One answer might be that it arises in response to the need for a large vocabulary.
Why is human language combinatorial (Figure 2)? One answer might be that it arises in response to the need for a large vocabulary. Hockett [24] argues that once a system has too many meanings to be efficiently encoded by distinct non-combinatorial forms, a combinatorial system becomes advantageous. More recently, an alternative hypothesis has been proposed [25] that combinatoriality emerges through cultural transmission under biases favouring simplicity. In Verhoef's [25, 26••] cultural