Merge: Biolinguistic considerations

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of the operation Merge, the recursive procedure at the heart of the human language faculty. The central claim of this paper is that in order to reflect on the brain basis of Merge, the operation should be formulated in as much a generic way as possible. To achieve this syntactic combination must be dissociated from lexical influence. I argue that syntactic computation boils down to a rhythm: an interleaving of Merge and Spell Out applications, that may be understandable in terms of brain-level oscillations.