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show that other primates are utterly incapable of recursive embedding. Tamarins may apply
recursive embedding in some other domain. Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch consider the possibility
that highly dedicated recursion became less dedicated in human evolution (2002: 1578). In other
words, sophisticated forms of recursion may perhaps be found in other species, but even so, such
recursion will be specialized to some narrow range of cognitive tasks, such as motor tasks. This
is why other species, even if they do have some higher-level recursive abilities, are not capable of
language. What made language possible, on this hypothesis, is that the ancestors of humans
underwent certain cognitive changes whereby higher-level recursion either appeared without
precedent or became de-specialized so that it could be applied to conceptual resources in general.
This increased ability to apply recursion broadly made possible, not only mathematics beyond the
modest number sense, but language too.
Recursion plays a role in relational models theory. The use of Communal Sharing among
the Moose of Burkina Faso provides is an example (Fiske 1991: 151). It is similar to self-
embedding in language, e.g. the inclusion of a phrase within another of the same type. Among
the Moose, one finds one Communal Sharing group embedded within another within another, and
so on. A kind of polygamous nuclear family, known as “zaka,’ exemplifies Communal Sharing
insofar as its members live together, work together, and share resources based on need. That
zaka lives within a larger group, also known as “zaka,” a compound of several such families
living in an enclosure that pools labor and food as needed. These compounds form a larger unit,
a kind of neighborhood also united by Communal Sharing, in which various compounds help
each other in brewing beer, building houses, and other efforts requiring the resources of a group
of this size. These neighborhoods comprise a village behaving collectively with regard to
pooling water and to religious rites such as sacrifices. Each level is recognizable as an
implementation of Communal Sharing. The maintenance of such a structure requires the ability