The case of referential gestural signaling: Where next?

Referential acts play a crucial part in our every day communication since human language is, in its essence, a referential system. Reference can be made via icons, indices and signs but also via ostensive/inferential gestural communication, in which the behavior of the actor directs the attention of the recipient to particular aspects of the environment. The earliest uses of ostensive/inferential communication can be observed in human children around the age of nine to 12 mo. However, what about comparable gestures in our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates or other animal taxa? The present paper aims to provide a brief overview of the state of the art to encourage future research into the evolutionary origins and uses of referential gestural signaling.