5.8 Conclusion

It has been shown that integrative mechanisms, whatever their biochemistry or physiology is, seem to operate regardless of whether they affect words or segments. It needs to be seen if segmental sequencing and word sequencing are homologous or analogous. The striking similarity with which words and segments opearate creating similar effects may indicate that they both are part of either the Narrow Linguistic Faculty (computational core) or the Broad Linguistic Faculty (computational periphery), contrary to what is suggested in Hauser et al. 2002, since these authors make computational only the core but not the periphery. If both are computational, as argued here, then there is no reason to assume that computability is more of the "narrow" core than it is of the "broad" periphery.

It also remains to be seen in the light of synaesthesia (Ramachandra 2001, García-Bellido MS), if perceptual mechanisms of integration operating for other sensory subsystems such as vision and taste are regulated in the same fashion producing well defined perceptions and creating the same compression effects. If it turns out that all perceptual subsystems have the same integrational mechanisms as those of the linguistic subsystem, then linguistic integration may be functioning because it is operating with a very old system of perception. If so, then there is no reason to believe that there is a Narrow Faculty distinct from a Broad Faculty of perception.

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