On Broca, Brain and Binding

In speaking and language understanding, word information is retrieved from memory and combined into larger units (unification). Unification operations take place in parallel at the semantic, syntactic and phonological levels of processing. A new framework is proposed that connects psycholinguistic models to a neurobiological account of language. According to this proposal the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) plays an important role in unification. Research in other domains of cognition indicates that left prefrontal cortex has the right neurobiological characteristics for its involvement in the unification for language. A psycholinguistic perspective is provided on the nature of unification and the role of LIFG.