Are all languages equally complex?

1. Are all languages equally complex? Östen Dahl oesten@ling.su.se

2. Comparative complexityof languages • Does it make sense to compare languages as to complexity? • And if the answer is yes, can languages differ in complexity? • Currently, there are two competing answers to the last question.

3. The balancing hypothesis • Most linguists who have had anything to say on this question favour the balancing hypothesis, which claims… • … claims that lack of complexity in one component of the system will be compensated by greater complexity in another (and vice versa) • …which means that in principle all languages are equally complex

4. The competing view • Recently, various linguists (e.g. John McWhorter) have challenged this view, claiming… • that languages indeed vary in complexity • …and that this variation is related to the ”ecology” of the language, that is, to the conditions under which the language is spoken and transmitted to new generations

5. Cross-linguistic comparison of complexity • However, few attempts have been made to make systematic global comparisons of complexity cross-linguistically • This presentation is an attempt to compare two closely related languages… • …which guarantees relatively extensive commensurability • But first I need to discuss the notion of linguistic complexity

6. Two different notions of linguistic complexity • In speaking of linguistic complexity, people tend to have two rather different notions in mind: • “objective” complexity • “agent-related” complexity

7. Objective complexity • Objective complexity is the notion employed in information theory and the theory of complex systems • It involves the idea that complexity is an objective property of an object or a system • It is notoriously difficult to give a rigid definition of complexity in this sense

8. Objective complexity • Intuitively the complexity of an object is to be measured in terms of • the amount of information needed to re-create it or alternatively, • the length of the shortest possible complete description of it.

9. Complexity as the inverse of compressibility 3 * ha hahaha 6 symbols compressed to 4 6 symbols compressed to 5 2 * bye byebye 6 symbols – no compression 1 * pardon pardon

10. Complexity of patterns • However, this notion of complexity assigns a maximal complexity to a random string such as 893890380859375999237060546875490051269531252743225097656256194458007812558557128906258971557617187518951416015625560394287109375416229248046875 • It is therefore preferable to talk not of the complexity of an object as such as of the set of regularities or patterns contained in it.

11. System complexity vs. structural complexity • In linguistics, such a complexity measure could apply to different things. Most importantly, it could apply on the one hand to • a language seen as a system (system complexity) • to the structure of utterances and expressions (structural complexity)

12. Comparison of system complexity • The (written) English definite article is less complex than the English indefinite article and than the French definite article definite article - the indefinite article - an before vowels; a elsewhere definite article - l’ before vowels; les before plural nouns; else la before feminine nouns; le elsewhere

13. Structural complexity • These sentences are generated by the same grammar but differ in structural complexity (B>C>A)

14. System complexity • System complexity could be seen as a measure of the content that language learners have to master in order to be proficient in a language. • It does not as such tell us anything about the difficulty they have in learning, producing and understanding the language -- • -- that would take us to the other notion of complexity, viz. agent-related complexity.

15. Agent-related complexity? • Although agent-related complexity is perhaps the most popular way of understanding complexity in linguistics, I would in fact prefer to reserve the term “complexity” for objective complexity and use other terms such as “cost”, “difficulty”, and “demandingness” to denote ‘complexity for a user’.

16. My general notion of complexity • I am mainly concerned with objective system complexity understood as • the length of the simplest complete description of the language as a system

17. Kinds of complexity • Phenogrammatical complexity • Lexical metacomplexity • Tightness

18. Phenogrammatical complexity • pertains to the relationship between a given content and its expression • operationalized as • given a configuration of lexical items, how complex are the rules that allow you to build a unitary expression out of those items?

19. Lexical metacomplexity • What is the complexity of the information associated with a lexical item? • …including: • segmental phonology • suprasegmental phonology • morphosyntactic features

20. Tightness • What is the maximal structural complexity allowed at each level of grammatical structure?

21. Elfdalian vs. Swedish • Two North Germanic languages/varieties: • Elfdalian (övdalska, älvdalska), spoken by 3000 persons in Älvdalen, Dalarna, Sweden (endangered) • Swedish (Central Standard), spoken by 2 mill. people in the Mälar Valley region (not yet endangered)

22. Elfdalian Central Standard Swedish Maps Dalarna

23. Segmental phonology

24. Segmental phonology iyuo eöå äa iyuo eöå äa gǫs ’goose’ ptkbdmnŋsfvʃɕrljh ptkbdmnŋsfvʧʥrlj

25. Suprasegmental phonology

26. Suprasegmental phonology iyuo eöå äa har du [hɑ:ɖʉ:] ’have you’ blo:t ’soft’ brott ’away’ blo:tt ’soft (neut.’) wito ’know’ [hɑ:t] ’hate’ [hat:] ’hat’ kátten ’the cat’kàtter ’cats’ ármin ’the arm’ àrmer ’arms’ wito ’wito’

27. Noun morphology

28. Noun morphology rattsin rakkam rakkan ’the dog’

29. Adjective morphology

30. Adjective morphology ien stur kall ienum sturum kalle ien sturan kall ’a big man’ ien duktin kall įe duktig kelingg Iet duktit fuok ‘an able man/woman/people’

31. Verb morphology 1

32. Verb morphology 1 spilum spilið dier spilo ‚we/you (pl.)/they play‘ an spiler dier spilo ‚we/you (pl.)/they play‘

33. Verb morphology 2

34. Pronouns

35. Pronouns ǫ – enner – ona ’she’ (nom/dat/acc)

36. Syntax

37. Syntax Pelle kommer inte ’P. isn’t coming’ att Pelle inte kommer ’that P. isn’t coming’ Lęs dörum (dat.pl.)! ‚shut the door!‘ i Övdalim (dat.) ’in Älvdalen’ fast dier var inte iema ’although they weren’t home’ Kumum i kwelld. ‘We’ll come tonight’

38. Periphrastic constructions

39. Some conclusions • On the whole, Elfdalian comes out as having the greater complexity on a majority of the points where there is a difference • It is possible that Swedish is more complex on points which I have not considered in my investigation • However, the burden of proof now lies on those who want to claim that a comparison between Elfdalian and Swedish lends support to the balancing hypothesis

40. Further conclusions • In some cases, contrary to what the balancing hypothesis would lead us to believe, morphological complexity goes together with syntactic complexity (agreement)

41. Language contact • With its history and geographical position, Elfdalian can be expected to be a ”low-contact language” relative to Swedish • This then is compatible with the hypothesis that high-contact languages tend to be less complex… • …but it is hardly advisable to draw conclusions from a single example