The discovery is part of a study that suggests our close evolutionary cousins can string together vocalisations to produce phrases with meanings that go beyond the sum of their parts – something often considered unique to human language.
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in the human language, words were often combined to produce phrases that either had a meaning that was simply the sum of its parts, or a meaning that was related to, but differed from, those of the constituent words.
“‘Blond dancer’ – it’s a person that is both blond and a dancer, you just have to add the meanings. But a ‘bad dancer’ is not a person that is bad and a dancer,” said Berthet. “So bad is really modifying the meaning of dancer here.”
It was previously thought animals such as birds and chimpanzees were only able to produce the former type of combination, but scientists have found bonobos can create both.
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Yelps – thought to mean “let’s do that” – followed by grunts – thought to mean “look at what I am doing”, were combined to make “yelp-grunt”, which appeared to mean “let’s do what I’m doing”. The combination, the team said, reflected the sum of its parts and was used by bonobos to encourage others to build their night nests.
The other three combinations had a meaning apparently related to, but different from, their constituent calls.