Why do languages seem to evolve such morphological complexity? Is it not mostly totally redundant in terms of expression? A language like English, once highly inflected, but no longer, is still a highly expressive language. Would it be more expressive if it had retained gender, case, adjective endings etc. I can't see that it would be. It still expresses everything it needs to. Why then, do languages tend to develop these structures that contain complex morphological complexity? What does this add to a language in terms of expression? In fact I would offer that it makes a language less expressive, in that it gets so caught up in grammatical agreement, that it becomes less free to develop new expressions. So, English can express any new concept without worrying about how it will fit into a highly complex grammatical system i.e. gender, noun or verb form etc. I think as such English can expand easily in a way many languages can't. And English does express most things that need to be expressed perfectly adequately.
Why do languages develop such morpological complexity?
While English still has 8 inflectional endings, Chinese has NONE whatsoever. Yet, to describe new concepts or create new words, IMHO, Chinese now sounds rather clumsy, especially when dealing with English new portmanteaus.
You may think adjectival endings are superfluous (and so may be genders), but, for example, the English plural ending -s is MUCH more convenient than the Chinese plural ending, which is either a null one (inferred through context*) or men2 (mostly used for human beings). Methinks, adding a little inflectional ending is more convenient than having to type/write an extra character.
To convey poetic meanings, however, Chinese is rather powerful because characters already reflect certain shades of meaning that enrich the language.
*But I guess Chinese could be more "precise" if everything is analyzed (well, Chinese is analytic) detailedly, sacrificing the convenience of being very concise verbally. In reality, however, the contemporary grammar usage does not allow making plurals that much.
You may think adjectival endings are superfluous (and so may be genders), but, for example, the English plural ending -s is MUCH more convenient than the Chinese plural ending, which is either a null one (inferred through context*) or men2 (mostly used for human beings). Methinks, adding a little inflectional ending is more convenient than having to type/write an extra character.
To convey poetic meanings, however, Chinese is rather powerful because characters already reflect certain shades of meaning that enrich the language.
*But I guess Chinese could be more "precise" if everything is analyzed (well, Chinese is analytic) detailedly, sacrificing the convenience of being very concise verbally. In reality, however, the contemporary grammar usage does not allow making plurals that much.
I enjoy listening to Chinese poetry, even if I don't understand it all. Very powerful.
Chinese and languages which use Chinese characters are all BIG languages with many speakers. I'm thinking Cantonese, Mandarin and other Chinese languages plus Japanese. Korean used to use some characters, but I'm not sure about the status of Hanzi now because I get conflicting opinions from Koreans on this. Japanese uses Chinese characters AND borrowed words to fill out their language.
So English and languages which use Chinese characters cover a lot of the speakers in the world AND these languages are rumoured to be "difficult"...LOL! Maybe being rich in expression goes along with being difficult...
So English and languages which use Chinese characters cover a lot of the speakers in the world AND these languages are rumoured to be "difficult"...LOL! Maybe being rich in expression goes along with being difficult...
"Syntactical complexity isn't any easier than morphological complexity (whatever you actually mean by that). Languages with less of the latter tend to have more of the former and vice versa".
I agree. Each language has its own difficulties. For instance, I don't think Russian is harder than English or Spanish easier than Croatian.....
I agree. Each language has its own difficulties. For instance, I don't think Russian is harder than English or Spanish easier than Croatian.....
Autres questions. Pourquoi utiliser <do> & <to> alors que <Why seem languages evolve such morphological complexity ?> serait plus simple, sans altération sémantique ? Et pourquoi inverser <it is not> sachant que <It is not mostly totally redundant in terms of expression ?> serait plus simple et plus naturel ?
Guest : « Why then, do languages tend to develop these structures that contain complex morphological complexity? »
C'est exactement la question que j'allais te poser au sujet de l'anglais oral par rapport au français parlé. Pourquoi, à l'oral, le français /fam/ = <femme(s)> reste invariable en nombre alors que l'anglais oppose sg /wʊmən/ = /wUm@n/ à pl /wɪmɪn/ = /wImIn/ ? Outre que le pluriel ici formé échappe à la règle générale, pourquoi /ʊ/ = /U/ & /ə/ = /@/, pourtant différents, différemment positionnés et différemment accentués deviennent tous deux /ɪ/ = /I/ ? C'est une morphologie orale bien complexe pour un malheureux pluriel !...
