Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0007
J. Nichols
This chapter proposes canonical complexity as a counterpart to enumerative/taxonomic/inventory complexity. While enumerative complexity measures complexity as the number of elements, features, values, etc., in a system, canonical complexity counts the number of departures from what is canonical, and provides a usable measure of non-transparency and inconsistency in that system. The chapter lays out the definitions, terms, domains, and criteria for measuring the canonical complexity of a representative sample of inflectional morphology in nouns, pronouns, and verbs. Applied to a 113-language worldwide sample, it shows that canonical and enumerative complexity are independent of each other and hence can function as distinct typological features; there are large-scale distributional trends of interest especially in the northern hemisphere; and canonical complexity levels appear to correlate well with the sociolinguistics of isolation vs. expansion.
{"title":"Canonical complexity","authors":"J. Nichols","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter proposes canonical complexity as a counterpart to enumerative/taxonomic/inventory complexity. While enumerative complexity measures complexity as the number of elements, features, values, etc., in a system, canonical complexity counts the number of departures from what is canonical, and provides a usable measure of non-transparency and inconsistency in that system. The chapter lays out the definitions, terms, domains, and criteria for measuring the canonical complexity of a representative sample of inflectional morphology in nouns, pronouns, and verbs. Applied to a 113-language worldwide sample, it shows that canonical and enumerative complexity are independent of each other and hence can function as distinct typological features; there are large-scale distributional trends of interest especially in the northern hemisphere; and canonical complexity levels appear to correlate well with the sociolinguistics of isolation vs. expansion.","PeriodicalId":338724,"journal":{"name":"The Complexities of Morphology","volume":"15 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131301873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0010
J. Mcwhorter
Linguists have traditionally supposed that languages become radically analytic via two mechanisms: (1) pidginization and related processes of heavy and disruptive adult acquisition; and (2) ‘drift’ into analyticity due to withdrawal of stress from final syllables, or other grammar-internal processes sparked essentially by chance. However, theoretical economy directs us to suppose that radical analyticity emerges solely from adult acquisition, and that radically analytic languages such as Chinese and Yoruba can be identified as having experienced heavy second-language acquisition in their histories despite this not having been recorded historically. In support of this hypothesis this chapter notes that radically analytic languages are quite rare worldwide; that both older radically analytic languages and creoles bear the hallmark of eliminating contextual inflection rather than inherent; and that in this and other facets, radically analytic languages do not differ from synthetic ones only in degree of boundedness of morphemes. Rather, synthetic languages tend to mark a great deal of semantic distinctions that radically analytic ones do not mark with free morphemes, suggesting the operation of second-language acquisition rather than ‘drift’.
{"title":"Radical analyticity as a diagnostic of adult acquisition","authors":"J. Mcwhorter","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198861287.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Linguists have traditionally supposed that languages become radically analytic via two mechanisms: (1) pidginization and related processes of heavy and disruptive adult acquisition; and (2) ‘drift’ into analyticity due to withdrawal of stress from final syllables, or other grammar-internal processes sparked essentially by chance. However, theoretical economy directs us to suppose that radical analyticity emerges solely from adult acquisition, and that radically analytic languages such as Chinese and Yoruba can be identified as having experienced heavy second-language acquisition in their histories despite this not having been recorded historically. In support of this hypothesis this chapter notes that radically analytic languages are quite rare worldwide; that both older radically analytic languages and creoles bear the hallmark of eliminating contextual inflection rather than inherent; and that in this and other facets, radically analytic languages do not differ from synthetic ones only in degree of boundedness of morphemes. Rather, synthetic languages tend to mark a great deal of semantic distinctions that radically analytic ones do not mark with free morphemes, suggesting the operation of second-language acquisition rather than ‘drift’.","PeriodicalId":338724,"journal":{"name":"The Complexities of Morphology","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123103447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：