Apart from Sinnemäki’s methods to approaching linguistic complexity, there are of course many others who have attempted to do the same. McWhorter (1995) argued that approaching complexity and measuring the degrees of relative typological complexity of languages requires a metric. He hence formulated a metric in terms of:

• Number of marked phonemes

A phonemic inventory is more complex if it has more marked members.

• The notion of rule

A syntax is more complex than another to the extent that it requires the processing of more rules.

• Verbal constructions

A grammar is more complex than another to the extent that it gives overt and grammaticalized expression to more fine-grained semantic and/or pragmatic distinctions than another.

• Inflectional morphology

In most cases, inflectional morphology renders a grammar more complex.

Overall, it should be noted that there are various ways to approach complexity possibly due to the fact that there has not been a single unified definition of complexity among researchers. This area of topic is generally broad and to focus on one approach or metric system in measuring complexity could cause inaccuracy when using it across all languages.

According to Sinnemäki (2008, 2011), a common problem in defining and understanding complexity is how to measure complexity in a reliable manner. Since there is no unified definition among researchers in the sciences of complexity including linguistics, it can be difficult to understand complexity and the “question of complexity is bound to remain elusive” (Sinnemäki, 2008, 2011). Hence in studying and approaching linguistic complexity, there may be a few points to consider as well as a number of clarifications that should be made such as:

• Complexity is separated from difficulty (Dahl, 2004);
• Complexity is classified in different types (Rescher 1998);
• Local complexity is separated from global complexity (Miestamo 2008);
• Complexity is measured as the description length of an object’s structure (Gell-Mann 1995).

Firstly, Dahl (2004) claims that it is important to keep complexity separated from difficulty as different users experience a different level of difficulty, and perhaps also between different usage events of the same user.

The second point to note is that there is also an unexpected unity behind the different formulations for complexity. To explain this, Lloyd (2001) classifies complexity metrics under three broad types, whereas Rescher (1998) classifies it in only a few modes. This shows that many researchers do agree that there are different notions of complexity. While it is impossible to devise a “correct” metric, it is feasible to approach language complexity by classifying it into different categories.

The third point is that local complexity should be separated from global complexity. Local complexity is about the complexity of some part of an entity, whereas global complexity is about the overall complexity of that similar entity. It is therefore rather impractical to measure the overall complexity of a particular linguistic system, as it is quite impossible to devise a fully comprehensive description of the grammar of any single language (Miestamo 2008). It is, however, both possible and practical to measure the local complexity of a system for example, the complexity of the numeral system, the case system, or the verb’s argument structure (e.g. Sinnemäki 2011).

The last point is complexity is intuitively situated between order and disorder. To put it simply, the general intuition is that when a language has more “structural units/rules/representations” (Hawkins, 2009: 252) in its system, it would be more complex. Since there has been no unified metric system for complexity, the best way to capture this is to measure the length of description of an object’s structure (effective complexity, Gell-Mann 1995) instead of the length of description of the object itself (e.g. Kolmogorov complexity). This is because the latter is usually related to randomness with complexity, while the former, randomness with low complexity.

According to Sinnemäki (2008, 2011), he argued that while it is impossible to compare the overall complexity of one language to that of another, it is possible to compare complexity across languages when focusing on particular types of effective complexity in their local contexts.

 

Why separate complexity & difficulty?

As mentioned in the first point made by Sinnemäki, it is vital to treat complexity and difficulty as two separate concepts. There are a few reasons as to why one should separate complexity and difficulty, as explained below:

• Description and operation are two separate tasks;

These two tasks can be done independently of one another. Native speakers are naturally able to talk fluently. They often do this without thinking about language description. To some degree however, description is possible without fluency. For example, it is possible for a new learner of a language to be able speak the language and yet make minimal mistakes, even without being fluent in the language.

