Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Does Broca's play by the rules?

Nature Neuroscience volume 6, pages 651–652 (2003)Cite this article

Languages may all share and be constrained by a universal grammar. A new study shows that Broca's area (long thought to participate in grammatical aspects of language) becomes increasingly active as participants acquire rules from a foreign language, but not as they acquire comparable rules that are inconsistent with real languages. Could Broca's area be a neural substrate for universal grammar?

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The grammars of human languages consist of hierarchically defined relations (illustrated here with three examples of a simple sentence) suggesting that an innate 'universal grammar' may constrain the form that human languages can take.

References

  1. Chomsky, N.A. Rules and Representations (Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 1980).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. Crain, S. & Nakayama, M. Language 63, 522–543 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Musso, M. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 774–781 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Skosnik, P.D. et al. Neuroimage 17, 1306–1314 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Tettamanti, M. et al. Neuroimage 17, 700–709 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Just, M.A., Carpenter, P.A., Keller, T.A., Eddy, W.F. & Thulborn, K.R. Science 274, 114–116 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Stromswold, K., Caplan, D., Alpert, N. & Rauch, S. Brain Lang. 52, 452–473 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sag, I.A., Wasow, T. & Bender, E.M. Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction (CSLI Publications, Stanford, 2003).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Fillmore, C. in Lexical and Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation (eds. Webelhuth, G., Koenig, J.-P. & Kathol, A.) 113–128 (CSLI Publications, Stanford, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Dronkers, N.F. Brain Lang. 71, 59–61 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Maess, B., Koelsch, S., Gunter, T.C. & Friederici, A.D. Nat. Neurosci. 4, 540–545 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Iacoboni, M. et al. Science 286, 2526–2528 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Bookheimer, S. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 25, 151–188 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Marcus, G.F. The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Create the Complexities of Human Thought (Basic Books, New York, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W.T. Science 298, 1569–1579 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, 10003, New York, USA

    Gary F Marcus

  2. Dept. of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, BC, Canada

    Athena Vouloumanos

  3. Dept. of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Ivan A Sag

Authors
  1. Gary F Marcus
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Athena Vouloumanos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ivan A Sag
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gary F Marcus.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Marcus, G., Vouloumanos, A. & Sag, I. Does Broca's play by the rules?. Nat Neurosci 6, 651–652 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0703-651

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0703-651

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing