I believe my cats sometimes get frustrated with the limitations of their own vocalizations and try to work around them when communicating with me. If, say, they

I believe my cats sometimes get frustrated with the limitations of their own vocalizations and try to work around them when communicating with me. If, say, they want a treat, they are only able to meow and perform "whiny" body motions, and maybe I'll give them pets or throw a ball instead. So they have adapted a bit: - both of them will spit regular kibble out in front of me when they want a fancier treat (cats are hilarious) - the boy cat has developed very specific "sweet meows" (soft, high-pitched) for affection and "needy meows" (loud, full-chested) for toys or food; for the first few years he would simply amp up the volume and then give a frustrated growl when I did the wrong thing - the lady cat (who only has two volumes, "yell" and "scream"), instead stands near what she wants before meowing; bedroom for cuddles, water bowl for treats, hallway or office for toys - the lady cat was sick a while back and had painful poops; for weeks afterwards if she wanted attention and I was busy she would pretend to poop and pretend to be in pain, manipulating me into dropping my work and checking on her It goes both ways, I've developed ways of communicating with them over the years: - the lady is skittish but loves laying in bed with me, so I sing "gotta get up, little pup" in a particular way; she will then get up and give me space to leave the bed, without me scaring her with a sudden movement - I don't lose my patience with them often, but they understand my anxious/exasperated tone of voice and don't push their luck too much (note that some of this is probably shared mammalian instinct) - the boy sometimes bullies the lady, and I'll raise my voice at him; despite being otherwise skittish and scared of loud noises, the lady seems to understand that I am mad at the boy because of his actions and there's nothing to be alarmed by Sometimes I think the focus on "context-free" (or at least context-lite) symbolic language, essentially unique to humans, makes us lose focus on the fact that communication is far older than the dinosaurs, and that maybe further progress on language AI should focus on communication itself, rather than symbol processing with communication as a side effect.