The Origins of Meaning by Hurford, James R.

The Origins of Meaning (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780199207855)

Vendor: James R. Hurford
Product type: Books
Format: Hardcover
$82.00
$82.00
$82.00
Subtotal: $82.00
The Origins of Meaning by Hurford, James R.

The Origins of Meaning

$82.00
The Origins of Meaning by Hurford, James R.

The Origins of Meaning

$82.00
Format: Hardcover
Description
Description
x
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 means of referring to objects, the memory of events, even elements of the propositional thinking philosophers have hitherto reserved for humans. What then, he asks, is the evolutionary path between the non-speaking minds of apes and our own speaking minds? Why don't apes communicate the richness of their thoughts to each other? Why do humans alone have a unique disposition to reveal their thoughts in complex detail? Professor Hurford searches a wide range of evidence for the answers to these central questions, including degrees of trust, the role of hormones, the ability to read minds, and the willingness to cooperate.

Expressing himself congenially in consistently colloquial language the author builds up a vivid picture of how mind, language, and meaning evolved over millions of years. His book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of linguistic and thinking processes, and the fullest account yet published of the evolution of language and communication.

"A wonderful read - lucid, informative, and entertaining, while at the same time never talking down to the reader by sacrificing argumentation for the sake of 'simplicity'. Likely to be heralded as the major publication dealing with language evolution to date. Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington

Author: James R. Hurford
ISBN-10: 0199207852
ISBN-13: 9780199207855
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Language: English
Published: 10/11/2007
Pages: 406
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.56lbs
Size: 9.28h x 6.45w x 1.13d
By James R. Hurford
By James R. Hurford
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James R. Hurford is Professor of General Linguistics, University of Edinburgh. He is co-editor, with Kathleen Gibson, of OUP's Studies in Language Evolution, co-founder, with Simon Kirby, of the Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit at the University of Edinburgh, and co-founder, with Chris Knight, of the EVOLANG series of international conferences on the evolution of language. His books include The Linguistic Theory of Numerals (CUP, 1975), Language and Number: The Emergence of a Cognitive System (Blackwell, 1987), and Grammar: A Student's Guide (CUP 1994).

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