human genes

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Chris,
  Yes, there are people who think that there is a human gene that carries
linguistic syntactic information.  The clearest case is M. Gopnik's letter
to Nature Volume 344 April 1990.  The article argues for "one dominant
gene" that controls the ability to mark regular inflections.  Rather than
quoting extensively from that article, I recommend that you read it.
Researchers who have accepted and extended the analysis provided there
include Steven Pinker, Harald Clahsen, and Heather van der Lely.  Van der
Lely has also argued for a gene that controls the use of ruels that map
from syntax to semantics - what she and Wexler call reverse linking rules.
There are papers by Gopnik and van der Lely in Cognition.  You may wish to
track out these issues in the literature.

--Brian MacWhinney