Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Great Tits First Non Human Language With Syntax.



 

Interesting and unexpected suggesting this must appear far more extensively as well and that we simply have been unable to recognize it.


Add in our knowledge that the animal kingdom generally depends on image sharing as a key communication tool and it may become possible to construct an image - signal language to allow direct communication.

Imagine imagines for foods such as Seed, Fruit, Hawk, Man.  Imagine actions such as ### scatter, ^^ come here, # safe.  Thus the sentence H###, F^^  are very useful messages heard at a distance and understood better as you approach.

Using four notes and a count of three gives us twelve potential letters and plenty of potential words.  These used to describe and direct action is useful and relying on image sharing for most noun communication provides a pretty substantive language.

Thus we can easily transcribe the following:   Ripe sunflower seeds are available to the east might be RS F ^^ (come to me and follow).  Image sharing gets rid of the major blockage in animal communication  and when distance is an issue, the verbal aspect is sufficient to sort it all out.
 
All Good.
 
Great tits use the first non-human language shown to have syntax. 

By Seriously Science | March 14, 2016 6:00 am


Ordering words to create a variety of meanings (syntax) is a key aspect of human language. Although other animals have language, none so far have been shown to have syntax — until now. Here, researchers show that Japanese great tits use combinations of notes to create different meanings. For example, the notes A, B, C, and D can be combined to mean “scan for danger” (ABC) or “scan for danger and approach me” (ABC-D). The receiving bird will respond to these commands when the notes are in the correct order, but not when they are reversed. Whether different combinations of these notes have specific meanings remains to be seen, but given how inventive birds can be, we wouldn’t be surprised.

 
“Human language can express limitless meanings from a finite set of words based on combinatorial rules (i.e., compositional syntax). Although animal vocalizations may be comprised of different basic elements (notes), it remains unknown whether compositional syntax has also evolved in animals. Here we report the first experimental evidence for compositional syntax in a wild animal species, the Japanese great tit (Parus minor).Tits have over ten different notes in their vocal repertoire and use them either solely or in combination with other notes. Experiments reveal that receivers extract different meanings from ‘ABC’ (scan for danger) and ‘D’ notes (approach the caller), and a compound meaning from ‘ABC–D’ combinations. However, receivers rarely scan and approach when note ordering is artificially reversed (‘D–ABC’). Thus, compositional syntax is not unique to human language but may have evolved independently in animals as one of the basic mechanisms of information transmission.”

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