[Corpora-List] Why some languages has complex morphology meanwhile other not?

[Grzegorz Chrupała]

Dear Majid,

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 13:52, Majid Laali <mjlaali at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Corpora List,
>
> I am working on developing an stemmer/lemmatization system for Persian.
> However, I am curious to know why some languages like Persian, Turkish,
> Chinese have complex morphology system, meanwhile other languages like
> English have much more simpler morphology system.

Actually Chinese has virtually no morphology. Persian morphology is
also relatively simple compared to many other languages (e.g. Slavic).

> In other hand, is there
> any criteria caused such difference like their historical change, their
> lexicon properties, or their type (Indo-European, or more specific type like
> Romance)?
>

There is usually a trade-off between complexity in the morphology and
complexity in the syntax. Regarding historical origins, one factor
causing a simplification of morphology seems to be creolization. But
of course it is only one of many factors.

Best,
--
Grzegorz

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