| Abstract: | “Chick-a-dee” calls of the black-capped chickadee (Parus atricapillus) constitute a combinatorial system of animal communication, apparently the only such system yet described. Four note-types, which may be omitted or repeated a variable number of times, occur in a fixed sequence (A–B–C–D) to constitute calls. Quantitative analyses determining the nature of departures from first-order transitional probabilities between successive notes revealed a variety of results that point consistently to two underlying features of calls. (1) Some constraint operates to limit the length of calls, as manifest in shortening of repetition-strings and omitting of note-types expected to follow. (2) There is an opposing tendency to include at least one or two D-notes at the end of a call, regardless of the overall length. The second feature suggests important semantic properties of D-notes, especially the ratio of D s to other note-types and the flock-specific acoustical structure of D-notes. The constraint on length of call does not appear intimately related to semantic causes, but may instead be determined by the maximum duration of continuous phonation, in parallel with the fundamental breath-group of human speech. In this respect, a “chick-a-dee” call resembles an entire “natural sentence” of spoken human language. |
