grammaticalization and complexity

[A. Katz]

Fritz,

In that case, it seems you are looking for an increase in irregularity, 
which would be a decrease in rule-based phenomena. So by complexity, you 
mean more things to memorize, fewer things to decode?

   --Aya


On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Frederick J Newmeyer wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Thanks so much for your replies! As some of them have indicated, I probably 
> did not give the ideal example to illustrate what I am after. One category 
> splitting into two (the example I gave) increases complexity in one way (a 
> bigger inventory of categories results), but perhaps not in other ways, 
> particularly if the new category encodes a coherent semantic class.
>
> Here's a better example of what I am looking for. A case where the result of 
> grammaticalization is more irregularity and idiosyncracy. As a hypothetical 
> example, say we have one or more verbs or nouns grammaticalizing into 
> prepositions (or whatever), where the resultant prepositions (or whatever) 
> are irregular in some way with respect to other  pre-existing members of that 
> class.
>
> --fritz
>
>
> Frederick J. Newmeyer
> Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
> Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University
> [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail]
>
> On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Frederick J Newmeyer wrote:
>
>> Funknetters,
>> 
>> I am looking for nice examples of where a grammaticalization-related 
>> change, however motivated it might be from the point of view of the 
>> language user, ends up increasing the overall complexity of the resultant 
>> grammatical system. One example that came to mind is the formation of the 
>> distinct grammatical category of Modal Auxilary in English out of a 
>> subclass of verbs. One might argue that English grammar is now more complex 
>> because there are two categories rather than one and each have very 
>> distinct properties. Can anybody think of other/better examples from other 
>> languages?
>> 
>> Thanks! I'll summarize if there is any interest.
>> 
>> --fritz
>> 
>> 
>> Frederick J. Newmeyer
>> Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
>> Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser 
>> University
>> [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail]
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>