gaining grammatical complexities

Guest   Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:46 am GMT
I always here how languages lose grammatical features, like cases, dual number etc, but I never hear about them gaining them. Is there a reason for this or am I mistaken? Why do languages seem to become less complex grammatically over time?
Guest   Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:16 pm GMT
there are not many examples of languages gaining the new grammatical features, but you could have heard about Bengali that lost all indo-european case endings and than took up new some ones from Dravidian. In Portuguese and in written Spanish exists a 'subjuntivo futuro' absent in Latin and developed on Iberian peninsula.
But it's rare.
Guest   Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:01 am GMT
>>>>>>>>
I always here how languages lose grammatical features, like cases, dual number etc, but I never hear about them gaining them. Is there a reason for this or am I mistaken? Why do languages seem to become less complex grammatically over time?
<<<<<<<

Very interesting question. Greek and German have lost some grammatical features, Romance has lost almost all of Latin grammar (if one accepts, that Romance languages are successors of Latin). My question: is the same phenomenon also observed outside indo european language family?
Guest   Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:02 am GMT
Japanese has become slightly less complex grammatically in that it used to have different forms for verbs of relative clauses from those of independent clauses, but this is no longer the case. Japanese has also moved to a more uniform verb conjugation system but it has gained some irregularities due to phonological assimilation. In contrast to the simplification of its grammar, Japanese has increased greatly in phonological complexity over time, although it is still poor in that area compared to English.
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:44 am GMT
Obviously, some languages must gain morphological complexity somewhere, sometime. All languages can't be in a perpetual state of simplification. How did they get complicated in the first place? Were all morphologically compex languages suddenly created out of thin air?
guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:04 am GMT
<<Obviously, some languages must gain morphological complexity somewhere, sometime. All languages can't be in a perpetual state of simplification. How did they get complicated in the first place? Were all morphologically compex languages suddenly created out of thin air? >>

Perhaps there's some validity to the Tower of Babel origin of languages then, hmmmMMM?

God bequoth (I know, it's 'bequeathed', but it should be 'bequoth'--I'm doing my part to add complexity here) such complex languages to man, that it was inevitable that over time they would of necessity have to corrupt.

Something to chew on...
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:15 am GMT
Lol, good one!
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:40 am GMT
<<God bequoth (I know, it's 'bequeathed', but it should be 'bequoth'--I'm doing my part to add complexity here) such complex languages to man, that it was inevitable that over time they would of necessity have to corrupt.>>

I guess that's one explanation -- "Linguistic Creationism". I suppose all open-minded linguists would have to accept this as a possibility or alternate theory to the usual evolution of languages :)
Analog   Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:08 am GMT
If we take the language of music, we can see a rise in complexity from Gregorianic up to Bach, Vivaldy, Mozart and the 19th century classics. Since then music seems also to become less complex over time...
I would say it´s due in this case to popularization, since the lowest complexity is observed in pop music:)
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:42 am GMT
Well, you can't say the same for languages. Languages don't get 'popularised', everyone speaks them... I doubt it has to do with increased literacy.
Analog   Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:45 am GMT
But languages of former times are only klnown fro written text. And writing was popularized as (written) music was.
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:32 pm GMT
I'd take the example of Spanish that was born from a simplified Latin, but then it acquired some new grammatical phenomena unknown to the mother tongue: articles, two verbs for 'be' (estar, ser), the subjuntivo futuro, distinct past time for events that just happened and another one for events from a distant past (ha hablado, habló). In Latin you could say 'potest', in old Spanish after regular phonetic changes it was something like 'pode' from the verb 'poder', but then an irregular form appeared and today you'd say 'puede'.
In old Germanic languages there were only present and past, in contrary in English or in German you've got a much bigger choice even if the forms of verbs are simpler.
It's in the nature of languages to get simpler and more complex in the same time.
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:55 pm GMT
"I'd take the example of Spanish that was born from a simplified Latin, but then it acquired some new grammatical phenomena unknown to the mother tongue: articles, two verbs for 'be' (estar, ser), the subjuntivo futuro, distinct past time for events that just happened and another one for events from a distant past (ha hablado, habló)"

Latin had two verbs for to be as well: esere and stare.
guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:49 pm GMT
Latin 'stare' is really 'to stand' (stō, "I stand"), a form of which-'status' later becoming merged with forms of 'to be' in Romance (French être<ester; merging with 'esse' - to be)

I had read somewhere that Basque contributed or at least influenced the dual verb 'to be' in Spanish, itself having two verbs used in precisely the same manner as 'ser' & 'estar'

articles in romance first appeared after the germanic invasions and are possibly attributed there, however the forms stemming from the latin demonstratives (in exactly the same manner that germanic articles do)

furture subjunctive is due to analogy and extension
Guest   Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:55 pm GMT
"I had read somewhere that Basque contributed or at least influenced the dual verb 'to be' in Spanish, itself having two verbs used in precisely the same manner as 'ser' & 'estar' "

Italian has essere and stare too. Was Italian influenced by Basque ?