Re: [tied] Re: IE & linguistic complexity

I am surprised that no one has questioned the assumptions behind the
original article of this thread.

Firstly it is too bald to say that all IE languages have simplified. In
all of them there was a greater or lesser process of restructuring, which
could introduce new complexities at the same time as it removed others. For
example, the four conjugations of Latin, with numerous "irregular" verbs,
could be counted as more complex than the system we reconstruct for PIE.
Likewise Greek has introduced a future, a future passive, and an aorist
passive, and Slavic has rebuilt entirely its aspect system. A general
impression of simplification should not be turned into a unvarying one-way
rule.

Secondly, the timing is crazy. OCS (from about 800 AD) is hardly in the
same time zone as Greek or Sanskrit, so it's a little irresponsible to treat
it as if it were. Likewise a process of simplification which occurs from
attested languages (call it 500 BC onwards, or in the case of OCS 800 AD
onwards) cannot be projected back another 2000 years as if it were a fact.
It needs evidence and proof.

Thirdly, the assumption that close contact with non-native speakers will
erode complexity is nothing more than an assumption. It also needs proving,
and I suspect it will be very hard to prove, because what is perceived as
complex by speakers of one language system is felt to be easy by speakers of
another. The overt morphology of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit is in many ways
easier than the hidden grammar rules of modern English. What we think of as
"complicated" may not have been perceived as complicated at all 4000 or 5000
years ago.

Peter