• The problem of finding a user-type neutral definition for complexity (Miestamo, 2008:24-29);

Different user-types (eg. speakers, hearers, 1st language acquirer, 2nd language learner) may have experienced different linguistic patterns, hence varying degrees of difficulty of using and processing a particular language. This in turn, can cause conflicting results in measuring complexity. A more objective and theory-based perspective should therefore be adopted in approaching complexity to avoid conflicting results in the measurement of complexity.

• To avoid the problems in the evaluation measure of early generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965; Chomsky & Halle, 1968);

Researchers have long struggled with the evaluation measure of early generative grammar. This evaluation measure was used in child language acquisition as it was assumed that the framework that had a more brief description of the system would therefore allow a more accurate link to language acquisition. What researchers failed to realise was that “the shortest description was not necessarily the most plausible one psychologically” (Kiparsky 1968). It is thus important to separate complexity and difficulty in order to avoid the problems that were faced by researchers in the past.

• Possible to determine independently the processing responses of the different types of complexity (Hawkins, 2004 & 2009).

Separating complexity and difficulty could show the varying degrees of processing responses of the different types of complexities.

6. Conclusion

This chapter has hoped to highlight to the reader the complex nature of the subject matter of linguistic complexity. While we have presented certain models and frameworks used to approach the subject matter, it is crucial to note that the linguistic community as a whole does not have a recognised model. This is thus a very important facet of linguistic complexity that require much further research before any more exploration of the topic may continue.

Linguistic complexity holds much value in terms of language learning and acquisition. It also has the ability to feature in other aspects of linguistics such as historical linguistics as so more research does hold benefits.

We have also tried to make it as accessible as possible and hope that linguistically and non-linguistically inclined readers learn something from our blog. We hope that you learn as much from reading this chapter as we have.

Thank You,

Sathrin and Sabrina

7. References

Akker, Peter (1987). Reduplications in Saramaccan. In Mervyn C. Alleyne (ed.), Studies in Saramaccan Language Structure, 17–40. Amsterdam: Instituut voor Algemene Taalwetenschap.

Chomsky, Noam 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam and Morris Halle 1968. Sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.

Dahl, O. (Director) Lectures on linguistic complexity. Lecture conducted from , Stockholm.

Dahl, Ö. 2004. The growth and maintenance of linguistic complexity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Edmonds, B. 1999. Syntactic measures of complexity. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Manchester.

Dworkin, R. (2002). Sovereign virtue: the theory and practice of equality. Harvard University Press.

Gell-Mann, M. 1995. What is complexity? Complexity 1(1): 16-19.

Hawkins, John A. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hawkins, John A. 2009. An efficiency theory of complexity and related phenomena. In Geoffrey Sampson, David Gil, and Peter Trudgill (eds.), Language complexity as an evolving variable, 252-268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hübler, Alfred W. 2007. Understanding complex systems. Complexity 12(5): 9-11.

Kiparsky, Paul 1997. The rise of positional licensing. In Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent (eds.), Parameters of morphosyntactic change, 460-494. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kusters, W. 2003. Linguistic complexity: The influence of social change on verbal inflection. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Leiden.

Lloyd, S. 2001. Measures of complexity: A nonexhaustive list. IEEE Control Systems Magazine 21(4): 7-8.

McWhorter, John H. (1998). Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class. Language 74: 788– 818.

McWhorter, John H. (2001). The rest of the story: Restoring pidginization to creole genesis theory. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.

Miestamo, M. 2008. Grammatical complexity in a cross-linguistic perspective. In M. Miestamo, K. Sinnemäki, and F. Karlsson (eds.), Language complexity: Typology, contact, change, 23-41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Pallotti, G. (2014). A simple view of linguistic complexity. Second Language Research, 0267658314536435

Parkvall, Mikael 2008. The simplicity of creoles in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Matti Miestamo, Kaius Sinnemäki, and Fred Karlsson (eds.), Language complexity: Typology, contact, change, 265-285. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Prideaux, Gary D. 1970. On the selection problem. Research on Language & Social Interaction 2(2): 238-266.

