Defining complexity: Historical reconstruction and Nyulnyulan subordination

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dc.citation.journalTitleRice Working Papers in Linguisticsen_US
dc.citation.volumeNumber1en_US
dc.contributor.authorBowern, Claireen_US
dc.contributor.orgLinguistics Departmenten_US
dc.date.accessioned2009-02-11T22:40:05Zen_US
dc.date.available2009-02-11T22:40:05Zen_US
dc.date.issued2009-02-11en_US
dc.description.abstractI use data from subordination strategies in Nyulnyulan languages (Non-Pama-Nyungan, Northern Australia) in order to investigate various alternative means of defining and quantifying 'complexity'. While Edmonds (1999) defines 48 distinct types of complexity (concentrating on social and natural sciences), in this paper I concentrate on three facets of complexity: descriptive complexity, ontological complexity, and parsimony in reconstruction. While historical linguists tend to maximise parsimony, in Nyulnyulan languages the minimization of one aspect of complexity necessarily adds complication elsewhere, and it therefore serves as an appropriate case study of the interdependencies between ontology, syntactic modelling, and language change.en_US
dc.identifier.citationBowern, Claire. "Defining complexity: Historical reconstruction and Nyulnyulan subordination." <i>Rice Working Papers in Linguistics,</i> 1, (2009) Rice University: <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/21848">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/21848</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/21848en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherRice Universityen_US
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licenseen_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/en_US
dc.subject.keywordlinguisticsen_US
dc.subject.keywordlanguageen_US
dc.subject.keywordcomplexityen_US
dc.subject.keywordsubordinationen_US
dc.subject.keywordNyulnyulanen_US
dc.subject.keyworddiachronyen_US
dc.subject.keywordlanguage changeen_US
dc.titleDefining complexity: Historical reconstruction and Nyulnyulan subordinationen_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.type.dcmiTexten_US
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