different levels of patterns together so as to create a complex product of
communication. This observation reinforces our argument that replacing
‘intelligence’ with‘pattern-making ability’helps to add precision and
specificity to the discussion of what was involved in the evolution of
human language. It is also possible that we could argue that all intelligence
is dependent on the making of patterns, for example, through the work of
hand–eye coordination in the exercise of motor skills, in which the under-
standing of pattern and its application must constantly work together.
There are, further, no doubt many different varieties of meaning of the
term‘pattern’itself. Here, it is enough for us to suggest that the ability
effortlessly to layer patterns together to communicate by speech provides
the theoretical kernel for the emergence of language, and that this idea
mediates between the over-specificity of Chomsky’s argument and the
over-generality of Everett’s proposition about intelligence.
78 BREAKING THE FRAMES