Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Time: 9:00 am – 10:00 am
Location: Seminar Room 3037, Building 46

Talk Title: Bonobo vocal communication and the evolution of compositionality

Abstract: Compositionality- the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger structures whose meaning depends on the meanings of the parts and the way they are combined- is a hallmark of human language. In this talk, I will present new findings on the compositional capacities of wild bonobos. Specifically, by conducting a comprehensive investigation of meaning and adapting methods from linguistics, I will show that bonobo vocal communication extensively relies on compositionality. This suggests that the ability to construct complex meanings from smaller vocal units was already present in our ancestors at least 7 million years ago.