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Don't forget the word 'protagonist' which actually makes the situation a little clearer. My understanding is that an agonist is the general term for a player or contestant in a battle, fight, contest or issue. Protagonist more specifically refers (or used to refer) to the leading or central or 'home' agonist (so the champion, advocate or defender), while Antagonist is the more external foe or enemy of the cause, the 'away' player or challenger, aggressor.
So in the bird behaviour context, 'antagonistic' would specifically relate to aggressive or external interceding actions but not include defensive or other generic competitive activities. 'Agonistic' remains as the general term that covers all fighting or contesting behaviour.
Agonistic = of the business of fighting or competing;
Antagonistic = aggressive, challenging to a fight, provoking.
At least we don't have "protagonistic behaviour" to worry about!
Julian
On Fri 26/12/08 3:14 PM , "Shaun Bagley" sent:
Martin,
I suspect the term agonistic refers to the aggressive display behaviour of males in tight quarters, since they seem to nest communally. It’s not limited to display either. I saw the top nest birds (at Kelly’s) pinching sticks from the lower left nest twice in a few minutes!
Incidentally agonistic can also mean strained for the sake of effect which I suppose could apply equally to display!
Shaun
From: martin butterfield [
Sent: Friday, 26 December 2008 11:06 AM
To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] Intriguing semantics
In looking through HANZAB to follow up some issues about the behaviour of the Kellys' Swamp spoonbills I was struck by the term "Agonistic Behaviour" since I have never come across the word 'agonistic' before. As the prefix 'ant' could mean "opposite" as in antonym I assumed it meant the opposite of 'antagonistic' which would suggest something like cooperation. However both the entries in HANZAB and the definitions in the Shorter and Concise Oxford Dictionaries the relevant definitions seemed to say both words meant 'competitive'.
I have come across some defniitions from both pharmacology (one turns on a receptor, the other doesn't) and physiology (muscless which oppose each other can be referred to as agonist and antagonist) where the two words have different definitions implying some degree of oppositeness (if that is a word). However I haven't been able to find such a pair of definitions relevant to behaviour and wonder if anyone on the list can explain why the competitive behaviour of birds is described as agonistic rather than antagonistic.
Martin
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