Linguistic complexity. Лекции Эстена Даля (University of Stockholm).

3, 4 и 5 октября 2012 г. на факультете филологии НИУ ВШЭ прошли лекции Эстена Даля (University of Stockholm) на тему «Linguistic complexity».

Annotation

The general topic of the course is the notion of complexity and its application to linguistics. Specific topics to be included are: different ways of understanding complexity both in linguistics and in other disciplines; the notions of maturity and maturation in language change; possible differences among languages in complexity and external conditions that may give rise to them. 

Lecture 1. What is complexity? This lecture will treat different ways of understanding the notion of complexity, starting with a general perspective, grounded in information theory, and zooming in on its application to linguistics. The delimitation of complexity against other similar notions such as difficulty will be discussed. The notion of non-linearity as a specific type of complexity in linguistics will be introduced. 

Lecture 2. Maturation processes in linguistics. This lecture will discuss how linguistic forms and constructions evolve over time in processes known as grammaticalization and lexicalization. A mature linguistic phenomenon is one that by necessity has a non-trivial prehistory. Mature phenomena tend to involve non-linearity as defined in the first lecture; their development will be outlined. 

Lecture 3. Are all languages equally complex? It is often stated in textbooks and other publications in linguistics that there are no differences in complexity between languages, but this thesis has recently been contested by different scholars. In the lecture, the different points of view in this discussion will be outlined. The possible causes of differences in complexity between languages, in particular the role of language contact, will be discussed.