Sociological Linguistics

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>As just the simplest example, a language which is unable to designate the
>plural form of a noun, is bound to introduce an *ambiguity* into a statement
>that a language which can does not exhibit.

A language which is unable to designate the plural form of a noun (*unable*
!) would be a language without numerals, and without a word for "many"
othl. I strongly doubt that a lg. like this could still be called a natural
language, iow. I doubt the existence of such a thing. Please, correct me.

But, seriously, there is of course sense in talking about a plural like
"dogs" being simpler and producable with less effort than, say, "many dog"
or "three (= many) dog". Othoh, "sheep", "brethren", "l'udi", and "d'on"
aren't. Talking about an overall tendency of increasing complexity in
language change makes thus less sense to me. We could go on and exchange
endless lists of documented changes in languages increasing systemic
complexity, followed by an equally long list showing simplifications (and
all this without a proper definition of complexity/simplicity in hand).
Should we ?

Stefan Georg
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