that the A-call could be analyzed as contributing the information that there is ‘danger in the air’, whereas the B-call could be specified for the presence of a ‘remarkable animal on the ground’. For the B-call, the referee’s proposed specification is clearly stronger than our highly underspecified lexical entry; it would fail to account for the fact, mentioned above, that B-calls occur in situations in which no animal has been detected (Cäsar et al. 2013; see also the sample data in the Appendix). For the A-call, the precise relation between the referee’s analysis and ours depends on how literally ‘danger in the air’ is interpreted. One could take ‘danger in the air’ to mean that there is a dangerous entity in the air—and if so a mechanism of correction would be needed for \(\underline{\mathrm{A}^{++}\mathrm{B}^{++}}\) sequences produced in ‘raptor on the ground’ situations, as these do not involve a dangerous entity in the air. Alternatively, we could take ‘danger in the air’ to correspond to what we called ‘non-ground alert’ (without the ‘serious’ component added in (19b))—with the possibility that this is triggered in ‘raptor on the ground’ situation because the danger (though not the predator) is non-ground. Either way, this analysis must explain why the observed sequences transition from A to B in ‘cat in the canopy’ situations (\(\underline{\mathrm{AB}^{++}}\)) and in ‘raptor on the ground’ situations (\(\underline{\mathrm{A}^{++}\mathrm{B}^{++}}\)). The referee suggests that these are corrections, and that the transition is immediate in ‘cat in the canopy situations’ so as to ‘quickly make clear that the danger is considerably weakened’. This analysis has several drawbacks, however. (i) As mentioned, it posits an incorrect meaning for the B-call. (ii) It must explain which cases of call concatenation are conjunctive, and which are corrective. (iii) It takes Titis to produce false information in ‘cat in the canopy’ situations, since these contain a \(\mathrm{B}^{++}\) sub-sequence, in the absence of any ‘remarkable animal on the ground’ (and no self-correction follows in this case).
See Schlenker et al. (to appear) for a survey of several recent studies in primate linguistics, with a more systematic discussion of the division of labor among different modules (notably semantics, pragmatics, and the environmental context).
Further afield, one could seek to assess the existence of such rules in animals acquiring lexical meanings that can be experimentally modulated (e.g. dogs or parrots; see for instance Kaminski et al. 2004; Pepperberg 2010). Specifically, as suggested in a different context by Takashi Morita (p.c.), one could expose such animals to two labels L and \(L'\) and a learning environment in which \(L'\) is true in a strict subset of the situations in which L is true (so that \(L'\) is strictly stronger than L). One could then test whether \(L'\) blocks L when both are applicable, be it in comprehension or (if testable) in production.
Two remarks should be added.
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(i)
It was once objected to us that Titi monkeys couldn’t have the cognitive abilities to derive implicatures, which human 4-year-olds have trouble understanding in human language. While we think it dubious to draw inferences on distant animals on the basis of human data, it is certainly legitimate to ask about the cognitive underpinnings of the mechanisms we posit. Several remarks are in order in this connection. First, as already mentioned, our rule of competition among calls need not rely on a theory of mind. Second, the comparison with human children is misleading along several dimensions: the child data we know of display problems with implicatures in perception, but they do not (yet) show that children produce under-informative sentences—which would be the right point of comparison for the production data discussed here. More importantly, recent results show that human children do derive implicatures under several conditions, for instance with numerals (Papafragou and Musolino 2003), or when alternatives are made salient (Barner et al. 2011). Finally, one might be rather surprised by the cognitive abilities of some New World monkeys, and to Shane Steinert-Threlkeld for pointing out some important typos. For instance, capuchin monkeys have displayed a sophisticated behavior in tasks pertaining to metacognition, decision-making, and deception, among others (see Parrish and Brosnan 2012 for a review). No comparable data exist for Titis, but caution is in order.
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(ii)
The ‘grammatical’ (or ‘localist’) approach developed by Chierchia et al. (2012) also takes implicatures to be derived without a theory of mind, but for a different reason. Chierchia et al. argue that implicatures can be derived at the level of constituents rather than just at the level of complete utterances, and they analyze them by way of covert exhaustivity operators akin to only, which are unpronounced but nonetheless present in the syntax. Since we take individual calls to form complete utterances, this type of argument is not applicable here. Furthermore, the enrichment mechanism we posit could in principle be adopted within standard (‘globalist’) neo-Gricean theories of implicatures—at the cost of sacrificing the fine-grained interaction between the derivation of implicatures and the precise state of mind of the speaker and addressee.
