Complexity trade-offs do not prove the equal complexity hypothesis

• Authors: Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon , August Fenk
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Complexity trade-offs are often considered as evidence for the hypothesis that all languages are equally complex; simplicity in one component of grammar is balanced by complexity in another. According to Shosted (2006), this "negative correlation hypothesis", as he calls it, was never validated using quantitative methods. The present paper recalls, in a first step, our previously found significant negative cross-linguistic correlations between syllable complexity and number of syllables per clause and per word, as well as an almost significant negative correlation between syllable complexity and number of morphological cases. All these correlations indicate complexity trade-offs between subsystems of language, as do the positive correlations found between syllable complexity, number of syllable types, and number of monosyllabic words. In a second step we argue against the view of such complexity trade-offs as proof of the equal complexity hypothesis. This hypothesis is hardly testable for several reasons: As long as it is impossible to quantify the overall complexity of a single language, it is also impossible to compare different languages with respect to that quantity. Secondly, it could – because of its character as a null hypothesis – never be corroborated for principal reasons.

Keywords

EN

complexity trade-offs; equal overall complexity; cross-linguistic correlations; syllable complexity; null hypothesis

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 145-155

Dates

revised

2013-03-20

accepted

2013-03-21

received

2014-02-15

online

2014-07-21

Contributors

author

Gertraud Fenk-Oczlon

• Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt, Austria

author

August Fenk

• Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt, Austria

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/psicl-2014-0010