Contents -- Preface -- Interlinear glosses -- The contributors -- 1. A linguistic axiom challenged -- 2. How much grammar does it take to sail a boat? -- 3. On the evolution of complexity: sometimes less is more in East and mainland Southeast Asia -- 4. Testing the assumption of complexity invariance: the case of Elfdalian and Swedish -- 5. Between simplification and complexification: non-standard varieties of English around the world -- 6. Implicational hierarchies and grammatical complexity -- 7. Sociolinguistic typology and complexification -- 8. Linguistic complexity: a comprehensive definition and survey -- 9. Complexity in core argument marking and population size -- 10. Oh n(omitted)! : a bewilderingly multifunctional Saramaccan word teaches us how a creole language develops complexity -- 11. Orality versus literacy as a dimension of complexity -- 12. Individual differences in processing complex grammatical structures -- 13. Origin and maintenance of clausal embedding complexity -- 14. Layering of grammar: vestiges of protosyntax in present-day languages -- 15. An interview with Dan Everett -- 16. Universals in language or cognition? Evidence from English language acquisition and from Pirahã -- 17. ''Overall complexity'': a wild goose chase? -- 18. An efficiency theory of complexity and related phenomena -- 19. Envoi: The editors -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.