Chaser, a border collie, can recognise the names of over 1,000 objects, and her owner claims she can carry out commands involving verbs and nouns combined.
Is this evidence that animals can use language-like skills?
Linguist Daniel Midgley investigates on this week’s Talk the Talk.
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The New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html
A YouTube video of Chaser doing her thang:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbI13nbDRRI
What do you think? Has Chaser broken the syntax barrier?
