Did language develop firstly as a mechanism for computation?

> Taken from the top comment[1] by @personjones on Reditt's r/linguistics: > Chomsky currently hypothesises that Merge[2], a putative operation underlying linguistic hierarchical structure, was originally used to aid complex thought, with communication being a secondary function. This theory is discussed in this paper[3] by Berwick and Chomsky[...]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/3io29a/theory_that_claims_language_developed_as_a/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_(linguistics)

[3] http://alpha-leonis.lids.mit.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/A-FP-RBNC-02-Sciullo-c02-copyedited.pdf