Fwd: Complexity

[Angus B. Grieve-Smith]

This may have been addressed earlier in the discussion, but if so, I 
missed it.

As Givón and others have written in the past, written varieties of 
language provide more time for editing, which allows people to use and 
maintain more complex structures. A community of specialist scholars can 
enable even more elaborate structures to exist, and these are often 
attracted to liturgical and poetic languages. In contrast, spontaneous 
conversation allows almost no time for editing, and generally requires a 
minimum amount of content to be conveyed.

I would suggest we keep these factors in mind as possible motivators and 
enablers of complexity.

-- 
				-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
				Saint John's University
				grvsmth at panix.com