Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning - PubMed (original) (raw)

Campbell's monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning

Karim Ouattara et al. PLoS One. 2009.

Abstract

Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli campbelli). We found that male alarm calls are composed of an acoustically variable stem, which can be followed by an acoustically invariable suffix. Using long-term observations and predator simulation experiments, we show that suffixation in this species functions to broaden the calls' meaning by transforming a highly specific eagle alarm to a general arboreal disturbance call or by transforming a highly specific leopard alarm call to a general alert call. We concluded that, when referring to specific external events, non-human primates can generate meaningful acoustic variation during call production that is functionally equivalent to suffixation in human language.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. Spectrographic illustrations of the different loud call types produced by male Campbell's monkeys in different contexts.

(a) ‘boom call’, a low-pitched loud call produced by the vocal sac with no frequency modulation, (b) ‘krak’ call [K], a single loud tonal utterance of ø = 0.176s duration, with a decreasing main frequency band starting at about 2.2 kHz; (c) ‘hok’ call [H], a single loud tonal utterance of ø = 0.070s with no frequency modulation starting at about 1.0 kHz); (d) ‘wak-oo’ call [W+], a suffixed loud tonal utterances of 0.330s consisting of a call stem with an increasing main frequency band rising from about 1.0 to 1.3 kHz, followed by a compulsory ‘oo’ suffix (e) ‘krak-oo’ call [K+], a ‘krak’ call followed by the ‘oo’ suffix; (f) ‘hok-oo’ [H+], a ‘hok’ call followed by the ‘oo’ suffix.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Results of the principal component analysis.

(a) call stem clustering (b) male clustering. Call names (B, K, K+, W+, H and H+) are indicated at the corresponding position. M1, M2, M3 = males 1–3.

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