<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">I'm glad I'm not the only one that couldn't find the sentences in the example. Isn't it pretty well established that many animals have call systems with clear social functions, such as warning others of danger, establishing hierarchies, mating preparation, etc.? I have interacted with a lot of domestic animals, from cats to cows, and they all pay little attention to each other or me when the goings ons are 'normal interaction'. When one does something abnormal, such as run around yelling and waving one's arms, animals I know usually act surprised--they ran away! My interaction with wild animals has been more limited, but the same pattern seems to hold.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Animals easily recognize each other through the sonic qualities of their calls -- the sounds of their voices. Seal moms and pups quickly learn to recognize one another by the sounds of their voices, and moms bark and listen for their pup's answer when coming back from hunting to find their pups on the beach--in the midst of 100s of seals (source: Animal Planet on BBC). These aren't sentences. Reading the NYT article is really annoying--claims that this pair is full of unique insight into animal behavior that any hunter or farmer already knows and comparisons of baboon society to 19th century Victorian women. The speculations on evolution strike me as typical stuff, hardly insightful.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Maybe Cheney and Seyfarth are doing cutting-edge work, but you can't tell from the way it was described in the NYT.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Alex</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV>On 10 Oct 2007, at 19:50, Ronald Kephart wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On 10/10/07 2:09 AM, "Kerim Friedman" <<A href="mailto:oxusnet@gmail.com">oxusnet@gmail.com</A>> wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">An interesting language-related tidbit from a NY Times article about</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">experiments on Baboon social behavior:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://tinyurl.com/2k9a4k">http://tinyurl.com/2k9a4k</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"In some of their playback experiments, Dr. Cheney and Dr. Seyfarth have</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">tested baboons' knowledge of where everyone stands in the hierarchy. In a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">typical interaction, a dominant baboon gives a threat grunt, and its inferior</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">screams. From their library of recorded baboon sounds, the researchers can</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">fabricate a sequence in which an inferior baboon's threat grunt is followed by</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a superior's scream.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Baboons pay little attention when a normal interaction is played to them but</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">show surprise when they hear the fabricated sequence implying their social</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">world has been turned upside down.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This simple reaction says a lot about what is going in the baboon's mind. That</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the animal can construe "A dominates B," and distinguish it from "B dominates</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">A," means it must be able to break a stream of sounds down into separate</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">elements, recognize the meaning of each, and combine the meanings into a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">sentence-like thought.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Huh? How does this follow from the evidence they give? I don't get it. What</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I get from this is that the baboons recognize the voices of individuals,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">know who is dominant and who is subordinate, and<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>are surprised to hear a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">dominant call come from a subordinate, and vice versa.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"That's what we do when we parse a sentence," Dr. Seyfarth said...</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">????</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Human language seems unique because no other species is capable of anything</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">like speech. But when it comes to perceiving and deconstructing sounds, as</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">opposed to making them, baboons' ability seems much more language-like."</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I still think the baboon calls are holophrastic utterances; I don't see</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">evidence of dual patterning/discreteness. Am I missing something?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Ron</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(With all due respect to baboons everywhere, whom I greatly admire. No</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">baboons were harmed in the writing of this message.)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>———————————</DIV><DIV>University of Aberdeen <A href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology">http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology</A></DIV><DIV> Koryaks Net <A href="http://www.koryaks.net">http://www.koryaks.net</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>tel:+44(1224)27 2732</DIV><DIV>fax:+44(1224)27 2552</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>