Language Complexity -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Introduction -- Language complexity -- An overview of the contributions in this volume -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Part I Typology and theory -- Complexity in linguistic theory, language learning and language change -- Introduction -- Absolute and relative complexity -- Definition of complexity -- Points of relativity -- Objections against outsider complexity -- Methodology -- Three aspects and three dimensions -- From the individual to the social -- Case study: Bolivian, Argentinean and Ecuadorean Quechua -- Social history of three Quechua varieties -- Quechua inflection -- Conclusions and interpretations -- Conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Grammatical complexity in a cross-linguistic perspective -- Introduction -- Absolute complexity and (relative) cost/difficulty -- Global vs. local complexity -- Criteria for complexity -- Complexity and cross-linguistic rarity -- Summary -- Abbreviations -- References -- Complexity trade-offs between the subsystems of language -- Hierarchy and complexity in the language system -- Cross-linguistic correlations -- Previous results -- New assumptions -- Evaluation and results -- Discussion -- A short excursion into diachrony -- Where the trade-offs happen and why they do not indicate an equal overall complexity of languages -- Conceptualizations of "semantic complexity" and a look at pidgin languages -- Low complexity in word structure - high semantic complexity and idiomatic speech? -- English as an example -- English phrasal verbs - monosyllabic and idiomatic -- A short comparison between English and Russian -- Final discussion -- Concluding remarks -- References -- Complexity trade-offs in core argument marking -- Introduction -- Sampling -- The definition of complexity.

Hypothesis for the statistical tests -- Coding strategies: Definitions and constraints -- Measuring functional load - and complexity -- Results and discussion -- Conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Assessing linguistic complexity -- Introduction -- Information theory basics -- Zipf and Shannon -- Kolmogorov and other complexity definitions -- Linguistic Experiments -- Information and language -- Validating complexity measurements -- Further compression analyses: Translation -- Complexity via distortion: Preliminary experiments -- Complexity via distortion: Subsequent experiments -- Discussion -- Future work and conclusions -- References -- How complex are isolating languages? -- Introduction -- Associational semantics -- Measuring complexity: The association experiment -- Experimental design -- Running the experiment -- Results -- But doesn't the pragmatics compensate" -- Summary -- Abbreviations -- References -- Complexity in isolating languages: Lexical elaboration versus grammatical economy* -- Introduction -- Some typological characteristics of highly analytic languages -- Complexity in HMT -- Classifiers -- Verb Serialization -- Compounding -- Elaborate expressions -- Complexity in language learning -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- References -- Corpus references -- Grammatical resources and linguistic complexity -- Background notions: System complexity, structural complexity resources vs. regulations -- Sirionó, a language without syntactic coordination -- How to manage without syntactic coordination: Three strategies -- The 'with' strategy -- The 'also' strategy -- The list strategy -- Discussion and conclusions -- Abbreviations -- Text source -- References -- Part II Contact and change -- Why does a language undress? -- Introduction -- Why would a language undress? -- Riau Indonesian.

There are no varieties of Indonesian's relatives that are reduced like Riau Indonesian -- The grammar of Riau Indonesian gives no concrete indication of transfer from other languages -- Theories of grammar-internal change do not predict the fate of voice markers in colloquial Indonesians -- Summary -- Timor -- Tetun Terik vs. Tetun Dili -- Tetun Terik vs. its relatives -- Things just happen? The Papuan factor -- Just chance? -- What happened in Timor? -- Flores -- Complexity without affixation -- A phonological explanation? -- A Wave of Simplification? -- Applying the Hypothesis -- Abbreviations -- References -- Morphological complexity as a parameter of linguistic typology -- Introduction and the aim of the paper -- Linguistic complexity -- Morphology -- Modality -- Reflexive -- Causative -- Compounding -- Multiply derived forms -- Syntax -- Language change by contact -- Typology -- Morphological complexity as a parameter -- Rivalry between parameters -- Chicken or egg: Post-nominal modification inHO -- Conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Language complexity and interlinguistic difficulty -- Background -- Complexity and difficulty -- "Counting difficulty" -- The verb phrase -- Pronominal systems -- Nominal morphology and noun phrases -- Discussion -- Evasion -- Mismatches: Category content and cooccurrence restrictions -- Form transparency -- Vocabulary -- Popular judgment of difficulty -- Extra-linguistic factors -- Conclusions -- Abbreviations -- References -- Appendix I. Verb phrase -- Appendix II. Pronominal forms -- Appendix III. Kuot verbs and adjectives, and their affixation orders -- Complexity in nominal plural allomorphy -- Introduction -- Defining and analysing morphological complexity -- Illustration of the complexity metric -- Number of plural allomorphs across Germanic languages.

Three dimensions of complexity in plural exponency and assignment -- Complexity of formal techniques -- Complexity in allomorph assignment -- Direction of determination between stem and suffix -- Results -- Remarks on validation and conclusion -- Abbreviations -- References -- Part III Creoles and pidgins -- The simplicity of creoles in a cross-linguistic perspective -- Introduction -- The relationship between expressiveness and complexity -- Material and method -- Results -- The special case of creoles -- What are creoles? -- Adding more contact languages -- Creoles and other groups compared -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- References -- Complexity in numeral systems with an investigation into pidgins and creoles -- Numerals -- What are numerals? -- Why study numerals? -- Complexity -- Complexity as irregularity -- Complexity as global ordering constraints -- Complexity vs. economy -- Overall complexity -- Complexity in numeral systems of pidgin and creole languages -- Discussion -- References -- Appendix: Logically possible numeral systems without base -- Explaining Kabuverdianu nominal plural formation -- Introduction -- Kabuverdianu or Cape Verdean Creole Portuguese -- The 4-M model and creolization -- Nominal plural marking in Portuguese and restructured varieties of Portuguese -- Previous descriptions of nominal plural marking in CVC -- CVC plural marking in our data -- Discussion -- Epilogue: the cross-linguistic picture -- References -- References for the corpus -- Complexity and simplicity in minimal lexica -- Introduction -- Chinook Jargon -- The data -- Lexical processes in a CJ text: The Story of Moola John -- Recycling meaning in a CJ text: the multifunctionality of lexical items -- The lexicon of Chinook Jargon - simple and efficient -- Abbreviations -- References -- Index of languages -- Index of authors -- Index of subjects.

Studies in Language Companion Series.