Complexity in Language
eBook - PDF

Complexity in Language

Developmental and Evolutionary Perspectives

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Complexity in Language

Developmental and Evolutionary Perspectives

About this book

The question of complexity, as in what makes one language more 'complex' than another, is a long-established topic of debate amongst linguists. Recently, this issue has been complemented with the view that languages are complex adaptive systems, in which emergence and self-organization play major roles. However, few students of the phenomenon have gone beyond the basic assessment of the number of units and rules in a language (what has been characterized as 'bit complexity') or shown some familiarity with the science of complexity. This book reveals how much can be learned by overcoming these limitations, especially by adopting developmental and evolutionary perspectives. The contributors include specialists of language acquisition, evolution and ecology, grammaticization, phonology, and modeling, all of whom approach languages as dynamical, emergent, and adaptive complex systems.

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Yes, you can access Complexity in Language by Salikoko S. Mufwene,Christophe Coupé,François Pellegrino in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Historical & Comparative Linguistics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half title
  3. Series
  4. Title
  5. Copyright
  6. Contents
  7. Figures
  8. Tables
  9. Contributors
  10. Acknowledgments
  11. 1 Complexity in Language: A Multifaceted Phenomenon
  12. 2 How to Explain the Origins of Complexity in Language: A Case Study for Agreement Systems
  13. 3 Complexity in Speech: Teasing Apart Culture and Cognition
  14. 4 A Complex-Adaptive-Systems Approach to the Evolution of Language and the Brain
  15. 5 Evolutionary Complexity of Social Cognition, Semasiographic Systems, and Language
  16. 6 To What Extent Are Phonological Inventories Complex Systems?
  17. 7 A Complexity View of Ontogeny as a Window on Phylogeny
  18. 8 Language Choice in a Multilingual Society: A View from Complexity Science
  19. 9 Complexity and Language Contact: A Socio-Cognitive Framework
  20. Index