caa a22 4500 605542783 CHVBK 20210128100923.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10071-014-0812-6 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10071-014-0812-6 Contextual correlates of syntactic variation in mountain and western gorilla close-distance vocalizations: Indications for lexical or phonological syntax? [Elektronische Daten] [Daniela Hedwig, Roger Mundry, Martha Robbins, Christophe Boesch] The core of the generative power of human languages lies in our ability to combine acoustic units under specific rules into structurally complex and semantically rich utterances. While various animal species concatenate acoustic units into structurally elaborate vocal sequences, such compound calls do not appear to be compositional as their information content cannot be derived from the information content of each of its components. As such, animal compound calls are said to constitute a form of phonological syntax, as in the construction of words in human language, whereas evidence for rudimentary forms of lexical syntax, analogous to the construction of sentences out of words, is scarce. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the repertoire of close-distance calls of mountain and western gorillas consists of acoustic units that are either used singularly or non-randomly combined. Here, we investigate whether this syntactic variation provides indications for lexical or phonological syntax. Specifically, we examined the differences between the potential information content of compound calls and their components used singularly through investigating the contexts in which they are used. We found that the gorillas emitted compound calls in contexts similar to some but not all components, but also in a context rarely found for any of their components. As such, the investigated compound calls did not appear to be compositional as their information content cannot be derived from the information content of each of their components. Our results suggest that combining acoustic units into compound vocalizations by gorillas constitutes a form of phonological syntax, which may enable them to increase the number of messages that can be transmitted by an otherwise small repertoire of acoustic units. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2014 Syntax nationallicence Mountain gorilla nationallicence Western gorilla nationallicence Close-distance vocalizations nationallicence Hedwig Daniela Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut Mundry Roger Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut Robbins Martha Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut Boesch Christophe Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut Animal Cognition Springer Berlin Heidelberg 18/2(2015-03-01), 423-435 1435-9448 18:2<423 2015 18 10071 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0812-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0812-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hedwig Daniela Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Mundry Roger Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Robbins Martha Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Boesch Christophe Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Animal Cognition Springer Berlin Heidelberg 18/2(2015-03-01), 423-435 1435-9448 18:2<423 2015 18 10071