pitfalls of complexity

[Östen Dahl]

Hi Esa, on p. 7 of your paper you say:

"On p. 165 [of Dahl (2004)], zero is referred to as “the final output of
grammaticalization”, and on the continuum of Figure 2, zero indeed
represents the logical end point of maturation. But it certainly cannot be
said to represent the highest degree of complexity. In this sense, then,
maturity and complexity are not identical."

...but if you care to re-read the page you quote, you may realize that the
phrase you are quoting is actually found in the context of the notion of a
critique of the model of grammaticalization proposed in Lehmann (1985), and
in fact what you say goes in the same direction. But it also follows from my
argument that zero cannot represent the highest degree of maturation, since
it does not presuppose any prehistory.

I may have more comments at a later point, this was just something I noticed
when browsing the paper.

- Östen

References
Dahl, Östen. 2004. The growth and maintenance of linguistic complexity.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Lehmann, Christian. 1985. Grammaticalization: synchronic variation and
diachronic change. Lingua e Stile, 20.203-218.



> ================
> 
> 
> Esa Itkonen wrote:
> > Dear FUNKNETters: Nowadays complexity seems to be on almost everybody's
> agenda. But it is not a simple notion, as you can see if you just care to
> read the last addition to the list of "available as full texts" on my
> homepage (click below).
> > Esa
> >
> > Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen
> >
> >