SPANTICS - Determining the semantic content of birds' alarm calls through acoustic features and social context (SPArrows' SemaNTICS: SPANTICS)

A novel and promising approach to understand the evolution of animal communication and human language is to identify the semantic content of animal calls. However, many significant aspects of animal linguistic theories and methods remain unexplored in ecology. SPANTICS aims to elucidate the semantics of avian communication through spearheading experimental research on the closed and monitored population of house sparrows in Lundy Island, UK. SPANTICS is a comprehensive and thorough project that will

determine the core meaning of alarm calls, the units that carry the information, and the ecological factors that shape call production. The core meaning of elements will be determined using a series of controlled stimulus presentations that will notably distinguish riskbased semantics from category-based semantics. To identify the vocal units carrying information, sparrow vocal production will be analysed by focusing on spectral and temporal features. This will enable me to test a recent and untested coding theory which

proposes that combinations of acoustic features can convey semantic content in a way comparable to combinations of notes (i.e., Featural Compositionality). Finally, I will examine the potential impact of social factors by determining if sexual selection and/or kin selection have an effect on birds' semantic production. To ensure thorough analysis and interpretation of results and provide valuable knowledge for future ecological projects, I will quantify for the first time the sparrows' repertoire and potential individual signatures

in their calls. SPANTICS is truly multidisciplinary, combining linguistics and ecology to produce robust and replicable results. SPANTICS will improve the scarce knowledge of avian semantics and enable comparative linguistic research across clades.