Loritz discusses the nature and evolution of language in the context of a connectionistapproach to neural architecture, namely, Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART). Given the massiveparallel processing inherent to ART, he argues that all of the mechanisms inherent to generativegrammar, including discrete rules, stored grammatical representations, and so on, can bedispensed with. Loritz's “adaptive grammar” attempts to derive what havebeen considered to be grammatical universals from the structure of the human brain, in particularits short-term memory limitations. For example, so-called universal topic-verb order (p. 149)follows from “a deeper biological injunction to say (and do) topical things first, a‘rule' which applies not just to conversations but to everything brains do. It is acorollary of evolution: the organism that doesn't do relevant things first simplydoesn't survive” (pp. 150–151).