Combinatoriality and Compositionality in Apes, Hominins, Humans, and Birds

Nathalie Gontier, Stefan Hartmann, Michael Pleyer, Evelina Daniela Rodrigues

Workshop homepage: https://sites.google.com/view/appeel/events/joint-conf-on-language-evolution-2022/jcole2022combinatoriality

Scholars more or less agree that primates demonstrate combinatoriality in their cognitive and behavioral skills enabling them to combine different elements into larger aggregates with meaning. Controversy arises when scholars try and identify the presence of compositionality. Compositionality is a term that arose in linguistics and the philosophy of language. It is argued to be uniquely human and to differentiate human language from non-human primate communication. Here, compositionality is strictly defined as the combining of meaningful elements into larger meaningful units whose meaning is derived from its component parts and the way in which they are combined.

In this workshop, we look for the evidence and reach of both combinatoriality and compositionality in three key players in the debates: multimodal communication, tool use and manufacture, and language. In all cases, we take a comparative approach. Research on multimodal communication in monkeys and apes will be compared to research on hypothesized gestural and pantomimic protolanguages as well as to co-verbal gesture studies in human children and adults. The required modus operandi for the use and manufacture of composite tools will be analyzed from within the hominid’s archaeological record and compared to the tool using and manufacturing skills of living apes and other animals. And the cognitive skills underlying compositionality will be compared to the capacities for problem-solving, planning, and hierarchical information-processing.

Our goal is to provide a state of the art on theory, methodology and evidence that contributes to a better understanding of the evolution of these capacities in different primate species and the role they play in the evolution of communication, (proto)language and thought. This workshop will provide short, 10-minute long summary talks to all the papers published in the special issue on “Combinatoriality and Compositionality in Apes, Hominins, Humans, and Birds,” that was guest-edited by the organizers for the International Journal of Primatology: The Official Journal of the International Primatological Society. These introductions will be followed by Q&A sessions with the authors and the possibility for in-depth discussions on the subject.

Confirmed speakers: Nathalie Gontier, Evelina Daniela Rodrigues, Katja Liebal, Bridget M. Waller, Silvan Spiess, Shelby S. J. Putt, April Nowell, Michael Pleyer, T. Mark Ellison, David Gil, Stefan Hartmann