Guest : « In fact I would offer that it makes a language less expressive, in that it gets so caught up in grammatical agreement, that it becomes less free to develop new expressions. »
En effet ! Quand on songe que /pwaʁ/ = /pwaR/ signifie à la fois <poires> & <poire>, quelle perte d'expressivité pour l'anglais, condamné qu'il est à subir /peə̯z/ = /pe@_^z/ pour dire <pears> et à courber devant /peə̯/ = /pe@_^/ pour signifier <pear>.
Guest : « Why then, do languages tend to develop these structures that contain complex morphological complexity? »
C'est exactement la question que j'allais te poser au sujet de l'anglais oral par rapport au français parlé. Pourquoi, à l'oral, le français /fam/ = <femme(s)> reste invariable en nombre alors que l'anglais oppose sg /wʊmən/ = /wUm@n/ à pl /wɪmɪn/ = /wImIn/ ? Outre que le pluriel ici formé échappe à la règle générale, pourquoi /ʊ/ = /U/ & /ə/ = /@/, pourtant différents, différemment positionnés et différemment accentués deviennent tous deux /ɪ/ = /I/ ? C'est une morphologie orale bien complexe pour un malheureux pluriel !...
Guest : « In fact I would offer that it makes a language less expressive, in that it gets so caught up in grammatical agreement, that it becomes less free to develop new expressions. »
En effet ! Quand on songe que /pwaʁ/ = /pwaR/ signifie à la fois <poires> & <poire>, quelle perte d'expressivité pour l'anglais, condamné qu'il est à subir /peə̯z/ = /pe@_^z/ pour dire <pears> et à courber devant /peə̯/ = /pe@_^/ pour signifier <pear>.
>Chinese and languages which use Chinese characters are all BIG languages with many speakers. I'm thinking Cantonese, Mandarin and other Chinese languages plus Japanese. Korean used to use some characters, but I'm not sure about the status of Hanzi now because I get conflicting opinions from Koreans on this. Japanese uses Chinese characters AND borrowed words to fill out their language.
I'm happy that you would like to learn the CJK languages. :)
Yes, though Chinese is analytical, it's no less difficult than inflectional ones.
I'm happy that you would like to learn the CJK languages. :)
Yes, though Chinese is analytical, it's no less difficult than inflectional ones.
No. Indeed, I think that most difficulties we can name are simply relative. If your native language is analytical (like mine), you would have difficulty getting used to a synthetic one, and vice versa.
Yet, upon mastering grammar, the life-long difficulty you have to "fight against" would be about vocabulary, and there are so fast and hard rules at all to learn them all, as languages are always changing.
One "objective" difficulty would be, rather, the difficulty of finding 1) learning resources and 2) native speakers. Strictly speaking, a "big" language like English/Chinese should be just as easy/difficult as Finnish and Swedish (with just a few millions of speakers), and they are (as national languages) still much easier than those spoken by only a few hundred people in a very remote region...
Yet, upon mastering grammar, the life-long difficulty you have to "fight against" would be about vocabulary, and there are so fast and hard rules at all to learn them all, as languages are always changing.
One "objective" difficulty would be, rather, the difficulty of finding 1) learning resources and 2) native speakers. Strictly speaking, a "big" language like English/Chinese should be just as easy/difficult as Finnish and Swedish (with just a few millions of speakers), and they are (as national languages) still much easier than those spoken by only a few hundred people in a very remote region...
Guest : « In fact I would offer that it makes a language less expressive, in that it gets so caught up in grammatical agreement, that it becomes less free to develop new expressions. »
Syntactical complexity seems to correlate with scientific creativity and economic power.
Syntactical complexity seems to correlate with scientific creativity and economic power.
English has an easy syntax and most of the scientific world output is made in English.
I disagree that English has an easy syntax. There are plenty of odd things, such as the word order of phrases such as "neither am I".
I also have to disagree with Josh's position that a language with little morphological complexity will necessarily have much syntactic complexity. The more I think about it, the less I agree with the theory that all languages are equally grammatically complex. It *is* a good point, though, that this tradeoff between morphological complexity and syntactic complexity is often made.
- Kef
I also have to disagree with Josh's position that a language with little morphological complexity will necessarily have much syntactic complexity. The more I think about it, the less I agree with the theory that all languages are equally grammatically complex. It *is* a good point, though, that this tradeoff between morphological complexity and syntactic complexity is often made.
- Kef