Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

Using the preceding chapter as a point of departure, this chapter offers a critical perspective on the notion of innate universals. It presents a 'minimal nativism' view, according to which a brain area should be seen as embodying a kind of language universal if it is genetically predisposed toward fulfilling a certain sufficiently general linguistic function, for example by virtue of its strategic connectivity. On this view, Broca's area could still count as the brain locus of a linguistic universal, even if it supports other functions beside language.