James Raymond Hurford, FBA (born 16 July 1941) is a retired

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and academic. He was the General Editor of the book series ''Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language'', as well as a member of the Centre for Language Evolution (formerly Language Evolution and Computation) research group at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

where he is an emeritus professor. He also helped organize the series of International Conferences on the Evolution of Language, of which he was one of the founders. Hurford was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

in 2015.

Publications

Source: * 2014 ''The Origins of Language: A Slim Guide'' * 2011 ''The Origins of Grammar: Language in the Light of Evolution'' * 2007 ''The Origins of Meaning: Language in the Light of Evolution''Review
in

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

* 1994 ''Grammar: a Student's Guide'' * 1987 ''Language and Number: the emergence of a cognitive system'' * 1983 ''Semantics: a Coursebook'' * 1975 ''The Linguistic Theory of Numerals'' As Editor: * 2000 ''The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form'', edited by Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy and James R Hurford * 1998 ''Approaches to the Evolution of Language: social and cognitive bases'', edited by James R Hurford, Michael Studdert-Kennedy and Chris Knight.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurford, James R. Living people Linguists from the United Kingdom Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the British Academy 1941 births Philosophers of linguistics