Human language stands as a remarkable testament to cognitive evolution, a system of communication of unparalleled complexity and expressive power. Unlike the fixed and limited communication systems observed in other species, human language exhibits a set of defining characteristics that enable its versatility and dynamism. Among these critical properties, “creativity” (also often referred to as productivity or open-endedness) and “arbitrariness” are fundamental. These concepts explain how humans can generate an infinite array of novel messages from a finite set of elements and how the forms of linguistic signs relate to their meanings, respectively. Together, they underpin the unique capacity of human beings to articulate intricate thoughts, convey abstract ideas, and transmit knowledge across generations, fundamentally shaping human culture and society.

These two properties, creativity and arbitrariness, alongside others like duality of patterning, displacement, and cultural transmission, form what linguists call the “design features” of human language, first comprehensively articulated by Charles Hockett. Understanding creativity and arbitrariness is crucial for appreciating the intricate architecture of language and its distinction from other forms of communication. They are not merely academic distinctions but rather reflect the fundamental cognitive mechanisms that allow human language to be a tool for continuous innovation and profound shared understanding.

Creativity (Productivity/Open-endedness)

Creativity, in the context of human language, does not primarily refer to artistic flair or imaginative writing, but rather to a core structural property: the ability to produce and understand an infinite number of novel utterances from a finite set of linguistic elements and rules. It is the capacity for linguistic novelty, the boundless potential to construct and interpret messages that have never been spoken or heard before. This feature is often termed “productivity” or “open-endedness” because the system is not closed; it can continuously generate new expressions.

The generative power of language stems from its discrete combinatorial nature. Human language operates on two main levels: a finite set of basic sounds (phonemes) that are meaningless on their own, and a finite set of meaningful units (morphemes/words) formed by combining these sounds. The crucial element of creativity lies in how these meaningful units can be combined according to a finite set of grammatical rules (syntax) to produce an exponentially vast, indeed infinite, number of larger units like phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Key Mechanisms Supporting Linguistic Creativity:

  1. Syntax and Grammatical Rules: The backbone of linguistic creativity is syntax. Every language possesses a set of unconscious rules that govern how words are ordered and combined to form well-formed sentences. These rules are not prescriptive dictates but rather descriptive patterns inherent in native speakers’ knowledge. For instance, in English, we know that “The dog chased the cat” is grammatically correct, whereas “Chased the cat dog the” is not. These rules allow for the systematic arrangement of elements, ensuring that novel combinations remain comprehensible. Consider a simple example: with a subject, a verb, and an object, even with a limited vocabulary, countless unique sentences can be constructed.

  2. Recursion: Perhaps the most profound aspect of linguistic creativity is recursion. Recursion is the ability to embed structures within structures of the same type, allowing for potentially endless expansion. This means that a phrase can contain another phrase of a similar kind, and that phrase can contain yet another, and so on. A classic example is the embedding of relative clauses:

    • “This is the house.”
    • “This is the house that Jack built.”
    • “This is the house that Jack built that lay in the malt that the rat ate.”
    • “This is the house that Jack built that lay in the malt that the rat ate that the cat killed.”
    • And so on.

    While practical constraints like memory and breath limit the length of actual spoken or written sentences, the grammatical mechanism itself is infinite. This recursive property allows for the expression of complex thoughts, relationships, and nested ideas, which would be impossible with a finite set of pre-packaged signals. It is a hallmark of human cognitive capacity.

  3. Lexical Innovation: While the primary focus of creativity is on sentence structure, the ability to generate new words or adapt existing ones also contributes to the open-endedness of language. New words are constantly being coined (neologisms), borrowed from other languages, blended (e.g., “smog” from smoke + fog), or derived (e.g., adding suffixes like “-ize” to create verbs). This constant lexical churn allows language to adapt to new concepts, technologies, and cultural phenomena, further expanding its expressive power.

