“So, yes, considered as an algorithm within a language, Merge is indeed an elementary process. But, imagined as some sort of mediation between prelinguistic operations of the brain and language-use, it would be a miraculous leap across an infinite qualitative abyss. It can help explain the extravagant fecundity and power and limitless expressive range of language, perhaps, but it definitely can't explain anything about the origin of language. [...] If Merge is the most basic linguistic operation, it's primordial only structurally, not genetically. It's the complexity of language that generates the simplicity of the operation, and not the reverse.”