Campbell's monkeys' "proto-syntax"

[Celso Alvarez Cáccamo]

Hello,

The topic of the two Ouattara/Lemasson/Luberbühler articles on Campbell's 
monkeys' "proto-syntax" seemed intriguing, so I said to myself, let's look 
at them. I've read them, and, yes, they are intriguing, but I see several 
flaws.

In the November article, they claim that "-oo" is a "suffix" when attached 
to certain stems, like "hok" (call for 'crowned eagle') or "krak" 
('leopard'). "Krakoo" can also be 'unspecified predator'. In "wakoo", used 
also in call sequences for crowned eagles, "-oo" is mandatory ("wak" 
doesn't exist). The authors use the notations K, K+, H, H+, etc., but I'm 
not going to use them because these notations pre-construct the 
vocalization as stem plus something, which is, precisely, what needs to be 
proven.

In order for the authors to prove that there is "morphology" (that "-oo" is 
a sufix), they would have to prove that "-oo" has a more or less stable 
meaning. I don't see that. In the November article, they claim "oo" is 
linked to a "threat" disposition by the Campbell's monkey, accompanied by 
rapid blinking, but also (and in the December article) that it is used for 
"nonspecific predators" -- that is, when monkeys hear a Diana monkey call 
or alert about a predator out of sight, or when Campbell's monkeys hear the 
predator themselves, but they don't see it. We might call this meaning 
'auditory detection', versus 'visual detection', and it would be nice that 
"-oo" would function as a type of "evidential marker" ;-) , but it doesn't 
seem so. For example, there's a contradiction (or I've read it very poorly) 
between the first and the second articles.  "-oo" is 'nonspecific' (or 
minus evidentiality), in "Krak krak krakoo krakoo ..." ('I have heard a 
leopard, or a Diana monkey tells me there's a leopard around'), but it 
turns out that 'A Diana monkey tells me there's an EAGLE around, but I 
don't see it' is something like:

Hok hok krakoo krakoo (wakoo krakoo ...)

That is, the "oo" doesn't go after "hok".

However, when there IS visual detection of a real or model eagle, "hokoo" 
is always used, for example (I deduce):

Hokoo wakoo hokoo wakoo hok hok wakoo wakoo.

That is, "oo" appears in sequences with both specified and nonspecified 
predators, and it modifies the 'stem' in contradictory ways: "krak krakoo" 
is 'leopard out of visual reach', but "hok hokoo" is 'visually detected eagle'.

It would be easier to claim that "krakoo" is a call for 'unseen predator', 
as it appears in both sequences; but, then, it is not a suffix, but a 
vocalization in itself.

One of the evidences the authors give is that played back "krakoo" and 
"hokoo" sequences ('nonspecific predators') to Diana monkeys (another 
species), and they didn't react a bit, while they did react to "krak" and 
"hok" sequences. Since they don't explain what these sequences were, it is 
hard to determined exactly why this is so. Further, this may even be highly 
contradictory: if (the authors claim), "oo" is attached as non-evidential 
when Diana monkeys SEE an eagle or leopard and produce their own calls 
(which Campbell monkeys recognize), then Diana monkeys should also 
recognize "oo" vocalizations as associated to the threats they themselves 
see in other contexts. But they don't: they only recognize the calls that 
Campbell's monkeys associate with real, visible threats.

Finally, the authors acoustic analysis leaves a little to be desired. In 
the November article, six spectrograms show the six vocalizations: boom, 
krak, krakoo, hok, hokoo, and wakoo. They describe them in terms of 
frequency modulation, but they confuse "fundamental frequency" with formant 
(the six vocalization have "vowels", obviously voiced segments with 
formants). "Krak", for example, shows a descending formant (red arrow), not 
a descending fundamental frequency (F0), which is produced by the vocal 
cords at lower frequencies. True, F0 may descend in phonation if vocal cord 
tension is reduced, but this doesn't necessarily mean that F1 or F2 also 
descend, as this also depends on vocal tract configuration. At any rate, 
the arrow CANNOT possibly show F0, as there is another black band at very 
low frequencies. Of course, it might be that by "main frequency" they don't 
mean "fundamental frequency", but the most salient band of harmonics. But, 
then, it turns out that in some cases the lower band of frequencies seems 
to show a higher amplitude (it is darker) than the "main frequency".

It would be nice if the authors had provided the "corpus" of vocalizations, 
so that readers could try to examine their "proto-syntax" (not only 
morphology!). I myself have tried to synthesize the relation between 
possible sequence structures and meanings in a small table. If anyone is 
interested, I could send it or post it somewhere. It may be all wrong 
because the authors' information is somewhat confusing in terms of 
structural description, but for me it's been a stimuling exercise. The 
topic of the origin of language fascinates me, and I would love to believe 
in new findings. This hasn't (yet) been the case, not only because of 
problems in these two articles, but also because it would be a little 
counterintuitive to think that language abilities found in monkeys wouldn't 
have been found yet in pongids, apes (chimpanzee, bonobo).  Any comments or 
criticisms to my comments would be great.

Cheers,
-celso

Celso Alvarez Cáccamo