SCHEDULING: Mondays 14:00-16:00 Paris (Central European Time), 2 hours/week
1st session:  Monday, February 17, 2025 (note that there is a break the week after due to winter vacations). 

All times are given in Paris time (this is GMT+1). To find the corresponding time where you live, use for instance this website.

REGISTERING AND CONNECTING ON ZOOM

You will receive by email a link to a Google Survey asking (among others) for your email address. It's essential that you fill out this survey so the instructor has your email address and can send you the Zoom link for the course.

If you haven't received the link to the Google Survey, please contact the instructor by email (philippe.schlenker@gmail.com).

ONLINE INTERACTION

-The instructor will greatly appreciate it if at least some participants keep their cameras on during the course.

-We will record sessions. But to ensure that this does not get in the way of online interactions, we will edit questions out if we ever make the video public (as opposed to just sharing the video on a person-by-person basis).

-Participants are strongly invited to take an active role and ask questions / make remarks. Too many questions are better than  too few ! 

-The instructor won't be able to monitor the chat.

-Whenever possible, the instructor will stay for a bit after the course is officially over for an additional Q&A in case there wasn't time for all questions.

PRE-REQUISITES

Some experience with animal communication and/or linguistics/semantics/philosophy of language

READINGS AND SLIDES

If they are not linked below, they should be in this Dropbox folder.

SESSIONS 

(tentative - to be adapted as we go!; see this Dropbox folder)

Part I. Three semantic systems in nature: compositional, iconic, featural

Part II. Primate Semantics

Part III. Bird Semantics

Part IV. Ancestral Meanings

• Lecture 1. Monday, February 17, 2025 - 14:00-16:00 CET
Three semantic systems in nature: compositional, iconic, featural (I)

Readings: if possible, one of the following

Berthet et al. 2021 Animal Linguistics: a Primer

What it All Means Ch. 1: Meaning in the Wild

On the research program of animal linguistics: a very brief position paper

[Monday, February 24, 2025: No class  - winter break] 

• Lecture 2. Monday, March 3, 2025 - 14:00-16:00 CET
Three semantic systems in nature: compositional, iconic, featural (II)
Primate semantics (I)

Readings: if possible, one of the following

[brief but precise] Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler What do Monkey Calls Mean? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 12, 894–904 (in the Dropbox folder)

[non-technical] What it All Means Ch. 1: Meaning in the Wild

[long] Formal Monkey Linguistics. Target article in Theoretical Linguistics.     Preprint version 

Optional background on featural interpretation

Schlenker et al., to appear: Anti-Babel

Magrath et al. 2020  (in the Dropbox folder)

[For a very recent discussion of animal pragmatics, see Bar-On's "Pragmatics First" (shared Dropbox folder).]

• Lecture 3. Monday, March 10, 2025 - 14:00-16:00 CET
Primate semantics (II)

Note: If you have made arrangements to submit a squib 1 week after the end of the course, you should submit one or several paragraphs to describe one or several potential squib topics.

Readings: if possible, one of the following

[brief but precise] Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler What do Monkey Calls Mean? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 12, 894–904 (in the Dropbox folder)

[non-technical] What it All Means Ch. 1: Meaning in the Wild

[long] Formal Monkey Linguistics. Target article in Theoretical Linguistics.     Preprint version 

• Lecture 4. Monday, March 17, 2025 - 14:00-16:00 CET
Primate semantics (III) Bird semantics (I)

Readings:  

Schlenker et al. 2023 The ABC-D of Animal Linguistics (in the Drobox folder)

Optional: Suzuki and Matsumoto 2022 Experimental evidence for core-Merge in the vocal communication system of a wild passerine

• Lecture 5. Monday, March 24, 2025 - 14:00-16:00 CET  (FINAL SESSION)
Bird semantics (II) - Ancestral Meanings
  

Schlenker et al. 2023 The ABC-D of Animal Linguistics (in the Drobox folder)

Optional: Suzuki and Matsumoto 2022 Experimental evidence for core-Merge in the vocal communication system of a wild passerine

Schlenker et al. 2025 Ancestral Meanings

READINGS

 Surveys: 

• Berthet et al. 2021 Animal Linguistics: a Primer

• Suzuki 2024, Animal Linguistics

• Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler  Semantics and Pragmatics of Monkey Communication. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. [pdf] 

–Longer version: Schlenker et al. Formal Monkey Linguistics. Target article in Theoretical Linguistics.     Preprint version 

–Shorter version:  Schlenker, Chemla, Zuberbühler What do Monkey Calls Mean? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 12, 894–904  (in the Dropbox folder)

• Introductory alternative: What it All Means Ch. 1: Meaning in the Wild

Note: there is a very recent issues of Proceedings of the Royal Society on animal vs. human languages.

Waggle dance of bees

I'Anson Price and Grüter 2015 (evolution of the waggle dance of bees)

Featural interpretation

Schlenker et al., to appear: Anti-Babel

Magrath et al. 2020  (in the Dropbox folder)

Japanese tits: one of the following
Suzuki and Matsumoto 2022

Schlenker et al. 2023 The ABC-D of Animal Linguistics

Link on Suzuki on birds

Evolution of animal meanings:

Schlenker et al. 2025, Ancestral Meanings (accepted with minor revisions, Linguistics & Philosophy)
[entirely optional; read only the introductory sections if the details are not of interest]

Excellent textbook on the evolution of animal signals:

Searcy, W. A. and Nowicki, S.: 2007, The Evolution of Animal Communication. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

Going further: ape gestures (and dance!)

Not covered in this course: ape gestures (and dance!)

BBC article Catherine Hobaiter on chimpanzee gestures.

Great ape gesture dictionary

Chimpanzee vs. Bonobo gestures
Humans' understanding of ape gestures; see also this.

Ape dance!

Squibs [3 pages at most]

There is no standard credit for the course, as it is not part of any degree. In exceptional cases, participants may submit a squib (= short analysis) 1 week after the end of the course, prepared by a discussion of one or several possible squib topics during the course (see schedule above). 

An example of a brief squib can be found here (re-analysis of Titi monkey A-calls). Two long ones (which go far, far beyond what could be expected here!) can be found here (suffixal status of -oo  in Campbell's monkeys) and here (Female Diana monkeys have complex calls). 

INTRODUCTION: introduce the general empirical or theoretical problem you will be discussing, and announce what the main finding will be.

BACKGROUND: discuss very briefly existing analyses that are relevant for the problem you are discussing (references should appear in the bibliography).

PROBLEM: discuss in detail the empirical or theoretical problem you have uncovered, for instance:

(i) a set of data for which an analysis we have discussed/an analysis from the literature makes incorrect predictions,
(ii) a potential application of an analysis to significantly new examples (e.g. application of a theory to a species it was not designed for),
(iii) a new set of data that extant analyses have no account for [if so, you should eventually try to state a clear generalization, i.e. a descriptive rule that predicts the data; in animal linguistics, this may be hard!]

SOLUTION: discuss possible solutions to this problem. For instance:

if (i): how to repair or replace the theory that makes incorrect predictions;

if (ii): show in detail how the analysis applies to some of your new examples;

if (iii): if possible, propose a new theory to derive your new data/your new generalization.

Typically, you should discuss at least two conceivable theories, including a completely deflationary one, comparing the arguments pro and contra.

You may want to state additional predictions that should be tested in future research.