Hurford James R. Language and Number: The Emergence of a Cognitive System

Basil Blackwell, 1987. — xii, 322 pages. — ISBN: 0-631-15568-6.Language and Number is intended as a contribution to linguistic theory in the broadest sense. It offers a view of language (illustrated in detail through an examination of the linguistics of number) that brings together considerations of individual psychology and of communication within a speech community. These two strands, the psychological and the social, are put together to give an evolutionary perspective on language, which explains salient characteristics of its form.
The psychological considerations relate both to the invention and to the ordinary acquisition of language; the social considerations relate to the ways individuals negotiate common standardized expressions for their meanings. Languages, Professor Hurford argues, grow through the interaction in individual minds on the forms invented and socially negotiated by their predecessors.
The book also makes a contribution to the philosophy of number, arguing that our knowledge of number is a product of our possession of language and the faculty for constructing collections from aggregates. This sophisticated and original approach successfully maps out the various biological, social and cognitive factors that coalesce in the evolution of language.The Object of Study
Interest in Numerals
Language, Psychologism, and the Nature of Numbers
The Study of Language Systems
Explaining Linguistic Universals
Chomsky’s Account of Universals and the Strategy of Generative Grammar
Conflicting Generalizations, Complexity, and Irregularity
Some Universal Irregularities
Explaining Non-absolute Universals
Invention and the Non-universality of Numeral Systems
Explaining the Universals Evolutionarily
A Continuous Sequence of Counting Words
Continuity of the Basic Lexical Sequence
The Referential/Pragmatic Hypothesis
The Conceptual/Verbal Hypothesis
The Ritual Hypothesis
Synthesis - a Pluralist Account
The Joint Acquisition of Numerals and Number
Numbers: the Meanings of Numerals
Frege’s Boots: Numbers and Collections
Numerals as Collection-denoting Expressions
‘Abstract’ Interpretation of Bare Numerals
Ordinals
Knowledge of Number
Syntactic Integration of Counting Words
Counting Words Become Adjectives or Nouns
Semantic Motivation of Adjectival Categorization
Collections as Objects, Numerals as Nouns, and Multiplication
Numeral Classifier Constructions
Adjective-Numeral Word Order
Addition and Conjunction
Standardization of Complex Numerals to a Fixed Base
Summary of Constructions So Far
The Packing Strategy - a Universal Constraint on Complex Numerals
The Packing Strategy is Not Innate
Standardization of Numerals - Semantic/Pragmatic Motivation
Evolution of a Standardized Base by Social Negotiation
Computer Simulations
Denouement and Prospect