Creativity vs. Animal Communication:

The contrast with animal communication systems highlights the uniqueness of linguistic creativity. Most animal communication is characterized by a limited, fixed repertoire of signals, often directly tied to specific stimuli or emotional states. For example:

  • Bird calls: Often signify specific threats (predators), territory claims, or mating readiness. While some birds can learn complex sequences, these are typically variations on pre-programmed themes, not new combinations of distinct, meaningful units.
  • Bee dances: The waggle dance of bees conveys information about food sources, but its parameters (direction, distance, quality) are fixed. A bee cannot invent a dance to describe a new type of threat or an abstract concept.
  • Primate calls: Alarm calls in vervet monkeys differentiate between types of predators (e.g., eagle, leopard, snake), eliciting different escape behaviors. However, these calls are discrete, non-combinatorial signals. A monkey cannot combine “eagle” and “snake” calls to mean “a large, dangerous predator.”

Experiments attempting to teach apes human-like language have demonstrated their remarkable cognitive abilities but also underscored their fundamental limitations in productivity. While apes like Washoe, Koko, or Kanzi learned hundreds of signs or lexigrams and could combine them in short sequences, their combinations rarely exhibited the novel, rule-governed productivity characteristic of a human 3-year-old. Their utterances tended to be rote repetitions or permutations of learned phrases, lacking the syntactic depth and recursive potential seen in human language acquisition. They struggle to create truly novel sentences that express complex, unforeseen ideas.

Implications of Creativity:

The creativity of language is profoundly significant. It allows humans to:

  • Express an infinite range of ideas, including abstract concepts, hypothetical situations, and future plans.
  • Adapt language to new situations and describe unprecedented events.
  • Transmit complex knowledge and cultural narratives across generations.
  • Engage in open-ended discourse, argumentation, and imaginative storytelling.
  • Reflect on language itself, creating poetry, jokes, and rhetorical devices.

Without creativity, human communication would be severely limited, perhaps no more sophisticated than that of other animals, unable to support the vast tapestry of human thought and culture.

Arbitrariness

Arbitrariness is another foundational property of human language, referring to the lack of any inherent, natural, or iconic connection between the form of a linguistic sign (the sound sequence or visual gesture) and its meaning (the concept or referent it represents). The relationship between the “signifier” (the word ‘tree’ /tri:/) and the “signified” (the concept of a large woody plant) is not determined by any physical resemblance or logical necessity but is rather a matter of convention, established by social agreement within a linguistic community.

This concept was famously articulated by Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, who in his Course in General Linguistics (published posthumously in 1916), emphasized that the linguistic sign is fundamentally arbitrary. He argued that if there were a natural connection, then the word for a specific object would be identical or highly similar across all languages, which is evidently not the case. The object “dog” is called dog in English, chien in French, Hund in German, perro in Spanish, sobaka in Russian, and kalb in Arabic, none of which bear any resemblance to the actual animal.

Evidence for Arbitrariness:

  1. Cross-Linguistic Variation: The most compelling evidence for arbitrariness is the sheer diversity of languages worldwide. Different languages use entirely different sound sequences to refer to the same object, action, or concept. This multilingual variation conclusively demonstrates that there is no universal, inherent link between a sound pattern and its meaning. If “water” inherently sounded like its physical properties, it wouldn’t be eau, Wasser, or agua in other languages.

  2. Abstract Concepts: The arbitrary nature of language becomes even more apparent when considering abstract concepts like “justice,” “freedom,” “love,” or “truth.” How could one iconically represent such intangible notions through sound? The ability to assign arbitrary sound sequences to abstract ideas is precisely what allows language to move beyond concrete, observable entities and delve into the complexities of human thought and philosophy.

  3. Signed Languages: Arbitrariness is not limited to spoken languages. Signed languages, despite their visual-gestural modality, also exhibit a high degree of arbitrariness. While some signs may have an initial iconic motivation (e.g., the sign for “eat” resembling bringing food to the mouth), many signs are abstract and conventionalized. Moreover, different signed languages have different, often non-iconic, signs for the same concept (e.g., the sign for “tree” in American Sign Language is different from its counterpart in British Sign Language), further proving their arbitrary nature. Over time, even initially iconic signs tend to become more abstract and less transparent through phonological processes of conventionalization, losing their direct visual resemblance.

