Monday, June 27, 2011

First Evidence that Birds Tweet Using Grammar

They may not have verbs, nouns or past participles, but birds challenge the notion that humans alone have evolved grammatical rules. 

Bengal finches have their own versions of such rules – known as syntax – says Kentaro Abe of Kyoto University, Japan.

"Songbirds have a spontaneous ability to process syntactic structures in their songs," he says. 

To show a sense of syntax in the animals, Abe's team played jumbled "ungrammatical" remixes of finch songs to the birds and measured the response calls.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar.html