Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats
Diverse information encoding systems, including human language, the vocal and gestural systems of non-human animals and the structure of DNA and proteins, have been found to conform to ‘Menzerath’s Law’—a negative relationship between the number of units composing a sequence, and the size of those u...
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The Royal Society
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241351 |
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| author | Stuart Kyle Watson Mara Zali Nikola Falk Paul Widmer Marta B Manser |
| author_facet | Stuart Kyle Watson Mara Zali Nikola Falk Paul Widmer Marta B Manser |
| author_sort | Stuart Kyle Watson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Diverse information encoding systems, including human language, the vocal and gestural systems of non-human animals and the structure of DNA and proteins, have been found to conform to ‘Menzerath’s Law’—a negative relationship between the number of units composing a sequence, and the size of those units. Here, we test for the presence of Menzerath’s Law in the vocal bouts produced in a submissive context by meerkats (Suricata suricatta). Using a suite of Bayesian mixed effects models, we examined 1676 vocal bouts produced by 89 wild meerkats, ranging from 1 to 590 calls in length, to determine whether the number of calls composing each bout had a negative relationship with the duration of those calls or their inter-call intervals. In contradiction to Menzerath’s Law, we found that the duration of vocalizations had a positive relationship with the number of calls in a bout. However, the duration of intervals between calls did have a negative relationship with bout size. Moreover, both calls and intervals had longer durations the closer they were positioned to the end of the bout. These findings highlight the multi-faceted ways in which efficiency trade-offs can occur in the vocal repertoires of non-human animals, shaping variability in the production of signal forms. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c37978bc416a4d94acaaeda2ff8ea69f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-c37978bc416a4d94acaaeda2ff8ea69f2024-12-11T00:05:40ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032024-12-01111210.1098/rsos.241351Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkatsStuart Kyle Watson0Mara Zali1Nikola Falk2Paul Widmer3Marta B Manser4Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich 8057, SwitzerlandDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich 8057, SwitzerlandDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich 8057, SwitzerlandCenter for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zürich, Zürich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich 8057, SwitzerlandDiverse information encoding systems, including human language, the vocal and gestural systems of non-human animals and the structure of DNA and proteins, have been found to conform to ‘Menzerath’s Law’—a negative relationship between the number of units composing a sequence, and the size of those units. Here, we test for the presence of Menzerath’s Law in the vocal bouts produced in a submissive context by meerkats (Suricata suricatta). Using a suite of Bayesian mixed effects models, we examined 1676 vocal bouts produced by 89 wild meerkats, ranging from 1 to 590 calls in length, to determine whether the number of calls composing each bout had a negative relationship with the duration of those calls or their inter-call intervals. In contradiction to Menzerath’s Law, we found that the duration of vocalizations had a positive relationship with the number of calls in a bout. However, the duration of intervals between calls did have a negative relationship with bout size. Moreover, both calls and intervals had longer durations the closer they were positioned to the end of the bout. These findings highlight the multi-faceted ways in which efficiency trade-offs can occur in the vocal repertoires of non-human animals, shaping variability in the production of signal forms.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241351animal communicationvocal behaviourMenzerath’s Lawquantitative linguistics |
| spellingShingle | Stuart Kyle Watson Mara Zali Nikola Falk Paul Widmer Marta B Manser Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats Royal Society Open Science animal communication vocal behaviour Menzerath’s Law quantitative linguistics |
| title | Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| title_full | Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| title_fullStr | Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| title_full_unstemmed | Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| title_short | Inter-call intervals, but not call durations, adhere to Menzerath’s Law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| title_sort | inter call intervals but not call durations adhere to menzerath s law in the submissive vocal bouts of meerkats |
| topic | animal communication vocal behaviour Menzerath’s Law quantitative linguistics |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241351 |
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