Apparent Exceptions and Their Explanations:

While arbitrariness is a defining feature, there are some apparent exceptions that are often cited. However, closer examination reveals that these exceptions do not undermine the fundamental principle:

  1. Onomatopoeia: Words that imitate sounds, such as “buzz,” “hiss,” “meow,” “cuckoo,” are often considered iconic. However, even these words are largely conventionalized and exhibit language-specific variations. The sound a dog makes might be “woof-woof” in English, but “hau-hau” in Polish, “guk-guk” in Indonesian, or “wan-wan” in Japanese. The conventionalization demonstrates that even sound imitations are subject to the arbitrary phonetic systems and conventions of individual languages. They are still part of the arbitrary system of a given language rather than direct, universal mimetic reproductions.

  2. Sound Symbolism (Phonesthesia): Some researchers point to instances where certain sounds seem to be associated with particular meanings (e.g., words starting with “gl-” in English often relate to light or vision: “gleam,” “glisten,” “glitter,” “glow”). While these tendencies exist, they are not universal, not strictly rule-bound, and apply only to a small subset of the lexicon. They are statistical correlations rather than direct, inherent links, and the vast majority of words in a language do not exhibit such sound-meaning associations.

Why is Arbitrariness Advantageous?

The arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign, far from being a limitation, confers significant advantages on human language:

  1. Efficiency and Flexibility: If language were entirely iconic, every word would need to physically resemble its referent. This would be incredibly cumbersome and inefficient. Imagine having to mimic a dog’s bark every time you wanted to refer to a dog, or perform a complex pantomime for “justice.” Arbitrariness allows for compact, easily reproducible forms that can be quickly processed. It also allows meanings to shift and evolve over time without requiring a change in the physical form of the word. For example, the word “mouse” for a computer device doesn’t require the device to look like a small rodent; the arbitrary assignment of the word to the new meaning is seamless.

  2. Vast Vocabulary: An iconic system would be severely limited in the number of distinct signs it could create. There are only so many unique sounds or gestures one can produce that directly resemble an ever-growing number of concepts. Arbitrariness allows for an enormous lexicon because the only constraint is the number of distinct sound sequences that can be generated and remembered, enabling the representation of a virtually unlimited number of concepts, both concrete and abstract.

  3. Representation of Abstract Concepts: As mentioned, arbitrariness is crucial for conveying abstract ideas, emotions, and philosophical constructs that have no tangible, iconic representation. Words like “democracy,” “hope,” “regret,” or “infinity” derive their meaning from arbitrary convention, allowing for profound and complex intellectual discourse.

  4. Learning and Acquisition: While children must learn the arbitrary mappings between sounds and meanings, this system is ultimately more learnable and systematic than an iconic one. The rules governing sound combinations (phonotactics) and word formation, though arbitrary in their assignment to meaning, are consistent within a language, allowing for systematic acquisition.

The arbitrary nature of language underscores that meaning is a social construct, residing in the shared conventions of a community rather than in any inherent property of the sounds themselves. This characteristic is what gives language its remarkable adaptability and explanatory power, freeing it from the constraints of direct physical representation.

These two fundamental properties, creativity and arbitrariness, are not isolated features but deeply interconnected. Arbitrariness allows for a vast and flexible lexicon, unburdened by iconic constraints, capable of denoting a boundless array of concrete objects and abstract concepts. This expansive vocabulary then becomes the raw material for the combinatorial power of creativity. The finite, arbitrarily assigned elements (words) can be infinitely combined through the recursive rules of syntax, leading to an open-ended system of expression. Without arbitrary signs, the system would be too constrained by iconic limitations to achieve the richness and efficiency necessary for creative expression. Conversely, without creativity, arbitrary signs would merely be a fixed set of labels, incapable of generating novel messages or adapting to new communicative needs. Their synergy is what makes human language a uniquely powerful, adaptable, and infinitely expressive communication system, enabling the complex cognitive processes and cultural development that define humanity.