
Experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls (2016) - JoelJacobson
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10986
======
themgt
One time I was trimming a huge set of overgrown bamboo/weeds in my yard, and
this bird yapping slowly drifted into my consciousness like, pay attention,
alert! I looked up and this tiny bird was darting around the power line and
other branches above me, directly facing at me and chirp chirp chirping in a
distressed seeming way.

I looked on for maybe 20-30 seconds a bit confused then went back to the
trimming, but barely a moment later I saw what I realized was a nest filled
with eggs wedged in among the top branches I was just about to cut down. I
gave up on the trimming and went inside to ponder bird intelligence & cross-
species communication.

~~~
agumonkey
I felt my brain lighten significantly.

I'm not surprised that animals can communicate "simple" signals like danger,
fear, etc. But how would I love for them to be able to exchange finer and
longer messages. That would be so fun to imagine we were deaf for thousands of
years and also that would make lots of new things to experience. ps: cats and
dogs

~~~
Pamar
Paul Watzlawick in his "Pragmatics of Human Communications" explains that (at
least so far) animals seem unable to meta-communicate (in the sense of
communicating about communication).

If I remember correctly (it has been decades) he mentions as an example that
cats are perfectly capable to communicate "I want food", using a combination
of vocal and "gestures".

What they cannot do is communicate something like "Listen, I have used the
_meow_ for _gimme food_ 9 times already, what are you? deaf? stupid? or just
trying to punish me for when I threw up on the carpet?"

~~~
agumonkey
Quite possible, maybe that kind of meta level requires more gray matter.. That
said the sentiment of exasperation (which triggers our "listen I did this and
no result occured") is probably accessible to many life forms, except it's
probably expressed as "body language" .. or a more violent behavior.

~~~
Pamar
I suppose (but I am just a layman) that animals do not really have any sense
of time.

They can express "I am hungry" or "I am extremely hungry" but they cannot
express "I have told you I am hungry for the last 20 minutes" because they
have no conceptual model for "things as they were 20 minutes ago".

This does not mean that they have no ability to learn (including learning to
recognize humans) but for them I suppose it is just a bunch of "state" which
classify me as "nice guy who feeds me" or even just "I know I can trust him
not to be a menace" but they have no way to reminisce about when we met for
the first time, etc.

("Future state" is probably even more inscrutable to them - they have
strategies to cope with the present, some ingrained as instinct, some learned
"by experience" but I sincerely doubt that they can contemplate something like
"tomorrow I will try doing this").

~~~
agumonkey
Makes me wonder about the link between alleged prediction plane in humans,
self perception, perception of others and communication

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projectorlochsa
It all evolves slowly but steadily.

Given an animal that can produce sounds, if sounds are meaningful enough it
can be a big advantage. Given more animals that produce sounds, the ones that
can transmit more information will survive.

It's weird to think that there's nothing between complex (human) and simple
(sheep) when it was the result of a gradual evolution. Big jumps are rare.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>when it was the result of a gradual evolution //

What's the evidence showing it was gradual? Big jumps may be unusual
statistically [what set are you sampling? 'planets with apex predators that
are bipedal mammalians' looks like too small of a sample to make statistical
inferences??] but then so is genesis and it seems that happened.

~~~
devoply
punctuated evolution stipulates this very thing.

------
yread
I've recently binge watched Attenborough's documentaries and I came across
this one

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA)

These birds spending a ridiculous amount of time building intricate monuments.
They are picky about colors and styles and one specie builds very specific
structures.

Birds just have so much free time.

~~~
agumonkey
When they're not avoiding cats that is.

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gyrgtyn
This book [1] is fascinating, and there's not much out there with the same
info that isn't buy the same author or his circle of friends. There are a
couple youtube videos.

Humans (who's livelyhood depend on it) can understand what birds are talking
about. There's a story in there about an african safari tour guide driving
along slowly with tourists and when he hears a certain sound, pulls over and
shows his customers a rad snake or a lion.

One of the themes of the book is (re)learning how to do this, and how it can
be therapeutic(?) and is a great form of _meditation_

The book's site had bird call recordings (probably not the same bird as the
OP!) for those that are looking for them.

[1]
[https://www.hmhbooks.com/whattherobinknows/](https://www.hmhbooks.com/whattherobinknows/)

