What We Cannot Learn From Neuroanatomy About Language Learning and Language Processing. Commentary on Uylings

Cognitive neuroscience aims at specifications of human cognition as instantiated in the human brain. This requires that information from multiple levels be taken into consideration and that information at one level be used to guide the investigations at another level. With regard to the human language faculty, linguistics specifies structural descriptions of the relevant knowledge types such as phonological, syntactic, and semantic structures. Psycholinguistics specifies the processing architectures of different language functions such as speaking, reading, and listening. These processing architectures explain how, in real time, the different sources of linguistic knowledge in long-term memory are recruited and exploited in mapping sound or orthography onto meaning (in listening and reading) or vice versa (in speaking and writing). Finally, (cognitive) neuroscience specifies how the processing architectures are instantiated in the human brain. In this context, an account of the neural architecture of language should specify which brain areas are recruited for different language functions, as well as how these areas communicate while these