Complex Processes in New Languages
Editors
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.
[Creole Language Library, 35] 2009. vii, 409 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments | p. vii
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Simplicity, simplification, complexity and complexification: Where have the interfaces gone?Enoch Oladé Aboh and Norval Smith | pp. 1–25
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Part I. Morpho-phonology
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Initial vowel agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea creolesTjerk Hagemeijer | pp. 29–50
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Simplification of a complex part of grammar or not? What happened to KiKoongo nouns in Saramaccan?Norval Smith | pp. 51–73
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Reducing phonological complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan varietiesBettina Zeisler | pp. 75–95
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Part II. Verbal morphology
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Verb allomorphy and the syntax of phasesTonjes Veenstra | pp. 99–113
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The invisible hand in creole genesis: Reanalysis in the formation of Berbice DutchSilvia Kouwenberg | pp. 115–158
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Complexification or regularization of paradigms: The case of prepositional verbs in Solomon Islands PijinChristine Jourdan | pp. 159–170
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Part III. Nominals
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The Mauritian Creole determiner system: A historical overviewDiana Guillemin | pp. 173–200
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Demonstratives in Afrikaans and Cape Dutch Pidgin: A first attemptHans den Besten | pp. 201–219
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Part IV. The selection of features in complex morphology
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Contact, complexification and change in Mindanao Chabacano structureAnthony P. Grant | pp. 223–241
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Morphosyntactic finiteness as increased complexity in a mixed negation systemPeter Slomanson | pp. 243–264
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Contact language formation in evolutionary termsUmberto Ansaldo | pp. 265–289
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Part V. Evaluating simplification and complexification
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Economy, innovation and degrees of complexity in creole formationMarlyse Baptista | pp. 293–315
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Competition and selection: That’s all!Enoch Oladé Aboh | pp. 317–344
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Complexity and the age of languagesUmberto Ansaldo and Sebastian Nordhoff | pp. 345–363
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Part VI. Postscript
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Restructuring, hybridization, and complexity in language evolutionSalikoko S. Mufwene | pp. 367–400
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Language index | pp. 401–403
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Subject index | pp. 405–409
Cited by
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Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32:1 ► pp. 138 ff.
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Me Tarzan, You Jane
The Origins of Grammar
Language in the Light of Evolution
by James R. Hurford
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2021. Pidgins and Creoles: Debates and Issues.
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Kouwenberg, Silvia & John Victor Singler
2018. Creolization in Context: Historical and Typological Perspectives.
Annual Review of Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 213 ff.
Krajinović, Ana
2017. Influence of Malayalam on temporal clauses in Malabar Indo-Portuguese.
Language Ecology 1:2 ► pp. 137 ff.
Lee, Nala H.
2020. The Status of Endangered Contact Languages of the World.
Annual Review of Linguistics 6:1 ► pp. 301 ff.
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2007. Creoles and creolization.
In Handbook of Pragmatics,
► pp. 1 ff.
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2010. SLA AND THE EMERGENCE OF CREOLES.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 32:3 ► pp. 359 ff.
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2014. The case was never closed.
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 29:1 ► pp. 157 ff.
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2019. Pidgins and Creoles.
In The Handbook of World Englishes,
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Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2020. Genetic Creolistics as Part of Evolutionary Linguistics.
In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics,
► pp. 393 ff.
Mufwene, Salikoko S., Christophe Coupé & François Pellegrino
2017. Complexity in Language: A Multifaceted Phenomenon.
In Complexity in Language,
► pp. 1 ff.
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Subjects & Metadata
BIC Subject: CFK – Grammar, syntax
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General