Rescher, N. 1998. Complexity: A philosophical overview. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Simon, Herbert A. 1996. The sciences of the artificial (3rd edn). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Sinnemäki, K. 2008. Complexity trade-offs in core argument marking. In M. Miestamo, K. Sinnemäki, and F. Karlsson (eds.), Language complexity: Typology, contact, change, 67- 88. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sinnemäki, K. 2011. Language universals and linguistic complexity Three case studies in core argument marking. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Helsinki. Available at https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/27782.

Steger, M. & Schneider, E. (2012). Complexity as a function of iconicity – The case of complement clause constructions in New Englishes. In Bernd Kortmann and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (eds.), Linguistic complexity: second language acquisition, indigenization, contact. (pp. 156-191). Berlin: Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012

The notion of complexity has been very prominent over the last decade, but there are many variations in defining complexity. From the explanations provided above, ‘complexity’ can be understood as objective or agent-related, but here we will look at more specifically structural complexity. Another explanation to ‘structural complexity’ apart from the one given above is that ‘the more distinction there are in a paradigm, the more complexity there is’ (Michaelis Susanne, 2010).

Hence, with regards to this structural complexity, do Creoles have simple or complex grammar? According to McWhorter (1998, 2001a), Creoles have the simplest grammars. This is attributed to three different reasons, as seen below:

1. There is little or no inflectional morphology;
2. There is no lexical or morphosyntactic tone;
3. There is no non-transparent derivational morphology.

To show that Creoles have the simplest grammar, McWhorter (2001) compared Saramaccan, a Creole language spoken mainly by the ethnic Africans near the Saramacca and upper Suriname Rivers in Suriname. Saramacca is based on two major source languages: English and Portuguese.

McWhorter (2001) claims that Saramaccan has neither inflectional morphology nor free equivalents such as noun classifiers, as seen in below:

He also claims that the only marked sounds in the Saramaccan phonemic inventory are three pre-nasalized stops and two pre-velarized ones. There are also no uvulars, ejectives or labialized consonants. However, there are some minimal pair distinctions for tense and lax mid vowels ([e]/[E], [o]/[O]).

The next point that he brought up is Saramaccan has only two derivational suffixes; reduplication derives attributive adjectives and resultatives from transitive verbs:

mi lái dí gbóto ‘I loaded the boat’

dí láilái gbóto ‘the loaded boat’

dí gbóto dE´ láilái ‘the boat is loaded’

 

Reduplication also non-productively generates nouns from verbs (Bakker 1987: 21):

síbi ‘to sweep’

sísíbi ‘broom’

Saramaccan does mark, such as marking causativity with a serial verb construction. However, in most cases, Saramaccan has no overt derivational strategy.

These reasons given by McWhorter gives a possible reason in explaining why Creoles have the simplest grammars within the world’s languages. Moving on to Pidgin, McWhorter (1998) also claims that ‘during the pidgin phase all ‘ornamental’ marking has been lost’ and ‘Creoles are too young to have been able to develop complex features of older languages’.

 

How complex are Pidgins and Creoles compared to other languages?

To answer this question, Parkvall (2008) examines 53 WALS (The World Atlas of Linguistic Structures) features which reflect degrees of complexity, and codes them additionally in 29 pidgins and creoles, comparing the degree of complexity of these creoles with 153 non-creoles of the WALS sample. 18 main features were used (a subset of Parkvall’s 53 features) to measure complexity:

He also added some Pidgin and Creole languages in the WALS sample and then ranked the complexity of these languages:

Thus Parkvall (2008) concludes: “Typologically speaking, Creoles stand out from languages in general, and the most salient difference is that they present a lower structural complexity. This does not necessarily have any bearing on issues regarding psycholinguistic complexity, however, and certainly not on their expressive potential.”

