Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.

Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli ca...

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Autores principales:	Karim Ouattara, Alban Lemasson, Klaus Zuberbühler
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/857755dd0b034757b11f8564f060c8a7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:857755dd0b034757b11f8564f060c8a72021-11-25T06:28:10ZCampbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0007808https://doaj.org/article/857755dd0b034757b11f8564f060c8a72009-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/19915663/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli campbelli). We found that male alarm calls are composed of an acoustically variable stem, which can be followed by an acoustically invariable suffix. Using long-term observations and predator simulation experiments, we show that suffixation in this species functions to broaden the calls' meaning by transforming a highly specific eagle alarm to a general arboreal disturbance call or by transforming a highly specific leopard alarm call to a general alert call. We concluded that, when referring to specific external events, non-human primates can generate meaningful acoustic variation during call production that is functionally equivalent to suffixation in human language.Karim OuattaraAlban LemassonKlaus ZuberbühlerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 4, Iss 11, p e7808 (2009)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Karim Ouattara Alban Lemasson Klaus Zuberbühler Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
description	Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli campbelli). We found that male alarm calls are composed of an acoustically variable stem, which can be followed by an acoustically invariable suffix. Using long-term observations and predator simulation experiments, we show that suffixation in this species functions to broaden the calls' meaning by transforming a highly specific eagle alarm to a general arboreal disturbance call or by transforming a highly specific leopard alarm call to a general alert call. We concluded that, when referring to specific external events, non-human primates can generate meaningful acoustic variation during call production that is functionally equivalent to suffixation in human language.
format	article
author	Karim Ouattara Alban Lemasson Klaus Zuberbühler
author_facet	Karim Ouattara Alban Lemasson Klaus Zuberbühler
author_sort	Karim Ouattara
title	Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
title_short	Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
title_full	Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
title_fullStr	Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
title_full_unstemmed	Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
title_sort	campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2009
url	https://doaj.org/article/857755dd0b034757b11f8564f060c8a7
work_keys_str_mv	AT karimouattara campbellsmonkeysuseaffixationtoaltercallmeaning AT albanlemasson campbellsmonkeysuseaffixationtoaltercallmeaning AT klauszuberbuhler campbellsmonkeysuseaffixationtoaltercallmeaning
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Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning.

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