Complex Processes in New Languages
1st Edition
Published on 17. December 2009
VII, 409 pages
978-90-272-8877-6 (ISBN)
Description
In recent years, there has been a new interest in evaluating 'complex' structures in languages. The implications of such studies are varied, e.g., the distinction between supposedly more complex and less complex languages, how complexity relates to human knowledge of language, and the role of the reduction or increase of complexity in language change and creolization. This book focuses on the latter issue, but the conclusions presented here hold of typological 'complexity' in general. The chapters in this book show that the notion of complexity as conceived of in linguistics mainly centres on the outer manifestations of language (e.g., numbers of affixes). This exercise is useful in establishing the patterning of languages in terms of their degrees of analyticity or synthesis, but it fails to address the properties of the inner rules of these grammars, and how these relate to the computational system that governs the human language capacity. Put simply, issues of complexity should not be equated with the complexity observed in surface patterns of grammars alone.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Enoch O. Aboh | Norval Smith
Complex Processes in New Languages
Book
12/2009
John Benjamins Publishing Co
€111.30
Shipment within 10-15 days
Persons
Content
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Simplicity, simplification, complexity and complexification: Where have the interfaces gone?
Enoch O. Aboh and Norval Smith
1-25
Part I. Morpho-phonology
Initial vowel agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea creoles
Tjerk Hagemeijer
29-50
Simplification of a complex part of grammar or not? What happened to KiKoongo nouns in Saramaccan?
Norval Smith
51-73
Reducing phonological complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan varieties
Bettina Zeisler
75-95
Part II. Verbal morphology
Verb allomorphy and the syntax of phases
Tonjes Veenstra
99-113
The invisible hand in creole genesis: Reanalysis in the formation of Berbice Dutch
Silvia Kouwenberg
115-158
Complexification or regularization of paradigms: The case of prepositional verbs in Solomon Islands Pijin
Christine Jourdan
159-170
Part III. Nominals
The Mauritian Creole determiner system: A historical overview
Diana Guillemin
173-200
Demonstratives in Afrikaans and Cape Dutch Pidgin: A first attempt
Hans den Besten
201-219
Part IV. The selection of features in complex morphology
Contact, complexification and change in Mindanao Chabacano structure
Anthony P. Grant
223-241
Morphosyntactic finiteness as increased complexity in a mixed negation system
Peter Slomanson
243-264
Contact language formation in evolutionary terms
Umberto Ansaldo
265-289
Part V. Evaluating simplification and complexification
Economy, innovation and degrees of complexity in creole formation
Marlyse Baptista
293-315
Competition and selection: That's all!
Enoch O. Aboh
317-344
Complexity and the age of languages
Umberto Ansaldo and Sebastian Nordhoff
345-363
Part VI. Postscript
Restructuring, hybridization, and complexity in language evolution
Salikoko S. Mufwene
367-400
Language index
401-403
Subject index
405-409
Acknowledgments
vii
Simplicity, simplification, complexity and complexification: Where have the interfaces gone?
Enoch O. Aboh and Norval Smith
1-25
Part I. Morpho-phonology
Initial vowel agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea creoles
Tjerk Hagemeijer
29-50
Simplification of a complex part of grammar or not? What happened to KiKoongo nouns in Saramaccan?
Norval Smith
51-73
Reducing phonological complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan varieties
Bettina Zeisler
75-95
Part II. Verbal morphology
Verb allomorphy and the syntax of phases
Tonjes Veenstra
99-113
The invisible hand in creole genesis: Reanalysis in the formation of Berbice Dutch
Silvia Kouwenberg
115-158
Complexification or regularization of paradigms: The case of prepositional verbs in Solomon Islands Pijin
Christine Jourdan
159-170
Part III. Nominals
The Mauritian Creole determiner system: A historical overview
Diana Guillemin
173-200
Demonstratives in Afrikaans and Cape Dutch Pidgin: A first attempt
Hans den Besten
201-219
Part IV. The selection of features in complex morphology
Contact, complexification and change in Mindanao Chabacano structure
Anthony P. Grant
223-241
Morphosyntactic finiteness as increased complexity in a mixed negation system
Peter Slomanson
243-264
Contact language formation in evolutionary terms
Umberto Ansaldo
265-289
Part V. Evaluating simplification and complexification
Economy, innovation and degrees of complexity in creole formation
Marlyse Baptista
293-315
Competition and selection: That's all!
Enoch O. Aboh
317-344
Complexity and the age of languages
Umberto Ansaldo and Sebastian Nordhoff
345-363
Part VI. Postscript
Restructuring, hybridization, and complexity in language evolution
Salikoko S. Mufwene
367-400
Language index
401-403
Subject index
405-409
