The worlds simplest grammars are creole grammars

It is often stated that all languages are equal in terms of complexity. This paper introduces a metric of complexity, determined by degree of overt signalling of various phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic distinctions beyond communicative necessity. By this metric, a subset of creole languages display less overall grammatical complexity than older languages, by virtue of the fact that they were born as pidgins, and thus stripped of almost all features unnecessary to communication, and since then have not existed as natural languages for a long enough time for diachronic drift to create the weight of “ornament” that encrusts older languages. It is demonstrated that this complexity differential remains robust even when creoles are compared with older languages lacking inflection, contra claims by theoretical syntacticians that the typology of creoles is largely a manifestation of parameter settings resulting from low inflection. The overall aim is to bolster a general paradigm arguing that creole languages are delineable synchronically as well as sociohistorically.

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