LIN 201

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LIN 201

• Fall 2006
• Lecture XIV (14)
• Animal communication

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Reminder

• Quiz 2 in Recitation next week. Covers Weeks IV
  through IX Language Acquisition, American Sign
  Language, Animal Communication, and Origin of
  Language.

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Agenda

• 1. Video on ASL (concl.)
• 2. Animal communication General.
• 3. Animal communication Chimps.
• 4. Video Chimp Talk.

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Agenda

• 1. Videotape on ASL, questoins in CR, pp. 89-90

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Agenda

• 2. Animal communication General.

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Communication -- Review

• Communication any way in which one organism
  conveys information to another. Language is
  (often) a form of communication, not all
  communication is language.
• All animals have ways of communicating. Do any
  non-human animals have language as we have
  defined it? (lexicon, rules, etc.)

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Properties of language (for comparison with other
species)

• Knowledge
• Lexicon (arbitrariness).
• Rules (creativity).
• Use Stimulus-free.
• Acquisition Little or no instruction.

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Animal Comm (FR, 21-25)

• Talking birds.
• Spiders.
• Fiddler crabs.
• Bird calls.
• Bird songs.
• Honeybees.

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Agenda

• 3. Animal communication Chimpanzees.

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Common chimps

• A. Vocalizing Gua and Viki.
• B. Signing (ASL).
• 1. Washoe (Nevada).
• 2. Nim Chimpsky (New York).
• C. Lexigrams (Yerkish -- tape Chimp talk)
• 1. Austin.
• 2. Sherman

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Bonobo (pygmy) chimps

• Lexigrams
• 1. Kanzi.
• 2. Panbanisha.

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Chimpanzees (1)

• Knowledge Lexicon
• Washoe -- 85 ASL signs (many arbitrary).
• Other signing chimps -- same or more.

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Chimpanzees (2)

• Knowledge -- Rules (creativity) Chimp syntax
  -- Nim Chimpsky (FR, p. 354)
• GIVE ORANGE ME GIVE EAT ORANGE ME EAT ORANGE GIVE
  ME EAT ORANGE GIVE ME YOU.
• Unlike childs telegraphic speech in that longer
  utterances dont show combinations of semantic
  relations from earlier stages.

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Chimpanzees (3)

• Claimed knowledge -- Rules for combining signs
  (creativity)
• Washoe WATER BIRD duck
• Koko FINGER BRACELET finger ring
• Course Reader, p. 93 -- Panbanisha Fight. Mad.
  Austin. (in various combinations)

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Created forms in chimps

• Water. Bird.
• Waterbird.

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Chimpanzees (3)

• Stimulus-freedom.
• Only 12 of Nim Chimpskys sign productions were
  spontaneous.
• 40 were repetitions of trainers productions.

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Chimpanzees (4)

• No instruction.
• All but Kanzi and Panbanisha required heavy
  instruction (careful arrangement of signs,
  etc.)
• Kanzi and Panbanisha Apparently spontaneous
  acquisition.

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Chimps (5) Concl

• Lexicon -- maybe.
• Rules -- very unlikely.
• Stimulus-freedom -- limited.
• Instructionless acquisition --
• common chimps no.
• bonobo chimps probably.

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Agenda

• 4. Video Chimp Talk Questions, pp. 97-98 of
  the Course Reader.