Monkey business

Abstract

In their article “Formal Monkey Linguistics” Schlenker and colleagues have performed a great service for both primatology and linguistics by assembling in a single place much of what is currently known about the form and function of primate vocalization, along with a clarion call to apply the formal tools of modern linguistics in regard to any future development in this area. They have also quite appropriately taken great care to remind us of the gulf between human language and monkey call systems. This brief note underscores both points by illustrating some of the fundamental challenges that remain when applying the armamentarium of formal linguistics to domains fundamentally more circumscribed than human language, at least in the domain of syntax.