Creole languages are therefore said to be less complex grammatically (less over-specification, structural elaboration and irregularity). The comparison of complexity found in the languages also shows that complexity of a language correlates with its age (Parkvall, 2010). Older languages have more time to develop “unnecessary” elaboration (McWhorter, 2010), thus making them more complex than Creoles and Pidgins.

Other researchers have debated on the simplicity of the Pidgin and Creole languages (Michaelis, 2010). However, McWhorter (2001) argues that not all Creoles fall further towards the “simplicity” pole, but there are substantial amount of languages that display the 3 criterias stated above, and most of them happen to be Creole languages.

According to Sinnemäki (2008, 2011), a common problem in defining and understanding complexity is how to measure complexity in a reliable manner. Since there is no unified definition among researchers in the sciences of complexity including linguistics, it can be difficult to understand complexity and the “question of complexity is bound to remain elusive” (Sinnemäki, 2008, 2011). Hence in studying and approaching linguistic complexity, there may be a few points to consider as well as a number of clarifications that should be made such as:

• Complexity is separated from difficulty (Dahl, 2004);
• Complexity is classified in different types (Rescher 1998);
• Local complexity is separated from global complexity (Miestamo 2008);
• Complexity is measured as the description length of an object’s structure (Gell-Mann 1995).

Firstly, Dahl (2004) claims that it is important to keep complexity separated from difficulty as different users experience a different level of difficulty, and perhaps also between different usage events of the same user.

There are a few reasons as to why one should separate complexity and difficulty, as explained below:

• Description and operation are two separate tasks;

These two tasks can be done independently of one another. Native speakers are naturally able to talk fluently. They often do this without thinking about language description. To some degree however, description is possible without fluency. For example, it is possible for a new learner of a language to be able speak the language and yet make minimal mistakes, even without being fluent in the language.

• The problem of finding a user-type neutral definition for complexity (Miestamo, 2008:24-29);

Different user-types (eg. speakers, hearers, 1st language acquirer, 2nd language learner) may have experienced different linguistic patterns, hence varying degrees of difficulty of using and processing a particular language. This in turn, can cause conflicting results in measuring complexity. A more objective and theory-based perspective should therefore be adopted in approaching complexity to avoid conflicting results in the measurement of complexity.

• To avoid the problems in the evaluation measure of early generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965; Chomsky & Halle, 1968);

Researchers have long struggled with the evaluation measure of early generative grammar. This evaluation measure was used in child language acquisition as it was assumed that the framework that had a more brief description of the system would therefore allow a more accurate link to language acquisition. What researchers failed to realise was that “the shortest description was not necessarily the most plausible one psychologically” (Kiparsky 1968). It is thus important to separate complexity and difficulty in order to avoid the problems that were faced by researchers in the past.

• Possible to determine independently the processing responses of the different types of complexity (Hawkins, 2004 & 2009).

Separating complexity and difficulty could show the varying degrees of processing responses of the different types of complexities.

Having identified the importance of separating complexity and difficulty as well as explaining the reasons to do so, we will now look at the other approaches to linguistic complexity:

The second point to note is that there is also an unexpected unity behind the different formulations for complexity. To explain this, Lloyd (2001) classifies complexity metrics under three broad types, whereas Rescher (1998) classifies it in only a few modes. This shows that many researchers do agree that there are different notions of complexity. While it is impossible to devise a “correct” metric, it is feasible to approach language complexity by classifying it into different categories.

The third point is that local complexity should be separated from global complexity. Local complexity is about the complexity of some part of an entity, whereas global complexity is about the overall complexity of that similar entity. It is therefore rather impractical to measure the overall complexity of a particular linguistic system, as it is quite impossible to devise a fully comprehensive description of the grammar of any single language (Miestamo 2008). It is, however, both possible and practical to measure the local complexity of a system for example, the complexity of the numeral system, the case system, or the verb’s argument structure (e.g. Sinnemäki 2011).

