Complexity trade-offs and equi-complexity in natural languages: a meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: In linguistics, there is little consensus on how to define, measure, and compare complexity across languages. We propose to take the diversity of viewpoints as a given, and to capture the complexity of a language by a vector of measurements, rather than a single value. We then assess the statistical support for two controversial hypotheses: the trade-off hypothesis and the equi-complexity hypothesis. We furnish meta-analyses of 28 complexity metrics applied to texts written in overall 80 typologically diverse languages. The trade-off hypothesis is partially supported, in the sense that around one third of the significant correlations between measures are negative. The equi-complexity hypothesis, on the other hand, is largely confirmed. While we find evidence for complexity differences in t

SUBMITTER: Bentz C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10234276 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature