From collocations to call-ocations: using linguistic methods to quantify animal call combinations

Emerging data in a range of non-human animal species have highlighted a latent ability to combine certain pre-existing calls together into larger structures. Currently, however, the quantification of context-specific call combinations has received less attention. This is problematic because animal calls can co-occur with one another simply through chance alone. One common approach applied in language sciences to identify recurrent word combinations is collocation analysis. Through comparing the co-occurrence of two words with how each word combines with other words within a corpus, collocation analysis can highlight above chance, two-word combinations. Here, we demonstrate how this approach can also be applied to non-human animal signal sequences by implementing it on artificially generated data sets of call combinations. We argue collocation analysis represents a promising tool for identifying non-random, communicatively relevant call combinations and, more generally, signal sequences, in animals.

Assessing the propensity for animals to combine calls provides important comparative insights into the complexity of animal vocal systems and the selective pressures such systems have been exposed to. Currently, however, the objective quantification of context-specific call combinations has received less attention. Here we introduce an approach commonly applied in corpus linguistics, namely collocation analysis, and show how this method can be put to use for identifying call combinations more systematically. Through implementing the same objective method, so-called call-ocations, we hope researchers will be able to make more meaningful comparisons regarding animal signal sequencing abilities both within and across systems.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-022-03224-3.