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Linguistic laws are not the law in chimpanzee sexual solicitation gestures

View ORCID ProfileAlexandra Safryghin, View ORCID ProfileCatharine Cross, Brittany Fallon, View ORCID ProfileRaphaela Heesen, View ORCID ProfileRamon Ferrer-i-Cancho, View ORCID ProfileCatherine Hobaiter
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.19.444810
Alexandra Safryghin
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom
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Catharine Cross
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom
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Brittany Fallon
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom
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Raphaela Heesen
3Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
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Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho
2Complexity and Quantitative Linguistics Laboratory, Laboratory for Relational Algorithmics, Complexity, and Learning Research Group, Departament de Ciències de la Computació, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
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Catherine Hobaiter
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom
4Budongo Conservation Field Station, Masindi, Uganda
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  • For correspondence: clh42@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Abstract

Two language laws have been identified as manifestations of universal principles of animal behaviour, both acting on the organisation of numerous vocal and behavioural communicative systems. Zipf’s law of brevity describes a negative relationship between behavioural length and frequency of behaviour. Menzerath’s law defines a negative correlation between the number of behaviours in a sequence and average length of the behaviour composing it. Both laws have been linked with the information-theoretic principle of compression, which tends to minimise code length. We investigate the presence of these two laws in the repertoire of chimpanzee sexual solicitation gestures. We find that chimpanzee solicitation gestures do not follow either Zipf’s law of brevity or Menzerath’s law consistently. For the second time in ape gestural communication, evidence supporting Zipf’s law of brevity was absent, and, here, the presence of Menzerath’s law appears individually driven. Ape gesture does not appear to manifest a principle of compression or pressure for efficiency that has been previously proposed to be universal. Importantly, the same signals were shown to adhere to these laws when used in a different behavioural context; highlighting that signallers consider signalling efficiency broadly, and diverse factors play important roles in shaping investment in signal production.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • https://github.com/Wild-Minds/LinguisticLaws_Papers

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 19, 2021.
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Linguistic laws are not the law in chimpanzee sexual solicitation gestures
Alexandra Safryghin, Catharine Cross, Brittany Fallon, Raphaela Heesen, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho, Catherine Hobaiter
bioRxiv 2021.05.19.444810; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.19.444810
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Linguistic laws are not the law in chimpanzee sexual solicitation gestures
Alexandra Safryghin, Catharine Cross, Brittany Fallon, Raphaela Heesen, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho, Catherine Hobaiter
bioRxiv 2021.05.19.444810; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.19.444810

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