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What about language?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2025

Antonio Benítez-Burraco Open the ORCID record for Antonio Benítez-Burraco [Opens in a new window]
Antonio Benítez-Burraco*
Affiliation:
Department of Spanish, Linguistics, and Theory of Literature (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville, Seville, Spain [email protected]; http://antoniobenitez.wix.com/benitez-burraco
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*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

Myths about a remote shared past can certainly promote cooperation between distantly related people, seemingly via their impact on our social cognition, and ultimately facilitate the achievement of complex tasks in large-scale societies. Nonetheless, the creation and transmission of these complex narratives are not possible without the parallel development of sophisticated language(s), endowed with properties like displacement (enabling mental travels in space and time) and complex syntax (enabling the assembly and communication of complex thoughts).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 47 , 2024 , e173
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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