Doyle I gather from using reductionism this way you imply that structuralism is scientifically oriented. Do you have a problem with reductionism?
Paul "...one thing is faily clear -- that the brain IS "pre-wired" for language."
Doyle The usual meaning of wired for language is that language is innate. For a contrary opinion out of connectionism: "The Symbolic Species, The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain", which uses the evolutionary concept of Baldwinian adaptation to a niche to explain the rise of language in our ancestors. By Terrence W. Deacon, Norton, 1997.
Paul "In fact, there most certainly ARE structures in the brain, in the sense of inherint loci of organization, dedicated to more or less specific functions. These are, as Steven Pinker notes in *How The Mind Works*, not so much like mechanical modules, neatly localized with sharp boundaries, but, following Chomsky, more like "mental organs."
Doyle Steven Pinker is a leading supporter of the innateness of language. He has written some technical defenses of language modules, as well as attacks against connectionist claims. He is mainly a popularizer of the Chomsky claims.
Doyle Functional Modularity of the brain had an early influence upon my thinking. About 1975. See Semir Zeki's book on color vision, "A Vision of the Brain", Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1993, for a good roundup on functional modularity of the brain. The concept does not necessarily support an innate language module. It is about functions such as color being processed in local centers of the occipital lobe. A complex subject with still a lot to be understood. regards, Doyle Saylor