REVIEWER MEETS REVIEWED

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

The Origins of Grammar: an Anthropological Perspective

Monday 19 November at 10.30 am (tea & coffee served from 10.00am)

Royal Anthropological Institute

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

The British Museum’s Centre for Anthropology, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), is delighted to present a discussion between Dr Martin Edwardes author of ‘The origins of grammar: an anthropological perspective’ and Professor Anthony Grant who reviewed the work for the JRAI.

The book examines the origins of language and grammar and also looks as the nature of being human. As a species, we have a long history of trying to find aspects of ourselves that are exclusively human. Cognition and emotion can no longer be viewed as such, and seemingly exclusive physical functions are now questioned too – bipedality, dexterity, socialization, delayed gratification. Could the difference between the human and animal kingdom be a matter of degrees rather than absolutes? Language, and language grammar, is one territory that might provide an answer. Martin Edwardes builds a story examining the evolutionary sources of our self-recognition, of human culture and social institutions and of the cognitive forms that lie behind our linguistic grammatical forms. He covers the current thinking in the field of language origins and goes on to develop an essential new theory of the origins of grammar.

Bookings/enquiries: Ted Goodliffe (TGoodliffe@britishmuseum.org)