Monkeys With Syntax

jamie writes "The Campbell's monkey has a vocabulary with at least six types of basic call, but new research published in the PNAS claims that they combine them and string them together to communicate new meanings. (Login may be required on the NY Times site.) For example, the word for 'leopard' gets an '-oo' suffix to mean 'unseen predator.' But when that word is repeated after 'come over here,' the combination means 'Timber!' — a warning of falling trees. Scientists have known for some time that vervet monkeys have different warning calls for different predators — eagle, leopard, and snake — but unlike the Campbell's monkeys, vervets don't combine those calls to create new meanings, a key component of syntax. The researchers plan to play back recordings to the monkeys to test their theories for syntax errors."

Comments

Re:It was the blurst of times.

[gandhi_2]

For the record, that isn't my blog. And I only agree with 75% of the blog author's opinions.

But let me please get this straight: according to you, anyone who disapproves of socialism is incapable of humor? Or anyone who dislikes Obama is undeserving of positive feedback from this group?

Re:It was the blurst of times.

[causality]

For the record, that isn't my blog. And I only agree with 75% of the blog author's opinions.

But let me please get this straight: according to you, anyone who disapproves of socialism is incapable of humor? Or anyone who dislikes Obama is undeserving of positive feedback from this group?

There's one thing that blogger is damn straight about. Things are not quite what they seem and we are being lied to. I can tolerate all kinds of differences in belief so long as there is the common ground of recognizing that. I don't like Obama either but it's not personal. No man who really has your best interests at heart needs a multimillion dollar campaign to convince you of that. That's the case with Obama and whoever else has any real chance at winning a presidential election. It really does not matter who is in office. It's about who has the money and power to put them there. In that sense they're all the same to me. None of them are going to do anything that is too contrary to the interests of their benefactors. That's going to be the case so long as we have the two-party duopoly.

Re:It was the blurst of times.

[HanzoSpam]

Well, if you don't like his sig, I doubt you're going to like mine much, either.

Re:Monkey syntax errors aren't so bad

[DynaSoar]

I normally never pick at someone's wording, especially a signature, but this article and this thread in particular simply begs me to bag this one:

by istartedi (132515): "For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"

"For all intent and purposes" is no longer a valid common phrase. It was first replaced by "for all intents and purposes", the plural of 'intent' being unnecessary to the phrase, but 'intent' being often replaecd by 'intentions' it seemed logical to pluralize the former as well as the latter. It has since been replaced by the homonymous "for all intensive purposes". The meaning is retained ("for all practical purposes") despite that fact that the presented form makes no sense: 'intensive' is an adjective, 'purposes' is a noun. Furthermore, to express "for all practical purposes" it seems adequate to express the superset "for all purposes", particularly since the opposite of intensive purposes (unintensive purposes) clearly makes no sense, and that makes the modifier on 'purposes' superfluous.

On the other hand, there may in fact be situations where the construction here applies, such as those purposes to which it could be put to use, but which require exceptional effort to do so. For example, a common purpose for posting om /. is to correct someone. A post that corrects someone but takes an inordinate amount of effort to follow, as compared to the usefulness of it being done, could be considered an "intensive purpose" for posting. Yet, despite this post being an example of this possible use, requiring intensive attention to follow it this far, nobody ever uses is that way. I know I certainly don't.

And just in case this needs to be turned back toward the subject at hand in order to stay on topic, much of animal expression is not considered language or anything like it because it is 'just animal sounds'. Yet the above, despite being full of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and for all I know, semiotics, is just 'human sounds' with no more practical application that 'correcting' a phrase so common that everybody understands it and would probably recognize its meaning for readily than that of the 'correct' version, which is so dated and superceded that it probably sounds wrong now.

Now, thanks to the 'preview' function, I've seen all the errors in the post above. I'm leaving them. You understood anyway. So much for 'correct'.

Re:It was the blurst of times.

[vegiVamp]

> No man who really has your best interests at heart needs a multimillion dollar campaign to convince you of that.

They do if they're up against a multimillion dollar campain to convince you that he hasn't.

I kinda like Obama, but I'm not directly involved, living in therestoftheworld. I guess we'll see what happens.

Re:This is what linguists have been waiting for

[Jesus_666]

Note that it's appropriate to while about the mess Buch made for another few years. Politicians on the way out love to start programs they know their successors will not be able to successfully complete (or which will generate a lot of bad PR down the line). This gives their party opportunity to mock the successor for his "ineptitude". Everyone does this because it allows you cheap shots at the party/coalition who won the election while they can't do anything about it.

A related tactic is to declare the governing party incompetent or corrupt over a program that both parties promised to implement before the election but which "has always been a bad idea" now.

Hell, for 90% of all politicians it's perfectly appropriate to whine about them at all times.