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(i)
Two points should be added.
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1.
As things stand, our analysis relies on the principle stated in (i):
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(i)
at time t, monkey M warns monkeys \(M'\) with an A call in reaction to a cat in the canopy => at time t + 1, M believes that \(M'\) believe that there is a threat in the canopy (and hence M believes that the cat has been detected).
(i) requires an ability to compute the effects of a vocal signal on another monkey’s epistemic state. Crockford et al. (2012) argued that chimpanzees may take into account the epistemic effect of earlier calls (as well as of other cues) when producing alarms, thus uttering more calls towards ignorant audience members. Hattori et al. (2010) argued that under the right experimental conditions Capuchin monkeys take into account the epistemic state of their (human) audience (inferred through eyegaze cues, for instance) when performing certain requesting actions. We do not know of similar data pertaining to Titi monkeys, but preliminary observations suggest that Titis may change their sequences according to the presence of a conspecific (e.g. the approach of group member that was far away at the beginning of a sequence; Cäsar, personal observations; Cäsar 2011).
Within our analysis, (i) above is essential to derive the result in (ii) below, which in turn explains why a cat in the canopy first licenses a serious non-ground alert at t (hence the A call), but soon thereafter only a non-serious alert (hence the B calls in \(\underline{\mathrm{AB}^{++}}\) series). It is an open question whether we could derive (ii) on principled grounds if (i) turns out to be too strong.
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(ii)
at time t, monkey M warns monkeys \(M'\) with an A call in reaction to a cat in the canopy => at time t + 1, the threat associated with the cat in the canopy is less serious than it was at t.
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(i)
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2.
Melissa Berthet (p.c.) reports that in ongoing field experiments, she replicates several of Cäsar’s results, with one notable exception: in her six sequences triggered in ‘cat in the canopy’ contexts, she obtains \(\mathrm{B}^{++}\) rather than \(\mathrm{AB}^{++}\) patterns. She hypothesizes that her cat models might have been less well hidden than in Cäsar’s experiments, and that in the latter the Titis might initially have thought they were observing a raptor. From the present perspective, it might be that a conspicuous cat in the canopy is considered as a less serious threat than an inconspicuous one, hence a lower level of danger, and an initial B-rather than an initial A-call. But certainly our hypotheses should be revisited when Berthet’s full data become available.
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1.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to three anonymous referees and to Editor Ad Neeleman for very helpful comments and criticisms. We are also grateful to Melissa Berthet for discussing (at the very end of this research) some preliminary results of ongoing field experiments she is conducting with Titi monkeys. Special thanks to Lucie Ravaux for help with the manuscript (including the preparation of some of the figures).
Grant acknowledgments:
Cäsar: The research leading to these results received funding from the CAPES-Brazil, FAPEMIG-Brazil, S.B. LEAKEY TRUST and the University of St Andrews.
Chemla and Schlenker: Research by Schlenker and Chemla was conducted at Institut d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure—PSL Research University. Institut d’Etudes Cognitives is supported by grants ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC et ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL.
Schlenker: The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n°324115-FRONTSEM (PI:Schlenker).
Zuberbühler: The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under ERC grant ‘Prilang 283871’ and also from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant ‘FN 310030_143359/1’.
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Appendix: Sample sequences
Appendix: Sample sequences
We provide below sample sequences obtained in various situations (up to the 30th call in each case). We do not provide data from field experiments with tayra, puma and boa models, as these are the object of a separate study.
Color code for legibility (online version only): A calls = orange; B calls = green; C calls = yellow.
Location experiments with Raptor vs. Cat Models (sample: first half of each block)
Raptor in the canopy
Cat on the ground
Raptor on the ground
Cat in the canopy
Naturalistic raptor situations (sample: first three or around half of each block)
Flying raptor
Perched raptor
Calling raptor
Naturalistic situations, other animals (Capuchins: complete sample, with some coding uncertainty; three for other animals)
Capuchin in tree
Puma
Spotted cat on the ground
Deer on the ground
Naturalistic situations, non-animal events (first three of each block)
Descending
Feeding
Foraging
Descending/Feeding
Descending/Foraging
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Schlenker, P., Chemla, E., Cäsar, C. et al. Titi semantics: Context and meaning in Titi monkey call sequences. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 35, 271–298 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9337-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9337-9