Abstract We explain why general techniques from formal linguistics can and should be applied to the analysis of monkey communication – in the areas of syntax and especially semantics. An informed look at our recent proposals shows that such techniques needn’t rely excessively on categories of human language: syntax and semantics provide versatile formal tools that go beyond the specificities of human linguistics. We argue that “formal monkey linguistics” can yield new insights into monkey morphology, syntax, and semantics, as well as raise provocative new questions about the existence of a pragmatic, competition-based component in these communication systems. Finally, we argue that evolutionary questions, which are highly speculative in human language, can be addressed in an empirically satisfying fashion in primate linguistics, and we lay out problems that should be addressed at the interface between evolutionary primate linguistics and formal analyses of language evolution.

中文翻译：

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正式的猴子语言学：辩论

摘要我们解释了为什么在语法特别是语义学领域中，正规语言学的通用技术为什么可以并且应该应用于猴子交流的分析。对我们最近的建议的深入了解表明，这种技术不必过度依赖人类语言的类别：语法和语义提供了超越人类语言学特性的通用形式工具。我们认为“正式的猴子语言学”可以对猴子的形态，句法和语义产生新的见解，并提出有关这些通信系统中存在基于务实，基于竞争的组件的挑衅性新问题。最后，我们认为进化论问题在人类语言中具有高度投机性，可以用灵长类语言学中的经验令人满意的方式来解决，