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The primate roots of human language: Forest guenons’ vocal abilities| old_uid | 8123 |
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| title | The primate roots of human language: Forest guenons’ vocal abilities |
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| start_date | 2010/02/09 |
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| schedule | 12h-13h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle des Actes |
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| summary | Human language is too complex to have emerged in the absence of any evolutionary precursors, which suggests that primitive forms of pre-linguistic communication can be found in animals.
Whether this was based on acoustic or gestural communication is an ongoing debate. An argument against a vocal origin is the supposed absence of vocal flexibility and complexity in non-human primates. However, human language is primarily a vocal behaviour and recent advances, notably on captive and wild forest guenons, demonstrated primitive forms of various characteristics of human language in nonhuman primates: acoustic plasticity socially controlled, conversation-like vocal exchanges, voice recognition, semanticity of alarm calls, vocal innovation, proto-syntactic abilities (sound affixation and call combination) and auditory laterality. |
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| responsibles | <not specified> |
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