Linguistic complexity measures are used to describe second language (L2) performance and assess levels of
proficiency and development. Although morphology is considered crucial in L2 acquisition, morphological complexity has been
relatively neglected, hindering comprehensive views of grammatical complexity in L2. This article presents an application of a
recently proposed metric of morphological diversity, the Morphological Complexity Index (MCI), in an L2 Spanish corpus of 113
essays classified into four proficiency levels by expert evaluators. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationships of
MCI with subjectively rated proficiency and with other four quantitative measures of L2 complexity. Results indicate that
morphological complexity, as measured by MCI, does not vary significantly across proficiency levels in this corpus. The MCI shows
significant correlations with lexical but not with syntactic complexity measures. Findings are interpreted in the light of the
characteristics of the corpus and the acquisition of the Spanish verbal system.
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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