I strongly applaud the attempt of linguists and primatologists to work together to better understand primate communication and its implications for the biology of language, along with the general goal of using formal and comparative analyses of primate behaviour to ground such endeavours. However, I find formal semantics to be a rather inauspicious starting point for this research programme, due to the many assumptions about both conceptual structure and the communicative process that are implicit (and sometimes explicit) within the framework of formal semantics. The very notion of ‘reference’ is heavily laden with assumptions that are questionable even for human language, inapplicable to other human communicative systems (e. g. music or laughter), and inappropriate for primate communication. The same is true for many of the assumptions that go along with modern pragmatics in both its Gricean and speech-act guises – the most fundamental notions of ostensive communication and intent to alter the contents of others’ minds appear to be inapplicable to most animal communication. A more promising approach is to start with what has already been learned, empirically, about primate cognition and communication (e. g. that there is no parity of sender and receiver, and little evidence for ostensive signals or Gricean maxims, in primate communication systems). A formal framework that makes fewer assumptions about meaning (e. g. formal language theory, especially in its sub-regular “phonological” subset) is then the more appropriate starting point for formal analyses of animal communication.

中文翻译：

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为什么形式语义和灵长类动物的交流使人感到奇怪

我强烈赞扬语言学家和灵长类动物学家通力合作以更好地理解灵长类动物交​​流及其对语言生物学的影响的努力，以及使用灵长类动物行为的形式化和比较性分析来建立这种努力的总体目标。但是，由于形式语义的框架中隐含（有时是显式）的概念结构和交流过程方面的许多假设，因此我认为形式语义学对于该研究计划而言是一个不恰当的起点。“指称”这一概念充满了很多假设，这些假设甚至对人类语言而言都是可疑的，不适用于其他人类交流系统（例如音乐或笑声），并且不适用于灵长类动物的交流。对于现代语用学的格里西亚语和言语举止形式中的许多假设而言，情况也是如此-表面交流的最基本概念以及意图改变他人思想内容的最基本概念似乎不适用于大多数动物交流。一种更有前途的方法是从经验上开始的关于灵长类动物认知和交流的知识开始（例如，在灵长类动物通信系统中没有发送者和接收者的对等，并且几乎没有证据表明表面信号或Gricean准则）。那么，对意义进行较少假设的形式化框架（例如形式语言理论，尤其是在其次常规的“语音”子集中），便是对动物交流进行形式化分析的更合适的起点。