Language in the Light of Evolution, Vol. 2: The Origins of Grammar
"[A] towering account of our species' path from being once without language ... Particularly important are his careful efforts to review and explain all the ways in which human language can be simpler than we normally think, from the "home sign" systems that emerge in households of Deaf children with hearing parents, to the pidgins and creoles of suddenly formed communities such as the plantation slave populations of the New World."-- Nick Enfield,Times Literary Supplement"This is a model exercise in how substantial theorizing about language evolution can be achieved. It is entertainingly written but not oversimplistic, interdisciplinary but not at the expense of rigor, and Hurford is open about the limits of his own expertise. He is to be congratulated on formulating insights that he offers with a precision that makes disagreement, hence advances, possible.... This is a delightful and thought-provoking read.... I warmly recommend it and very much look forward to its follow-up volume." Ruth Kempson,Language"Wide-ranging and often entertaining."--ScienceThe heart of the book is grammar, especially syntax. Syntacticians are a notorious bunch, fond of complex but often inexplicit argument about arcane matters. Hurford strives valiantly to make this work accessible to the uninitiated. I feel that he succeeds...Hurford has done the trick."--TheQuarterly Review of Biology"[T]here is certainly no better introduction to linguistics around for evolutionarily inclined outsiders." --Evolutionary Anthropology