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The shared evolutionary history of kinship classifications and language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Robert M. Seyfarth  and
Dorothy L. Cheney
Robert M. Seyfarth
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. [email protected]@sas.upenn.eduwww.psych.upenn.edu/~seyfarth/Baboon%20research/
Dorothy L. Cheney
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. [email protected]@sas.upenn.eduwww.psych.upenn.edu/~seyfarth/Baboon%20research/
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Abstract

Among monkeys and apes, both the recognition and classification of individuals and the recognition and classification of vocalizations constitute discrete combinatorial systems. One system maps onto the other, suggesting that during human evolution kinship classifications and language shared a common cognitive precursor.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , October 2010 , pp. 402 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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