Although most previous model-based research has not moved beyond first-order semantics,human languages are clearly capable of expressing second-order semantics: the meanings ex-pressed in a sentence do not only consist of conjunctions of first-order predicates but also predi-cates that take other predicates as an argument. In this paper we report on multi-agent languagegame experiments in which agents handle second-order semantics. We focus our discussion onhow this type of research is able to provide fundamental insights in how properties of human-language-like properties could once have emerged. For recursion, this might have happened asa side-effect of agents trying to reuse previously learned language structure as much as possible.
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