Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

Dictionary of language and linguistics 62group. The most important language branch of Andean is Quechumaran with thelanguages Quechua (approx. 7 million speakers) and Aymara (approx. 2.5 millionspeakers) in Peru and Bolivia; in addition, Araucian (also called Mapuche) in Chile alsobelongs to this group (approx. 0.7 million speakers).ReferencesGreenberg, J.H. 1960, The general classification of Central and South American languages. In A.Wallace (ed.), Selected Papers of the Fifth International Congress of Anthropological andEthnological Sciences. Philadelphia, PA, 791–4.South American languagesanimal communication (also animallanguage, primate communication (language))Species-specific systems of communication whose investigation can be carried out onlythrough interdisciplinary effort by (behavioral) psychologists, anthropologists, biologists,linguists, and others. Differences and similarities between animal and human systems ofcommunication provide the basis for hypotheses and theories about the origin anddevelopment of human language from earlier forms of communication in the animalkingdom. To be sure, the results of such comparative investigations and theirinterpretation are largely dependent on the given fundamental definition of language. Ifnatural language is defined as a system of phonetic signs, through the production ofwhich the speaker can express objects, states of affairs (including those that are notspatially or temporally present), and conceptual generalizations in symbols, then the‘language’ of animals can be distinguished from human languages accordingly: (a)Natural languages are characterized by the feature of double articulation, i.e. complexlinguistic expressions are composed of meaningful elements, monemes or morphemes,which in turn can be described as combinations of the smallest meaningful phoneticelements, phonemes. The signals of animal communication, however, can only beanalyzed on the first level of articulation for form and meaning, but not as thecombination of smaller, more formal elements. (b) Utterances in animal communicationare generally reflexes of external signals, i.e. they are connected with released stimuli andthus are not produced intentionally. (c) The meaning of the species-specific signals isapparently known largely by instinct (indeed, in many animals such signals arecompletely instinctive), and thus do not have to be learned. (d) It is not possible tocombine elements of a given communication system to fit new situations, though morerecent investigations seem to indicate that chimpanzees may possess latent, thoughunexploited, combinatory abilities (see Marler 1965). (e) In contrast to natural languages,animal communication cannot express conceptual generalizations with symbols. (f)