How complex are isolating languages?

Gil, David

doi:10.1075/slcs.94.08gil

In:Language Complexity: Typology, contact, change
Edited by Matti Miestamo, Kaius Sinnemäki and Fred Karlsson
[Studies in Language Companion Series 94] 2008
► pp. 109–131

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How complex are isolating languages?

David Gil

Published online: 6 February 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.94.08gil

How complex are isolating languages? The Compensation Hypothesis suggests that isolating languages make up for simpler morphology with greater complexity in other domains, such as syntax and semantics. This paper provides detailed argumentation against the Compensation Hypothesis. A cross-linguistic experiment measuring the complexity of compositional semantics shows that isolating languages rely more heavily on simple Associational Semantics, in which the interpretation of a combined expression is maximally vague or underdifferentiated, anything having to do with the interpretations of the constituent parts. In addition, it is argued that such vagueness is not necessarily resolved via recourse to context and a more complex pragmatics. Thus, it is concluded that isolating languages may indeed be of greater overall simplicity that their non-isolating counterparts.

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