Jim Hurford

Research Workshops and Symposia

• Summer Institute in Cognitive Science om the Origin of Language, Montreal, 21st-30th June 2010.
• Wenner-Gren Foundations, Symposium on Human Evolution, Stockholm, Sweden, November 5-8, 2008.
• Ernst Strüngmann Forum on ``Biological Foundations and Origins of Syntax'', Frankfurt am Main, July 13-18, 2008.
• Workshop on Utterance Interpretation and Cognitive Models, Brussels, July 19-21, 2008.
• ``Forty years of ape communication: what have we learned about the evolution of language?'' Barcelona, March 11th, 2008.
• SEDSU (Stages in the Evolution and Development of Sign Use) Workshop, Novartis Foundation, London, December 2007.
• ``Missing Links'' conference, Carlsberg Academy Nov. 22.-23., 2007, Copenhagen.
• Atelier on computational construction grammar, satellite workshop of the Summer School on statistical physics, Erice, Sicily, July 2007.
• Lecture series on Evolution of Language, Language Research Center, Seoul National University, Korea, May 2007.
• Seminar on Language, Evolution and the Brain, International Institute for Advanced Studies, Kyoto, Japan, April, 2007.
• Cradle of Language Conference, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 7th - 10th November, 2006.
• Conference on ``Evolution und Menschwerdung'', Biennial Assembly of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher LEOPOLDINA, Halle, Autumn 2005.
• International Colloquium: Epigenetic developments: in search of a new model for complexity in sciences and philosophy: Universita di Roma, Tor Vergata, September 13th -14th, 2005.
• Workshop on Cognitive Science and Neurophilosophy, Center for International Research & Collaboration (ISMO), Tehran, Iran, 3- 6 May,2005.
• AHRC workshop on The Interactive Mind, University of Sheffield, 8th-9th April, 2005.
• Seminar on Language Evolution and the Brain. Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, November 2004.
• Origins of Language and Psychosis , 18th Meeting of the Language Origins Society, Oxford, July 2004.
• New Aspects of Compositionality NAC 2004, An Interdisciplinary Conference in Cognitive Science, Paris, France, June 18 to June 20, 2004.
• International Workshop on Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication May 31 - Jun 1 2004, Kanazawa Japan.
• Coevolution of Language and Theory of Mind: virtual workshop, sponsored by the European Science Foundation and the Institut des Sciences Cognitives. Started early 2004.
• Linguistic Perspectives on Numerical Expressions, University of Utrecht, June 10th-11th, 2004.
• Cornell Symposium on Language Universals, May 1st-2nd, 2004.
• Seminar on Brain Theory & Neuroscience, University of Reno, Nevada.
• Fifth International Conference on the Evolution of Language, Leipzig, Germany, March 31st - April 3rd, 2004.
• Workshop on Numerals in the World's Languages, 29 - 30 March 2004, Leipzig, Germany.
• Workshop on The Evolution and Change of Semantic Conventions at the Fourteenth Amsterdam Colloquium, December 2003.
• Simple Models of Complex Networks Research Cluster.
• Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, two-day seminar on the topic of "Windows on Language Genesis". Wassenaar, November, 2003.
• 15th European Summer School on Logic Language and Information, Language Evolution and Computation Workshop/Course, Vienna, August, 2003.
• Graduate School of Language Technology in Finland (Kieliteknologian valtakunnallinen tutkijakoulu) Course on Language Evolution and Computation. University of Helsinki, September 1st - 5th, 2003.
• Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) Multi-disciplinary symposium on the Evolution of Language, ``Connecting people: from animal grunts to human language'', Amsterdam, June 27th, 2003.
• Brain and Cognition Research Group, Nottingham Trent University. One-day workshop on the theoretical bases of cognitive science. Jan.15th 2003.
• UCSD Project for Explaining the Origins of Humans held a multi-disciplinary symposium entitled ``Evolutionary Considerations in Understanding the Emergence of a Language-Capable Brain'', on November 1st, 2003.
• 'The Neurobiology of Communication: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives on Receptive Language', European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop, September 2002, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge.
• University of Western Australia, Symposium: Language Evolution and Language Change. June, 2002.
• 7th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology 2001, EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS Altenberg, near Vienna, 18.-21. October 2001.
• Two one-day conferences (March, 2000) on Speciation in Homo sapiens and the Evolution of Language:
  one organized by the British Academy,
  and one organized by the Novartis Foundation.
• Workshop on Evolutionary Computation and Cognitive Science , January 2000, City Campus, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• German-American Academic Council (GAAC), July 1999 Institute ``The Evolution of Intelligence: The Comparative Analysis of Cognition''.
• I participated in the two-year workshop Evolution and the Human Mind, hosted by the Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies, University of Sheffield, 1996-1998.
• Collegium Budapest. Working group on modelling language evolution, Budapest, Hungary, March - July 1997.
  This was in collaboration with a group of five, the others being:
• Bruce McLennan (Department of Computer Science, University of Tennessee)
• Robert C Berwick (AI Lab, MIT)
• Mike Oliphant (formerly Department of Cognitive Science, University of California at San Diego, then until August 1999 here at the Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh)
• Simon Kirby (Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh)
• EUROTYP. European Science Foundation 5-year project on typology of European Languages, 1990 - 1994. This project enabled 9 groups of about 10 scholars each, drawn mostly from Europe but also from elsewhere, to meet regularly for five years. I was in the group devoted to The Noun Phrase and David Gil, Martin Haspelmath, Frans Plank, Leon Stassen, Sasha Kibrik, John Payne, Grev Corbett, Masja Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Edith Moravcsik, and I had a great time talking about it. The proceedings, in 9 volumes, started to appear sporadically in about 1997, published by Mouton-DeGruyter. Our group's volume, Noun Phrase Structure in the Languages of Europe, edited by Frans Plank, finally appeared in 2003. My contribution is ``The interaction between numerals and nouns''. (Click to view Contents or Whole article

One spin-off from the work of the Noun Phrase Group is the on-line Noun Phrase Universals Archive which Kirby set up.
Beside the impending dollop of scholarship in the shape of those 9 volumes, the main thing to come out of the EUROTYP project is the newly established Association for Linguistic Typology.

• LSA Linguistic Institute, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, June 26th - August 5th 1995