James R. Hurford is the author of several notable books on linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and language evolution.

He is General Editor of Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language, he is also a member of the Research Unit in Language Evolution and Computation at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

where he is an emeritus professor.

He also helps organize the series of International Conferences on the Evolution of Language

Publications

• 2011 The Origins of Grammar: Language in the Light of Evolution
• 2007 The Origins of Meaning: Language in the Light of Evolution
• 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.