The last point is complexity is intuitively situated between order and disorder. To put it simply, the general intuition is that when a language has more “structural units/rules/representations” (Hawkins, 2009: 252) in its system, it would be more complex. Since there has been no unified metric system for complexity, the best way to capture this is to measure the length of description of an object’s structure (effective complexity, Gell-Mann 1995) instead of the length of description of the object itself (e.g. Kolmogorov complexity). This is because the latter is usually related to randomness with complexity, while the former, randomness with low complexity.

According to Sinnemäki (2008, 2011), he argued that while it is impossible to compare the overall complexity of one language to that of another, it is possible to compare complexity across languages when focusing on particular types of effective complexity in their local contexts.

Apart from Sinnemäki’s methods to approaching linguistic complexity, there are of course many others who have attempted to do the same. McWhorter (1995) argued that approaching complexity and measuring the degrees of relative typological complexity of languages requires a metric. He hence formulated a metric in terms of:

 

• Number of marked phonemes

A phonemic inventory is more complex if it has more marked members.

 

• The notion of rule

A syntax is more complex than another to the extent that it requires the processing of more rules.

 

• Verbal constructions

A grammar is more complex than another to the extent that it gives overt and grammaticalized expression to more fine-grained semantic and/or pragmatic distinctions than another.

 

• Inflectional morphology

In most cases, inflectional morphology renders a grammar more complex.

 

Overall, it should be noted that there are various ways to approach complexity possibly due to the fact that there has not been a single unified definition of complexity among researchers. This area of topic is generally broad and to focus on one approach or metric system in measuring complexity could cause inaccuracy when using it across all languages.

 

 

As seen in Part 1, complexity is a difficult subject matter to handle and gauge due to its subjective matter. Does that mean then that all languages are equally complex? And is this complexity natural? By natural, we mean to say that over time shifts in languages tend to happen and similar to the case of pidgins and creoles, languages get more complex structurally. These are the two questions we will be addressing in this section.

3.1 Are all languages complex?

Given the subjective nature of complexity and all the debates surrounding the topic, it appears that all languages are equally complex. It is also possible that where a language is complex in one aspect, it makes up for it by being simpler in another. For example a language might use only three tenses; the simple past, present and future but have a complicated article system. This is known as the ‘Theory of Equality’ This theory was first used philosophically in referring to public administration by Dworkin.

However as logical as this seems, there has not been any concrete empirical evidence in support of this theory. Scholars have yet been able to prove that when a language simplifies in one area, it complicates in another. As such, despite the logical facade of this theory, it has yet to be proven. Therefore we cannot conclusively say that all languages are equally complex. “mcwhorter”

There have been attempts at acquiring empirical evidence by researchers Fermin Moscoso Del Prado and McWhorter. However as the research is complex in nature, we have decided to not incorporate it to our wikichapter. Linguistically inclined readers looking for more in depth and academic information may use their work as a starting point.

[Back to Table of Contents]

 

3.2 Is Complexity natural?

Though we cannot assume each language is as complex as the next, we can say confidently that complexity in a language is a natural process, as will explained below.

The complexity in a language is a testament to the maturity of a language. As languages get spoken, over periods of time they will begin to grow to be be more specific depending on the needs of their it’s users. Also, as the language grows in number of speakers and gets passed down the generations, more accents and sociolects are created and enforced or rejected that can often cause phonological and structural changes to a language. For example the Great Vowel Shift in English between the 12th and 16th Century in England.

Here is a picture explaining that vowel shift. This image shows the vowel shift in English which resulted in many sounds changing as you may note from the image below. This change did not occur all at once but took 4 centuries before it stabilised. Due to the large timeframe of this shift, it cannot simply be attributed to either political or social changes. Rather it was an amalgamation of causes that resulted in this shift. As such it is seen mostly as a natural shift that languages go through. In many cases, languages shiftt to what is easier and requires lesser effort on the part of the speakers to produce.

