Reference is a basic feature of human language. A much debated question in the
scholarship on animal communication and language evolution is whether traces of the …

The past years have shown a resurgence of interest in conceptual issues in animal
communication, with much of the debate centering on the concept of information (eg Carazo …

A central challenge in the study of human language is to understand how it evolved from
earlier forms of animal communication. One long-debated question is whether animal …

The concept of functional reference has been used to isolate potentially referential vocal
signals in animal communication. However, its relatedness to the phenomenon of reference …

Finding the evolutionary origins of human language in the communication systems of our
closest living relatives has, for the last several decades, been a major goal of many in the …

Despite decades of intensive research, the definitions of communication and signal remain
controversial. Although the once influential view of communication as mutualistic …

In the current debate about the emergence of language, researchers have looked for various
sources of indirect evidence, either by comparing animals and humans, by analyzing the …

What do animal signals mean? Rendall et al.(2009) recently argued that such a question is
in fact ill posed. To accept the question as meaningful (no pun intended) depends …

What is meaning? While traditionally the domain of philosophy and linguistics, this question,
and others related to it, is critical for cognitive and comparative approaches to …

Research on the evolution of language is often framed in terms of sharp discontinuities in
syntax and semantics between animal communication systems and human language as we …