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1 results

  • 8 - Communication in the Rest of the Animal Kingdom

  • from Part IV - Animal Communication
  • Harry van der Hulst, University of Connecticut
  • Book:
    Genes, Brains, Evolution and Language
    Published online:
    13 November 2025
    Print publication:
    13 November 2025, pp 289-333

  • Summary

    All animal species seem to have some sort of communication system that is (largely or completely) innate. What is the nature of such systems? We will only have space to look at a few examples, which will show that some species use very complex systems. We can then ask, assuming that the human language capacity consists of several cognitive submodules, whether it is the case that some of those modules are shared with the innate communication capacities of other species. As we have seen, in recent years Chomsky has argued that the language capacity that is uniquely human (being specific to the domain of language) is the ability to form recursive structure. This has led to research to find out whether other animal species can also “handle” recursive patterns either in their communication systems or in other cognitive systems.