Utterance evolution: the road to generative, combinatorial communicators

Description

Catherine Crockford, Roman Martin Wittig, and Cedric Girard-Buttoz wrote a framework paper in 2026 on animal calls. Language was long seen as uniquely human in its complexity. A decade of animal research has challenged parts of that view. The authors argue that progress needs shared, measurable tests. Such tests must separate simple call systems from combined ones. They build their framework from new studies of natural animal signals.

The framework sets out four transitions. First comes flexible combining of signals. Second comes learning and settling those combinations as shared habits. Third comes wider messages through varied combining methods. Fourth comes rules for ordering parts, in lines or in layers. Each step yields testable predictions, the authors say. Chimpanzee and bonobo call sequences now show early combining skill. Only humans clearly show full, meaning-based, open-ended communication so far. That claim must be tested, not assumed, they conclude.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13542337