~~~
syphilis2
I've recently rediscovered how intelligible birds can be. I can't claim to
understand what they're talking about, but I suggest to anyone with some free
time to go outside at a time when the birds are active and to spend minutes
focusing on their different calls. You really will begin to recognize the
sounds and link them to behavior or events.

~~~
mirimir
Devices can share data via sound. One approach is called Chirp.[0] So maybe
birdsong encodes more information than we think.

0) [https://www.chirp.io/](https://www.chirp.io/)

~~~
jacquesm
Acoustically coupled modem.

~~~
mirimir
Right. So maybe birdsong is modulated in ways that we haven't yet figured out.

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mcbits
The blue jays around my yard make a particular toot when a human gets too
close. It's reliable enough that I know someone is walking by the house
whenever I hear it. (There is not a lot of foot traffic here.) They don't seem
to make the same noise for dogs and cats. The squirrels are better dog and cat
alarms.

I've pondered whether the toot might mean "human" or "oh shit" or something
else. Supposing it is denotational like "human", I'm also very curious if
different populations of blue jays use vocalizations differently in places
with different threats. That would imply the sounds are taught and learned,
which I'd say is a stronger indicator of language than, say, sounds that are
instinctively understood but happen to be compositional.

~~~
agumonkey
I wonder how much tribes know and rely on this kind of signals in their lives;
probably implicitely.

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trendia
Listen to recordings here:

[https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/great-
tits-s...](https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/great-tits-sing-
syntax)

~~~
chicob
Nice!

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ppod
It doesn't make any sense to "approach the caller" and _then_ scan for danger.
The sounds could be understood non-compositionally and the actions worked out
pragmatically. It's like saying that a monkey responds to "peel the banana,
eat the banana" in the correct manner but not "eat the banana, peel the
banana".

~~~
sidlls
I'm not a linguist, but this seems like a wrong analysis to me. It seems to me
you're imposing a specific word order paradigm where it may not be applicable.

Perhaps these birds "parse" compositions in order of most recently received
(e.g. as something like a LIFO), or by some other rule that is nevertheless
(compositionally) significant.

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louthy
The title immediately made me think of To Dissect a Mockingbird:

[http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/](http://dkeenan.com/Lambda/)

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buserror
I swear I have a blackbird that does the Star Wars theme song pretty
regularly. I was floored the first time I heard it!

I also know the (surviving) magpies also have a name for me that is probably
not polite. That's the price to pay to have any /other/ birds in my garden...

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hyperpallium
For those like me who didn't know, there's a pdf, under "tools" menu at top.
Link:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10986.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10986.pdf)

------
mrdrozdov
Received: 20 August 2015

Accepted: 05 February 2016

Published online: 08 March 2016

Views: 19,562

Citations: 13

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beeeebo
Great place for a voice recognition program that can add to our knowledge
about the environment

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chicob
I wish there were links for sound files in the article...

~~~
foxbarrington
[https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/great-
tits-s...](https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/great-tits-sing-
syntax)

~~~
chicob
Thanks!

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EGreg
Someone should send this to Noam Chomsky.

~~~
chicob
Yes. A parrot could tell him: "You won't believe what a Japanese great tit
just told me..."

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peterburkimsher
Mod: Please add the year (2016)

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dovdovdov
"call treatments played to Japanese great tits."

umm

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lngnmn
Bullshit. That requires brain capacities birds does not possess. These calls
are random variations learned from experience (by mimicking other birds).

With enough of machine learning I could publish that trees have a sign-
language.

~~~
kleer001
You, my friend, need to do a little more comparative neurology research and
keep up to date with findings in brain science.

~~~
lngnmn
I would stay with MIT linguists, if you would permit me.

No animal signal system has a _regular_ structure and no animal has a brain
capacity for producing an arbitrary sequence of phonemes. Only mimicking
capabilities.

Thank you.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> _No animal signal system has a regular structure and no animal has a brain
> capacity for producing an arbitrary sequence of phonemes._

Are you absolutely, one hundred percent, positive about that?

No animal?

~~~
lngnmn
Read about how much time and resources has been spent on monkeys and dolphins
and what the findings are. Hint: no regular structure. Emotional signals and
stress calls only.

~~~
kleer001
Here's prairie dog language:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1kXCh496U0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1kXCh496U0)

