If you enjoyed this article, check out the book _The_Language_Instinct_ by Steven Pinker, which is all about the cognitive basis behind language.

He has a good followup that I haven't quite gotten through yet, called _The_Stuff_of_Thought_ that's a bit more about how rules of language serve as clues to how the brain processes information.

A couple of his other books are less related to language, but equally good: _The_Blank_Slate_ and _How_the_Mind_Works_.

They're all pretty accessible (certainly to a crowd like the one that reads HN), if not exactly light reading.