In this, the first of two ground-breaking volumes on the nature of language in the light of the way it evolved, James Hurford looks at how the world first came to have a meaning in the minds of animals and how in humans this meaning eventually came to be expressed as language. He reviews a mass of evidence to show how close some animals, especially primates and more especially apes, are to the brink of human language. Apes may not talk to us but they construct rich cognitive representations of the world around them, and here, he shows, are the evolutionary seeds of abstract thought - the...

This is one of the first systematic attempts to bring language within the neo-Darwinian framework of modern evolutionary theory. Twenty-four coordinated essays by linguists, phoneticians, anthropologists, psychologists and cognitive scientists explore the origins of the complex structure of human language, emphasizing its social (as opposed to purely practical) bases, and showing the mechanisms by which this structure emerges, is maintained, and develops.

The Evolutionary Emergence of Language covers the origins and early evolution of language. Its main purpose is to synthesize current thinking on this topic, particularly from a standpoint in theoretical linguistics. It is suitable for students of human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology and general linguistics. It is the outcome of a major international conference on the evolution of language and includes contributions from many of the best known figures in this field. Very few truly interdisciplinary volumes on this topic have previously been published.

The Evolutionary Emergence of Language covers the origins and early evolution of language. Its main purpose is to synthesize current thinking on this topic, particularly from a standpoint in theoretical linguistics. It is suitable for students of human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology and general linguistics. It is the outcome of a major international conference on the evolution of language and includes contributions from many of the best known figures in this field. Very few truly interdisciplinary volumes on this topic have previously been published.

Originally published in 1975, this was the first detailed linguistic study of natural language numeral systems. It draws on two quite different scholarly traditions. The first is carried on by anthropologists and others compiling and cataloguing data on the different counting-systems of the world. The second explores generative grammar, which analyses the universal features and the formal organisation of these numeral systems. Dr Hurford is able to extend and modify the detailed theory of generative grammar by testing it against this material and discovering the rules, conventions and...

Origins of Language: A Slim Guide offers a concise and accessible overview of what is known about the evolution of the human capacity for language. Non-human animals communicate in simple ways: they may be able to form simple concepts, to feel some limited empathy for others, to cooperate to some extent, and to engage in mind-reading. Human language, however, is characterized by its ability to efficiently express a wide range of subtle and complex meanings. After the first simple beginnings, human language underwent an explosion of complexity, leading to the very complicated systems of...