The borrowing of words from other languages especially in this increasingly connected world can also cause languages to become more complex. You can see the effect on the complication of language like in the Goose-Geese but Moose-Moose, singular and plural as explained in this succinct tumblr post.

If languages never matured and became more complex they would remain as creoles. Evidence that complexity is a marker of maturation are languages like Tok Pisin that start off at a rudimentary level and are Pidgins but later gain complexity and become Creoles. More on this can be found in 5. Role of Pidgins and Creoles in Linguistic Complexity.
[Back to Table of Contents]

 

2. Defining Linguistic Complexity

Linguistic complexity is a complicated aspect in Linguistics. Till now, scholars have been unable to give this term a proper definition.

The term complexity in linguistics has been used to refer to aspects of a language that make communication easier or simpler when speaking or to describe features of linguistic production (Palloti, 2014).

In other cases, some scholars claim that defining linguistic complexity is difficult due to the nature of the subject that demands it can only be defined when considering from whose  perspective the complexity of a language is to be studied.

As a result of the difficulty in defining linguistic complexity, this wikichapter will instead aim to introduce the various models proposed with which one can study and begin to understand the concept of linguistic complexity.

The models described in this section are based on models lectured on by Osten Dahl, Stockholm Univeristy. Due to the problems with defining linguistic complexity above, linguists have yet to arrive at a distinct model. The particular one that will be elaborated on below has been selected based on the way it accounted for the multi-faceted nature of this topic.
[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1 Objective Complexity VS Agent – Related Complexity

2.1.1 Objective Complexity

Objective complexity views complexity as an objective property of something. As if to say that complexity is characteristic of the object. This view is most common in information theory and when dealing with systems. In this view, it is hard to strictly define what complexity really is.
[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1.1.1 System Complexity
System complexity is useful in linguistics when discussing language systems as a whole.

For example, when comparing the French language system with the English Language system, in terms of the use of articles, French is more complex.

In English, the article ‘an’ is placed before nouns beginning with a vowel and ‘a’ is used anywhere else. In French, ‘les’ is used before plural nouns, ‘la’ before feminine nouns, ‘l’’ before vowels and ‘le’ everywhere else.

In linguistics, system complexity would then help us in estimating how much, content wise, a person is required to learn to achieve proficiency in that language. But even here then, we can see a need to pick out specific aspects to judge complexity and that the system approach might not be as wholesome as it seems.

[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1.1.1 Structural Complexity
Structural complexity is useful in linguistics when we take on a more micro approach and aim to study the complexity of the structure of the language ie. utterances and sentences.

For example in studying the word order of languages. For example in English we use a Subject (S) – Verb (V) – Object (O) structure. Japanese on the other hand, uses SOV structure. The image below demonstrates what is meant by word order is various languages.

Here we see the debate that suggests linguistic complexity is dependent on from whose perspective it is being spoken about play out. From the perspective of a native English speaker, English or another SVO language such as Spanish, will be less complex than Japanese. For native Japanese speakers however, these would be seen as complex and other SOV languages like Persian, might be seen as less complex.

[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1.2 Agent – Related Complexity

Agent related complexity is the view of looking at linguistic complexity from the person trying to use a particular language. There are several factors in assessing agent-related complexity; mainly cost, difficulty and verbosity.

2.1.2.1 Cost
Cost very simply refers to literally the cost of learning a new language such as time and money. Cost must also be seen in relation to benefit. This is very important in understanding agent related complexity.

For example, in Singapore, the cost of learning Italian may be high as it will require a lot of time and energy. The benefit is also low to the common man as they are unlikely to get much opportunity to actually speak Italian beyond the classroom. However, for a Singaporean student going on exchange to Italy or migrating there, the cost benefit is much higher and from their point of view the cost will seem lower. To the first person the value of time will be seen as high due to the low rewards but to the second, the value of time will be seen as less expensive. Hence cost as well is a very subjective verb and cost can range depending on what the person in question determines as important. If the person places more importance on time than money, and the language is easy to learn though it costs more, it will be seen as less complex to them. This again reflects the problematic subjective nature of the agent-related model.

