Resumen

MENDEZ-CARDENAS, María G.  y  VARGAS, Luis Alberto. Evolución de la comunicación vocal y su papel en la estructuración del espacio social y bioacústico en prosimios: una aproximación biosemiótica. Cuicuilco [online]. 2015, vol.22, n.64, pp.89-125. ISSN 0185-1659.

This article provides a review of the studies carried out regarding the vocal communication conducted in prosimians; the monogamous primates with "solitary" social systems are considered the most primitive kind, that is to say, their social skills are closer to the ancestral conditions of the group in question. Data presented here, from previously published and recent works on one of the species: the sportive lemur, serves as an introduction to the topic of the evolution of vocal communication in primates, along with its role as a regulator of social interactions that occur in different territorial areas and allow us to build bridges between disciplines such as linguistics, semiotics, social behavior and evolutionary theory. The paper presents a brief review of the hypotheses of the evolution of communication and the role of vocalizations in a monogamous social system characterized by high territoriality. We also consider whether the acoustic structure is associated with a specific environment with behavior, that is to say, it means, if it is a reference signal, what type of information is involved and how does this relate to a function and how it is "representational" regarding the contextual meaning through the use of two models: the cooperative and the competitive, regarding both observational and experimental data. Based on studies of paternity, we discuss whether the theory of kin selection -which was used by Tecumseh Fitch to explain how a trustworthy communication system emerged- generated the development of a coordinated care and "honest" (credible or convincing) communication in prosimians, thus highlighting the selective pressure on the coordinated acoustic signals. How this happened is a central theme regarding the theories of language and origin. If vocalizations serve as regulators of social and ecological structuring of space, then they would also be associated with specific contexts and the territories defined by their use. We show how the analysis of the vocal structure of calls is carried out -during the broadcast and perception- using a biosemiotic approach. We examine whether the smallest units of information, or vowel units, are concatenated into a proto-syntactic system as reported in other primates. Finally, we discuss how animal communication fulfills the functions of Jacobson's structuralist model of language, along with the linguistic characteristics proposed by Hockett.

Palabras llave : voice communication; primates; syntax; semiotics; evolution.

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