Part of
World Englishes – Problems, Properties and Prospects: Selected papers from the 13th IAWE conferenceEdited by Thomas Hoffmann and Lucia Siebers
[Varieties of English Around the World G40] 2009
► pp. 265–286
Edited by Thomas Hoffmann and Lucia Siebers
[Varieties of English Around the World G40] 2009
► pp. 265–286
World Englishes between simplification and complexification
This paper offers a broad empirical morphosyntactic study contributing to three debates in linguistics, one of long standing (the so-called equi-complexity axiom), the other two rather more recent, namely McWhorter’s claim (2001 a, b, 2007) that (pidgins and) creoles have the simplest grammars, and Trudgill’s claim (2009) that high-contact varieties of English are characterized by structural simplification processes while low-contact varieties are the result of complexification processes. We will present the results of comparative analyses covering three notionally different morphosyntactic complexity metrics applied to two different data types for about 50 largely non-standard varieties of English (low-contact L1s, high-contact L1s, L2s, pidgins and creoles). Ultimately, we believe to be in a firm position to reject the axiom that the morphosyntax of all languages (and varieties of a language) is equally complex and to support both the claims by McWhorter and Trudgill.
Cited by (43)
Cited by 43 other publications
Bakker, Peter
2024. Lee, Nala H. 2022. A Grammar of Modern Baba Malay. Berlin: De Gruyter. Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] 90. ISBN 9783110744927 (hardback) 9783110745061 (pdf). 9783111358604 (paperback). Linguistic Typology 
Partridge, Maristi
2024. Investigating the complementiser that
in the verb complementation of Black South African English. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 87 ff.
Sanz-Sánchez, Israel
2024. Language acquisition across the lifespan in historical
sociolinguistics. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 2 ff.
Kwok, Ho Ling, Sara Laviosa & Kanglong Liu
2023. Lexical simplification in learner translation: A corpus-based approach. Research in Corpus Linguistics 11:2 ► pp. 103 ff.
Blaxter, Tamsin
2021. Diachronic dialectology: new methods and case studies. Transactions of the Philological Society 119:S1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Ballarè, Silvia & Eugenio Goria
2019. Chapter 4. C’era i fascisti e i tedeschi. In Language Variation - European Perspectives VII [Studies in Language Variation, 22], ► pp. 72 ff.
Kruger, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy
2018. Register variation in written contact varieties of English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 39:2 ► pp. 214 ff.
Kruger, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy
Chand, Vineeta, Devin Kapper, Sumona Mondal, Shantanu Sur & Rana Parshad
2017. Indian English Evolution and Focusing Visible Through Power Laws. Languages 2:4 ► pp. 26 ff.
Suárez-Gómez, Cristina
2017. Transparency and language contact in the nativization of relative clauses in New Englishes. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 38:2 ► pp. 211 ff.
Werner, Valentin
2016. Overlap and divergence – aspects of the present perfect in World Englishes. In World Englishes [Varieties of English Around the World, G57], ► pp. 113 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Proto-Indo-European, Greek, and primitive languages: the last 150 years. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 6 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. How does Homer choose between ὁ, ἡ, τό and ὅς, ἥ, ὅ?. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 315 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Homeric relative clauses in direct speech and narrative. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 327 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Definiteness and related concepts. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 76 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Early Greek Relative Clauses,
Probert, Philomen
2015. Forays into early Greek relative clauses in non-epic genres. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 199 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Introduction. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 1 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Against four syntactic relics and for one. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 392 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Varieties of Greek relative clause. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 119 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Matters of case. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 162 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. What is a relative clause?. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 55 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Cretan inscriptions to 400 bc. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 350 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Postnominal and inherently maximalizing relative clauses in Homer. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 242 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Approaches to Proto-Indo-European relative clauses. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 21 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. Conclusions. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 435 ff.
Probert, Philomen
2015. How does Homer choose between inherently maximalizing constructions?. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 300 ff.
Karlsson, Fred
Bakker, Peter & Aymeric Daval-Markussen
2013. Creole studies in the 21st century: A brief presentation of the special issue on creole languages. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 45:2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt
2012. Analyticity and syntheticity in the history of English. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, ► pp. 654 ff.
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt & Bernd Kortmann
2009. The morphosyntax of varieties of English worldwide: A quantitative perspective. Lingua 119:11 ► pp. 1643 ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Symbols. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xxvi ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Epigraphic and papyrological publications. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xxiv ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. General abbreviations. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xix ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Copyright Page. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Ancient authors and works, with editions used. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xxi ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. List of tables. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xviii ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. List of figures. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xvii ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
2015. Glossary of technical terms. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. 477 ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Abbreviations for grammatical categories. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. xx ff.
[no author supplied]
2015. Dedication. In Early Greek Relative Clauses, ► pp. v ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.