In real time, the elements occur all at once, thus the rules of language are independent of meaning. A sentence can be grammatical but meaningless, or meaningless but grammatical. Syntax, although it varies from language to language, is what makes language uniquely 'human,' no other animal species uses syntax in its communication system. No matter how different our language systems may seem to one another, all human language systems are more similar to one another than to animal systems of communication. Animals do not communicate on a conceptual level, and their language exists only in time. Human language can convey absence, like the fact there is 'no giraffe next to me,' and people who know a language can figure out the meaning of new words by the place of the word and the meaning of other words in a sentence. Language also changes and grows over time, and within the life of the individual, the capacity of a child to develop new and unique language skills far surpasses that of an animal during its lifetime.

Every language may have a different set of rules and sounds, vocabulary and syntax, and ways and degrees of conveying abstraction. But although no sound, syntax, or drive to communicate certain concepts seems innate, cross-culturally there does seem to be some unique tendencies to the innate ways humans use language as a species.