Broca’s region is known to play a key role in speech production as well as in the processing of language input. Still, the exact function (or functions) of Broca’s region remains highly disputed. Within the generativist framework it has been argued that part of Broca’s region is dedicated to syntactical analysis. Others, however, have related Broca’s region activity to more domain-general processes, e.g. working memory load and argument hierarchy demands. We here present results that show how contextual cues completely alter the effects of syntax in behaviour and in Broca’s region, and suggest that activation in this area reflects general linguistic processing costs or prediction error. We review the fMRI literature in the light of this theory.