baboons ¹ ability seems language-like

[Kerim Friedman]

"I don't get it. What I get from this is that the baboons recognize
the voices of individuals,
know who is dominant and who is subordinate, and  are surprised to hear a
dominant call come from a subordinate, and vice versa."

As I understand it, the baboons aren't just surprised at "who says
what" but "who says what to whom" which is slightly different. As you
say, it still may not count as dual patterning/discreteness in the
sense that it is the entire dialog that is important rather than the
individual utterances. But this is something more than "a dominant
call coming from a subordinate" since that baboon would presumably be
dominant to someone else (hence their ability to record its dominant
call).

I haven't had a chance to look at any of it yet, but for those who
want to read the original academic articles as opposed to the NYTimes
version, they are available from this page:

http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~seyfarth/Publications/

Cheers

- Kerim