Constraints in Primate Vocal Production

This chapter presents additional perspectives on vocalization capabilities in primates. It concentrates on a series of studies that have explored the vocal ontogeny of nonhuman primates and flexibility in the structure and usage of nonhuman primate calls, and then compares these findings to the development of preverbal utterances in human children. The chapter shows that the structure of nonhuman primate vocalizations is largely innate, and suggests that nonhuman primates can display a lifelong high degree of variability in their vocal types.