Data from: Superregular grammars do not provide additional explanatory power but allow for a compact analysis of animal song

A pervasive belief with regard to the differences between human language
and animal vocal sequences (song) is that they belong to different classes
of computational complexity, with animal song belonging to regular
languages, whereas human language is superregular. This argument, however,
lacks empirical evidence since superregular analyses of animal song are
understudied. The goal of this paper is to perform a superregular analysis
of animal song, using data from gibbons as a case study, and demonstrate
that a superregular analysis can be effectively used with non-human data.
A key finding is that a superregular analysis does not increase
explanatory power but rather provides for compact analysis: Fewer
grammatical rules are necessary once superregularity is allowed. This
pattern is analogous to a previous computational analysis of human
language, and accordingly, the null hypothesis, that human language and
animal song are governed by the same type of grammatical systems, cannot
be rejected.