A Syntax of Brainwaves

In this article, after explaining some fundamental linguistic terminology and summarising the main differences between the Essentialist (“Chomskyan”) approach and two other important tendencies in linguistics, I will argue that, in addition to the study of performance, neuroscience can also contribute to the development of theories of competence, on the basis of recent studies which show a relationship between abstract, “higher” linguistic structures and concrete, “lower” electrical behaviours of neurons.