ENS17 Animal Communication

Linguistic Approaches to Animal Communication

Emmanuel Chemla

(LINGUAE, LSCP CNRS)

Philippe Schlenker

(LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University)

Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris - 2017

Instructors

Emmanuel Chemla (LINGUAE, LSCP CNRS) Email: chemla at ens.fr

Philippe Schlenker (LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University) Email: philippe.schlenker at gmail.com

Topic

Recent collaborations between linguists and primatologists have given rise to new theories of call structure and meaning in several monkey species (for a list of papers and summaries, see: this webpage).Can these methods be extended to further primate and non-primate species? The seminar will summarize some recent results in 'primate linguistics' and it will feature invited talks by ethologists working on primate and non-primate communication.

Time and place

Wednesday, 2-3:30pm (see below for details), Salle de Réunion, Pavillon Jardin (RdC), Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29, rue d'Ulm.

Prerequisites

An ability to follow simple formal analyses (e.g. an introduction to formal logic or formal semantics would help, or at least some experience with simple mathematical theories). If in doubt, please check with the instructors.

Requirements

All information about the final squib can now be found HERE.

Participants will be invited to work on small projects (e.g. literature reviews for species X, formal analyses of the calls of species Y, proposals for field experiments on species Z). Specifically:

(i) a 2-page squib [= short discussion] will be due early in the semester;

(ii) a mini-term paper (at most 10 pages) will be due at the end of the semester.

Please register online if you wish to attend the course (whether for credit or not) by filling out this (very short!) form. This way we'll have your email address!

Sessions and Readings (still tentative; to be adapted as we go)

Material for the class (readings, slides) will be made available in this Dropbox folder.

(If you have difficulties accessing the folder, please contact the instructors).

Main reading for the first 4 sessions:

- Schlenker et al. 2016, Formal Monkey Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics

- Summary: Schlenker et al. 2016, What do Monkey Calls Mean? Trends in Cognitive Sciences

- or for a slightly more detailed encyclopedia-style article: [LingBuzz]

Optional readings:

Sauerland 2016, On the Definition of Sentence, Theoretical Linguistics

Schlenker et al. 2016, Formal Monkey Linguistics: the Debate, Theoretical Linguistics

Also useful:

Q&A on Formal Monkey Linguistics