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For a very different (and pop science) but I thought interesting
take on possible <i>causes</i> of linguistic diversity, see<br>
David Robson, Dec 07 2011, Power of Babel: Why one language isn't
enough, New Scientist. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228421.200-power-of-babel-why-one-language-isnt-enough.html">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228421.200-power-of-babel-why-one-language-isnt-enough.html</a><br>
<br>
Mike<br>
<br>
On 13/12/2011 08:35, Majid Laali wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:693F9582-8DDD-45B2-93B6-4D1425CCBE3F@gmail.com"
type="cite">Dear all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thank you for your elaborate responds. It is help me much to
continue my research.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:
separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight:
normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal;
orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;
-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0px; font-size: medium; ">Regards,<br>
Majid Laali,<br>
Natural Language and text Processing Laboratory(<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://ece.ut.ac.ir/NLP">http://ece.ut.ac.ir/NLP</a>),<br>
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,<br>
College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:m.laali@ut.ac.ir">m.laali@ut.ac.ir</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</span>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>On Dec 12, 2011, at 4:20 PM, Charles Hall wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
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<td style="font: inherit;" valign="top">This issue was
one of the standard topics in historical
linguistics, which, sadly, has fallen out of favor
in universities.<br>
<br>
There is often a "cycle" in which syntax becomes
morphology.<br>
<br>
For example, it's assumed that the 'weak' past tense
morpheme -ed in English [and the other Germanic
languages] began as the syntactic "did" following a
verbal when the normal word order was<br>
<br>
SOV<br>
<br>
I thinking did.<br>
<br>
now many dialects of English have lost the tense
markers and have only aspect... the cycle
continues....<br>
<br>
If you are interested in this cycle, simply look at
the standard texts on historical linguistics.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
*************<br>
Charles Hall, Ph.D., dr.h.c.<br>
University of Memphis, Department of English<br>
Applied Linguistics and EFL/ESL<br>
901.313.4496<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.charleshall.info">www.charleshall.info</a>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.l4law.org">www.l4law.org</a><br>
<br>
--- On <b>Mon, 12/12/11, Graham White <i><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:graham@eecs.qmul.ac.uk">graham@eecs.qmul.ac.uk</a>></i></b>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16,
16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>
From: Graham White <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:graham@eecs.qmul.ac.uk">graham@eecs.qmul.ac.uk</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Why some languages has
complex morphology meanwhile other not?<br>
To: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:corpora@uib.no">corpora@uib.no</a><br>
Date: Monday, December 12, 2011, 1:06 PM<br>
<br>
<div class="plainMail">I suspect a lot of it is
simply random drift: languages have to put <br>
their complexity somewhere, but there is a lot
of choice as to where <br>
they put it. French, for example, has lost the
noun inflections which<br>
Latin has, but it's acquired a complex system of
clitics, which<br>
Latin doesn't have. And even English, though
it's not as morphologically <br>
complex as its predecessors, has a very complex<br>
tense and aspect system (which non-native
speakers seem to find<br>
very hard to acquire). People tend to notice
morphological complexity<br>
because it's fairly visible, but there are many
other ways of being<br>
complex which aren't so obvious at first sight.<br>
<br>
Graham<br>
<br>
On 12/12/11 11:27, Grzegorz Chrupała wrote:<br>
> Dear Majid,<br>
><br>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 13:52, Majid
Laali<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
ymailto="mailto:mjlaali@gmail.com"
href="x-msg://365/mc/compose?to=mjlaali@gmail.com">mjlaali@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>> Dear Corpora List,<br>
>><br>
>> I am working on developing an
stemmer/lemmatization system for Persian.<br>
>> However, I am curious to know why some
languages like Persian, Turkish,<br>
>> Chinese have complex morphology system,
meanwhile other languages like<br>
>> English have much more simpler
morphology system.<br>
><br>
> Actually Chinese has virtually no
morphology. Persian morphology is<br>
> also relatively simple compared to many
other languages (e.g. Slavic).<br>
><br>
>> In other hand, is there<br>
>> any criteria caused such difference
like their historical change, their<br>
>> lexicon properties, or their type
(Indo-European, or more specific type like<br>
>> Romance)?<br>
>><br>
><br>
> There is usually a trade-off between
complexity in the morphology and<br>
> complexity in the syntax. Regarding
historical origins, one factor<br>
> causing a simplification of morphology
seems to be creolization. But<br>
> of course it is only one of many factors.<br>
><br>
> Best,<br>
> --<br>
> Grzegorz<br>
><br>
>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Mike Scott
***
If you publish research which uses WordSmith, do let me know so I can include it at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/corpus_linguistics_links/papers_using_wordsmith.htm">http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/corpus_linguistics_links/papers_using_wordsmith.htm</a>
***
Aston University and Lexical Analysis Software Ltd.
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mike@lexically.net">mike@lexically.net</a>
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