Some of Calvin's examples involve spatio-temporal patterns that do not rely on a cloning competition or the activation of a entire structure in order to be gated. Further sensory input may help in defining a course of action.
Functional vocabulary may also be the result of a restructuring in a well- worn synaptic pattern. This restructuring may have occurred as the result of phase transition but it probably does not involve spatio-temporal patterns. Functional vocabulary may be the result of a restructuring in low-connectivity, spatial patterns such as schemas or metaphors. Imagine a well worn metaphor in which other, the ancestor of or will occur. For several reasons the cortical territory that sustains the metaphor may be fragmented and co-opted into other structures. However, frozen cores or stable hexagon arrays may remain as attractors and percolation may occur to form a related synaptic structure. Because many schemas or metaphors are sustained throughout distributed synchronous attractors, it may be that the resulting structure of a percolation is only vaguely related to the distributed structure of a metaphor. So out of a metaphor structure involving say, other, the or structure may emerge. Spatial patterns rely mostly on endogenous activation for their survival so that may be why some vocabulary come to play a functional role divorced from any physical attribution. The resulting structure of a phase transition, such as percolation may be used as functional vocables once prosody fails to sustain the causal flow in a long sentence. So or may be found stringing sentences if only for the purpose of sustaining the attention of a listener;
The murder happened because he was depressed, or maybe he didn't do it and she did, or maybe I'm wrong all together.