Another aspect of language is semanticity, which is according to Dobrovolsky the use of symbols that convey meaning 'through set of fixed relationships among signifiers, referents and meanings'. It is argued that semanticity is unique to humans since animals do convey a meaning but in a very restricted form e.g. bird songs or calls. However, there is certain evidence suggesting that semanticity is present in animal's speech. This was shown in the experiment with chimpanzee Washoe when she named the objects after seeing them on the picture having a prior knowledge of the object from a different situation. Semanticity is also present in her use of sign 'more'. Firstly, she associated this sign only with tickling situation but later she used it to demand 'more' food.

Duality is also one the defining features of language. This means that language is organised into two levels. There is physical level which enables us to produce sounds like p, i, g. These, standing by themselves, are meaningless. It is only at the second level after combining them into sequences such as p-i-g when they become meaningful. It is generally thought that this property is exclusive to humans but there is also evidence against- duality is present in birds' songs where the individual notes do not have any particular meaning but a combination of them does convey a meaning.

The ability to refer to the past and future and other locations is called displacement. This feature enables us to talk about things far removed in the time and place. This too, is claimed to be an asset of human language only although it was proved that e.g. bees show ability to refer to distant sources of nectar. This, however, does not apply when referring to sources of nectar in the past or future or -as shown in experiment conducted by Karl von Frisch' to vertical movement thus making the feature of displacement very limited and only partially present in animal communication.

Apart from displacement, another feature that seems to be particularly human trait is structure dependence. This involves recognizing the pattern of a language and manipulating parts of the sentences into different structures and also includes the use of grammar. Findings from the experiment with chimpanzees do not suggest that they grasped the idea of structure dependant operations and neither do the other studies of animals.

Similarly, there is no evidence of animals having an ability to reflect e.g. talking about the language in terminology.