Reflections on the neurobiology of syntax

This contribution focuses on the neural infrastructure for parsing and syntactc encoding. I will argue that from an anatomical point of view Broca’s area is an ill-conceived notion. Functionally, Broca’s area and adjacent cortex (together Broca’s complex) are relevant for language, but not exclusively for this domain of cognition. Its role can be characterized as providing the necessary infrastructure for unification (syntactic and semantic). A general proposal, but with the required level of computational detail, is discussed to account for the distribution of labour between different components of the language network in the brain. Arguments are provided for the Immediacy Principle, which denies a privileged status for syntax in sentence processing. The temporal profile of event related brain responses (ERPs) is suggested to require predictive processing. Finally, since next to speed diversity is a hallmark of human languages, the language readiness of the brain might not depend on a universal neural machinery for syntax, but instead on shaping the neural infrastructure of more general cognitive systems (e.g., memory, unification, executive control) in a direction that made it optimally suited for the purpose of communication through language