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The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity
Abstract
This book studies linguistic complexity and the processes by which it arises and is maintained, focusing not so much on what one can say in a language as how it is said. Complexity is not seen as synonymous with “difficulty” but as an objective property of a system – a measure of the amount of information needed to describe or reconstruct it. Grammatical complexity is the result of historical processes often subsumed under the rubric of grammaticalization and involves what can be called mature linguistic phenomena, that is, features that take time to develop. The nature and characteristics of such processes are discussed in detail, as well as the external and internal factors that favor or disfavor stability and change in language.
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Citations
Cited by
Language typology and syntactic description
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., & Liljegren, H. (2013) · Linguistic Typology · doi:10.1515/lity-2013-0004 · Cited by 1,244
Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure
Lupyan, G., & Dale, R. (2010) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008559 · Cited by 786
Defining and operationalising L2 complexity
Bulté, B., & Housen, A. (2012) · Language Learning & Language Teaching · doi:10.1075/lllt.32.02bul · Cited by 587
Conceptualizing and measuring short-term changes in L2 writing complexity.
Bulté, B., & Housen, A. (2014) · Journal of Second Language Writing · doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2014.09.005 · Cited by 474
Cross-Linguistic Variation and Efficiency
Hawkins, J. A. (2014) · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199664993.001.0001 · Cited by 405
Metadata
- Authors
- Dahl, Ö.
- Venue
- Studies in Language Companion Series
- Publisher
- John Benjamins Publishing Company
- Published
- 2004-08-31
- ISSN
- 0165-7763 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W277336407
- Cited by
- 875
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 21.07
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Dahl, Ö. (2004). The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity. Studies in Language Companion Series. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.71
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