Abstract We argue that rich data gathered in experimental primatology in the last 40 years can benefit from analytical methods used in contemporary linguistics. Focusing on the syntactic and especially semantic side, we suggest that these methods could help clarify five questions: (i) what morphology and syntax, if any, do monkey calls have? (ii) what is the ‘lexical meaning’ of individual calls? (iii) how are the meanings of individual calls combined? (iv) how do calls or call sequences compete with each other when several are appropriate in a given situation? (v) how did the form and meaning of calls evolve? We address these questions in five case studies pertaining to cercopithecines (Putty-nosed monkeys, Blue monkeys, and Campbell’s monkeys), colobinae (Guereza monkeys and King Colobus monkeys), and New World monkeys (Titi monkeys). The morphology mostly involves simple calls, but in at least one case (Campbell’s -oo) we find a root-suffix structure, possibly with a compositional semantics. The syntax is in all clear cases simple and finite-state. With respect to meaning, nearly all cases of call concatenation can be analyzed as conjunction. But a key question concerns the division of labor between semantics, pragmatics and the environmental context (‘world’ knowledge and context change). An apparent case of dialectal variation in the semantics (Campbell’s krak) can arguably be analyzed away if one posits sufficiently powerful mechanisms of competition among calls, akin to scalar implicatures. An apparent case of non-compositionality (Putty-nosed pyow-hack sequences) can be analyzed away if one further posits a pragmatic principle of ‘urgency’, whereby threat-related calls must come early in sequences (another potential case of non-compositionality – Colobus snort-roar sequences – might justify assigning non-compositional meanings to complex calls, but results are tentative). Finally, rich Titi sequences in which two calls are re-arranged in complex ways so as to reflect information about both predator identity and location are argued not to involve a complex syntax/semantics interface, but rather a fine-grained interaction between simple call meanings and the environmental context. With respect to call evolution, we suggest that the remarkable preservation of call form and function over millions of years should make it possible to lay the groundwork for an evolutionary monkey linguistics, which we illustrate with cercopithecine booms, and with a comparative analysis of Blue monkey and Putty-nosed monkey repertoires. Throughout, we aim to compare possible theories rather than to fully adjudicate between them, and our claims are correspondingly modest. But we hope that our methods could lay the groundwork for a formal monkey linguistics combining data from primatology with formal techniques from linguistics (from which it does not follow that the calls under study share non-trivial properties, let alone an evolutionary history, with human language).

中文翻译：

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正式的猴子语言学

摘要我们认为，近40年来在实验灵长类动物学中收集的丰富数据可以从当代语言学中使用的分析方法中受益。我们着眼于句法尤其是语义方面，我们建议这些方法可以帮助阐明五个问题：（i）猴子调用有什么形态和语法（如果有）？（ii）个别电话的“词汇含义”是什么？（iii）个别电话的涵义如何合并？（iv）在给定情况下几个合适的呼叫或呼叫序列如何相互竞争？（v）通话的形式和含义如何演变？我们在五个案例研究中解决了这些问题，这些案例涉及鹿角上皮猴（油灰鼻猴，蓝猴和坎贝尔猴），疣鼻猴（瓜雷萨猴和疣猴国王猴）和新大陆猴（蒂蒂猴）。形态学主要涉及简单的调用，但是在至少一种情况下（坎贝尔的-oo），我们发现了根后缀结构，可能具有组成语义。在所有明显的情况下，语法都是简单且有限状态的。关于含义，几乎所有呼叫串联的情况都可以分析为合取。但是一个关键问题涉及语义，语用学和环境语境（“世界”知识和语境变化）之间的分工。如果一个人假设呼叫之间有足够强大的竞争机制（类似于标量含义），那么语义上的方言变化（Campbell的克拉克）的一个明显案例可以被分析掉。如果进一步提出一种务实的“紧急性”原则，则可以分析一种非组合性的明显情况（油灰鼻py-hack序列），因此，与威胁相关的呼叫必须在序列中尽早出现（另一种可能的非组合性情况-Colobus snort-roar序列-可能会为复杂的调用分配非组合性含义是合理的，但结果是暂时的）。最后，人们认为，以复杂的方式重新排列两个调用以反映有关捕食者身份和位置的信息的丰富Titi序列不涉及复杂的语法/语义接口，而是涉及简单调用含义之间的细粒度交互和环境背景。关于呼叫演变，我们建议，在数百万年中，呼叫形式和功能的显着保留应该为奠定进化猴子语言学奠定基础成为可能，我们将用头尾上皮热潮来说明这一点，并比较了“蓝猴”和“腻子鼻”的所有曲目。在整个过程中，我们的目标是比较可能的理论，而不是对它们进行完全的裁决，因此我们的主张相对应适度。但是，我们希望我们的方法能够为正式的猴子语言学奠定基础，这些语言学将灵长类动物学的数据与语言学的形式技术相结合（从中得出结论，所研究的研究与人类没有共同的特性，更不用说进化史了）语言）。