Project Details
Projekt
The phonology and morphology of chimpanzee gestures
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Katja Liebal
Subject Area
Sensory and Behavioural Biology
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 568832504
Language is characterized by the presence of structures below the lexical level: words are composed of both meaningless sounds (i.e. phonemes, like /k/, æ/, or /t/ constructing the word "cat") as well as by meaningful morphemes (such as the suffix -s for plural agreement in "cats"). These structures are widely investigated in humans and have been documented in both speech and sign language. However, comparatively less is known about the evolutionary origins of this linguistic property. While there is scant evidence of phoneme- and morpheme-like structures in the vocal communication systems of some avian and primate species, no study to date has investigated the presence of these structures in non-human visual communication. It is therefore the main aim of this project to fill in this gap by performing the first phonological and morphological analysis of primate gestural communication. To do so, we will describe the formal parameters of the gestural repertoire of one of our closes living relatives, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), and establish the meaning of each gestural form using novel operational frameworks (i.e. the Chimpanzee Linguistic Annotation System for Gestures and the Features of Circumstances). This analysis will enable the documentation of minimal pairs and morpheme-like structures in the gestural repertoire of chimpanzees, therefore providing the first evidence of phonological and morphological structures in the visual communication of a non-human species. By investigating the presence of key linguistic features in the communication systems of other animal species, this project will contribute to identify what communicative traits are uniquely human or rather shared with other primate species, shedding light on the evolutionary milestones of language.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
