Language and Meaning across Species

This seminar explores how communication systems across species can be analyzed as structured systems using tools developed in generative grammar. Beginning with Chomsky, the Minimalist Program, and recent work in Super-Linguistics, we ask how notions such as units, structure, representation, combinatoriality, and form-meaning mapping can be investigated beyond human language. Through close readings of empirical studies of animal communication, students will examine how claims about non-human grammars are constructed, tested, and sometimes undermined by problems of segmentation, interpretation, or experimental design. The broader goal is to develop a comparative method for studying which properties of grammar are shared across communication systems and which may be distinctive of human language.