Computational Phenotypes

This book, written accessibly for both biologists and linguists, argues that language is not as exceptional a human trait as some linguists believe it to be. It is rather, according to the authors, just the human version of a fairly common and conservative organic system, the Central Computational Complex.

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This book confronts the hotly debated claim that language is a species specific trait of humans. It also considers the notion that disentangling the evolutionary history of language is one of science's hardest problems. Building on the recent conceptual breakthroughs of the EvoDevo paradigm, Balari and Lorenzo argue that language is not so exceptional after all. It is, rather, just the human version of a fairly common and conservative organic system which they call the Central Computational Complex. The authors also propose that interspecies variation of this organ is restricted to (i) accessible memory resources, and (ii) patterns of external connectivity, both being the result of perturbations on the system underlying its development. The book, written accessibly for both biologists and linguists, offers a fresh perspective on language as a naturally evolved phenomenon.