Theoretical Linguistics 2016; 42(1-2): 173–201 Philippe Schlenker*, Emmanuel Chemla, Anne M. Schel, James Fuller, Jean-Pierre Gautier, Jeremy Kuhn, Dunja Veselinović, Kate Arnold, Cristiane Cäsar, Sumir Keenan, Alban Lemasson, Karim Ouattara, Robin Ryder and Klaus Zuberbühler Formal monkey linguistics: The debate DOI 10.1515/tl-2016-0010 Abstract: We explain why general techniques from formal linguistics can and should be applied to the analysis of monkey communication – in the areas of syntax and especially semantics. An informed look at our recent proposals shows that such techniques needn’t rely excessively on categories of human *Corresponding author: Philippe Schlenker, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS – EHESS – CNRS), Paris, France; PSL Research University, Paris, France; Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, NY, USA, E-mail:
[email protected] Emmanuel Chemla, PSL Research University, Paris, France; Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS – EHESS – CNRS), Paris, France Anne M. Schel, Department of Animal Ecology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands James Fuller, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, NY, USA; BCC, City University of New York, Bronx, NY, USA Jean-Pierre Gautier, CNRS, Station biologique de Paimpont, Université de Rennes