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Language as shaped by the brain
2008
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to be rooted in a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but arbitrary, principles of language structure (a universal grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes. The resulting puzzle concerning the origin of UG
doi:10.1017/s0140525x08004998
pmid:18826669
fatcat:2jlqnbtcwnanpborlom4uy5ffe