In 1980, Robert Seyfarth, Dorothy Cheney and Peter Marler published a landmark paper in Science claiming language-like semantic communication in the alarm calls of vervet monkeys. This paper and the career research program it spawned for its authors catalyzed countless other studies searching for semantics, and then also syntax and other rarefied properties of language, in the communication systems of nonhuman primates and other animals. It also helped bolster a parallel tradition of teaching symbolism and syntax in artificial language systems to great apes. Although the search for language rudiments in the communications of primates long predates the vervet alarm call story, it is difficult to overstate the impact of the vervet research, for it fuelled field and laboratory research programs for several generations of primatologists and kept busy an equal number of philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists debating possible implications for the origins and evolution of language and other vaunted elements of the human condition. Now 40-years on, the original vervet alarm call findings have been revised and claims of semanticity recanted; while other evidence for semantics and syntax in the natural communications of nonhumans is sparse and weak. Ultimately, we are forced to conclude that there are simply few substantive precedents in the natural communications of animals for the high-level informational and representational properties of language, nor its complex syntax. This conclusion does not mean primates cannot be taught some version of these elements of language in artificial language systems -- in fact, they can. Nor does it mean there is no continuity between the natural communications of animals and humans that could inform the evolution of language – in fact, there is such continuity. It just does not lie in the specialized semantic and syntactic properties of language. In reviewing these matters, I consider why it is that primates do not evince high-level properties of language in their natural communications but why we so readily accepted that they did or should; and what lessons we might draw from that experience. In the proceess, I also consider why accounts of human-like characteristics in animals can be irresistibly appealing.

中文翻译：

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模仿语言：在灵长类动物和其他动物的交流中探索人类语言的语义、句法和其他稀有属性的历史视角

1980 年，罗伯特·塞法斯 (Robert Seyfarth)、多萝西·切尼 (Dorothy Cheney) 和彼得·马勒 (Peter Marler) 在《科学》杂志上发表了一篇具有里程碑意义的论文，声称黑长尾猴的警报叫声中存在类似语言的语义交流。这篇论文及其为其作者催生的职业研究计划催化了无数其他研究，在非人类灵长类动物和其他动物的交流系统中寻找语义，然后寻找语法和语言的其他稀有属性。它还有助于加强向类人猿教授人工语言系统中的符号和语法的平行传统。尽管对灵长类动物交​​流中的语言基础的探索早于黑长尾猴警报声的故事，但很难夸大黑长尾猴研究的影响，因为它推动了几代灵长类动物学家的实地和实验室研究项目，并让同样数量的灵长类动物学家忙碌起来。哲学家、语言学家和认知科学家讨论语言的起源和进化以及人类状况的其他被吹捧的元素可能产生的影响。40 年后的今天，最初的黑长尾黑颚猴警报声研究结果已被修改，语义学主张也被撤销。而非人类自然交流中语义和句法的其他证据却很少且薄弱。最终，我们被迫得出这样的结论：在动物的自然交流中，语言的高级信息和表征属性及其复杂的语法几乎没有实质性的先例。这一结论并不意味着灵长类动物不能在人工语言系统中学习这些语言元素的某些版本——事实上，它们可以。这也不意味着动物和人类的自然交流之间不存在可以影响语言进化的连续性——事实上，存在这种连续性。它并不在于语言的专门语义和句法属性。在回顾这些问题时，我思考为什么灵长类动物在自然交流中没有表现出高级语言特性，但为什么我们如此容易地接受它们表现出或应该表现出语言的高级特性；以及我们可以从这次经历中吸取什么教训。在此过程中，我还思考为什么对动物类人特征的描述具有不可抗拒的吸引力。