[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1.2.2 Difficulty
Difficulty like complexity is hard to define as well as it largely depends on the individual’s perspective. One way of judging difficulty is by seeing if the attempts at learning a certain aspect of a language sees a larger number of failures than successes. This example is just one way of measuring difficulty. Difficulty like cost, seen above, and many other terms in the agent related model is extremely subjective and Dahl has not given a concrete definition to these. Thus it appears as these must be define in relation to the individual.

From a more purely linguistic point of view, we could also judge a language as more difficult if its language structure and system differ greatly from any of the languages that a person is native to or proficient in.

[Back to Table of Contents]

2.1.2.3 Verbosity
In his model, Dahl defines Verbosity as referring simply to the number of words required by a language’s grammar to convey a piece of information.

For example, in Tok Pisin ‘mi no harim tok bilong yu’ means ‘I do not understand’. In Spanish, it would be ‘no entiendo’. Here Tok Pisin is more verbose than English and people might then view Spanish as easier and less complex.

[Back to Table of Contents]

2015: Sabrina Binte Selamat, Sathrin Kaur Saggi D/O Karamjit Singh
2014: Hideka Wada, Priyanka Kharbanda

Welcome to our blog on Linguistic Complexity!

We have attempted to made our blog on this subject accessible to linguistic junkies as well as those not so linguistically-inclined. You can navigate our blog and learn more about Linguistic Complexity by navigating the menus. Do browse through the drop down sub-sections while you’re at it!

We hope you have a great time reading our blog and hope you learn more about Linguistic Complexity by the end of it!

Thank you,

Sathrin & Sabrina

1. Introduction

“….For it is a very remarkable thing that there are no men, not even the insane, so dull and stupid that they cannot put words together in a manner to convey their thoughts.”.Descartes, 1637/1960, p. 42

Descartes has in his quote stressed to us the intrinsic nature of language in the lives of humans. However Descartes oversimplifies language as upon reading the quote one gets the sense that language itself is easy to acquire given how anyone and almost every one acquires it to the point they are able to voice their thoughts. This firstly reduces the importance of the complex process of evolution that has been taking place for millions of years to enable humans to reach the point where we could begin producing speech. Secondly, the quote also demeans language by making it seem like something so easy to acquire. Here is where Descartes begins to get us to think about language complexity. To what degree is language easy to acquire and that is why no matter what the mental state of a man is, he can speak? And secondly thinking if this quote would apply to all societies and not just the Greek society of Descartes makes us question if this was not the case in other societies it is because there are languages that are more complex than each other?

Information about the first question can be found in areas of linguistics that handle language acquisition and child language. in this wikichapter our focus will be on the second question.

There are at present around 7,106 languages spoken in the world, non- uniformly distributed and linguistically divergent. These languages differ from each other substantially in form and structure (Joos 1957, P: 96). According to Hockett (1958. P:180-81), all the languages in the world have an equally complex job. So what ‘all languages are equally complex’ mean? Is it a logical deduction, or is there any quantifiable measurement of complexity.

There is no universally acknowledged and theory independent definition of language complexity (Steger and Schneider, 2012). Jeff Siegel (2004) points out that researchers disagree on whether language simplicity be judged absolutely, i.e. by some independent measure, or only comparatively, i.e. by comparison to another variety. It is also unclear if variety can be classified in terms of holistic simplicity or modular simplicity. It remains still controversial whether the language complexity should be understood quantitatively, i.e. in structural terms, or qualitatively, i.e. in psycholinguistic terms.

It is the controversial nature of this topic that will shape this wikichapter. This chapter does not aim to give answers to language complexity but rather hopes to help an understanding of it by focusing instead on various models that have been introduced in attempt to structure the attitudes and approaches that have been taken so far toward language complexity.