Final answer:
Apes use imperatives primarily for basic communication in peer-to-peer interactions, which can be seen as a form of protolanguage. While they have complex communication systems, they do not exhibit the same characteristics as human language. A gorilla group is typically led by a male silverback, and the study of culture in nonhuman primates focuses on the transmission of behaviors such as tool use.
Step-by-step explanation:
Apes primarily use imperatives in peer-to-peer interactions for basic communication needs such as requests or commands, which could be interpreted as a form of protolanguage. Research involving human-reared great apes like chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans demonstrates their ability to use gestures or tokens to represent things in their environment. In the wild, communication among chimpanzees, for example, consists of a variety of vocalizations that convey limited information compared to human language, which is characterized by its infinite productivity and open-ended nature. The communication systems of apes, while complex, do not exhibit the flexible combination of signs and rules that define human language.
Gorillas, when they sense other gorillas are around, tend to approach each other in a certain manner, and within a gorilla family, there is typically a dominant male known as a silverback who leads and protects the group.
In terms of nonhuman primates and culture, primatologists explore the possibility of cultural transmission in these animals, looking at behaviors such as tool use in chimpanzees and learning processes in orangutans, which might suggest the presence of culture when knowledge is passed within the group.