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A Report on the Workshop on Complexity in Language: Developmental and

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  FORUM 

A Report on the Workshop on Complexity in

Language: Developmental and Evolutionary
Perspectives

Tao Gong & Christophe Coupé

1. Overview

Complexity can be viewed as “the property of a real world system that is

manifest in the inability of any one formalism being adequate to capture all its
properties” (Mikulecky 2001: 344). In the past few decades, this notion has raised
significant interest in many disciplines, from physics to biology, mathematics,
artificial intelligence, etc. (Waldrop 1992, Simon 1996, Dahl 2004, Gell-Mann 2005,
Hawkins 2005, Friederici et al. 2006, Risager 2006, Boogert et al. 2008, Larsen-
Freeman 2008, Liu 2008, Riecker et al. 2008, Lee et al. 2009, Faraclas & Klein 2009,
Givόόn 2009, Mitchell 2009, Pellegrino et al. 2009, Cyran 2010, Trudgill 2011, and
McWhorter 2011, among others); more recently, this cross-disciplinary endeavor
has reached linguistics, and scholars of various theoretical backgrounds have
been keen to test its relevance to language (e.g., Gibson 1988, Changizi & Shimojo
2005, Papagno & Cecchetto 2006, Lee et al. 2007, Suh et al. 2007, Miestamo et al.
2008, Givón & Shibatani 2009, Sampson et al. 2009). However, it is still unclear
what complexity actually means in linguistics, what yardstick can be used to
measure complexity, especially in comparing language varieties, and what con-
ceptions are relevant to accounts of structures and functions of languages.
For the purposes of fostering a dialog between scholars of diverse but
complementary backgrounds on these topics, Salikoko S. Mufwene, then a fellow
at the Collegium de Lyon, in collaboration with researchers at the Laboratoire
“Dynamique du Langage” at the Université de Lyon, convened a workshop on
Complexity in Language: Developmental and Evolutionary Perspectives on 23–24 May
2011. Participants included linguists, anthropologists, statistical physicists (mod-
eling communal aspects of language), computer scientists, and mathematicians.
Most of them agree on seeing language as a complex adaptive system as described
by Steels (2000) and Beckner et al. (2009). According to this view, a linguistic sys-
tem involves a number of interacting units and modules that generate structural
and interactional complexity on several levels. Meanwhile, these scholars, based
on their expertise, have distinct research foci on linguistic complexity. The
workshop consisted of 14 talks touching upon various topics related to linguistic
complexity, such as (i) where linguistic complexity lies, (ii) how it emerges and
evolves ontogenetically or phylogenetically, and (iii) how it is measured using

Biolinguistics 5.4: 370–380, 2011

ISSN 1450–3417 http://www.biolinguistics.eu
Biolinguistics  Forum  371

approaches adopted and adapted from disciplines other than linguistics. In this
review, we will go over these talks and present our opinions on future research
of linguistic complexity.

2. Describing Complexity in Linguistics

Among the participants, linguists presented their complementary theories of

linguistic complexity. The organizer of the workshop, Salikoko S. Mufwene
(University of Chicago & Collegium de Lyon), divided linguistic complexity into
(i) complexity within a communal language, which deals with the dynamics that
produce communal norms, (ii) bit complexity, which reflects the number of units
and rules in the lexicon, syntax, phonology, and other linguistic modules, and (iii)
interactional complexity, which refers to the interactions of units and rules within
their respective modules and of latter with one another. He pointed out that
language evolved as a communal technology for mapping conceptual structures
onto physical structures, and that all these forms of complexity emerged due to
ecological and social factors (Mufwene, in press), interaction constraints and self-
organization (Camazine et al. 2001).
William Croft (University of New Mexico) viewed linguistic complexity as
structural complexity existing in modern languages and evolutionary complexity
echoing the increasing structuration that led to modern languages. He claimed
that the selective pressure for structural complexity came from the necessity of
establishing common ground in joint actions (Bratman 1992, Tomasello et al.
2005), and that it was human social cognitive abilities that helped build up such
common ground. Based on the evidence from language acquisition and the
evolution of semasiographic systems such as images, notations and writing, he
summarized the key features of the evolution of social cognition in humans,
including gradualness, context-dependency and multimodality, which further
inspired some speculations on evolutionary complexity in language.
William S-Y. Wang (Chinese University of Hong Kong) argued that lang-
uage was a diffusive and heterogeneous system. Socio-cultural reasons drove the
evolution of linguistic complexity, and therefore measuring current linguistic
complexity, such as phonological complexity, could shed light on some age-old
controversies regarding past linguistic communities, such as whether language
origin was a monogenetic (Atkinson 2011) or polygenetic (Freedman & Wang
1996, Coupé & Hombert 2005). He also discussed one outcome of linguistic com-
plexification, namely lexical and construction ambiguities. He argued that cross-
language studies of these ambiguities could yield important insights into lingu-
istic and cognitive universals.
Barbara Davis (University of Texas at Austin & Collegium de Lyon) pro-
posed a biological-functional perspective to phonological acquisition, viewing the
acquisition of phonological complexity as a consequence of interactions of biolo-
gical and social components of language to achieve maximal functional efficiency
(Davis et al. 2002). She introduced frame-content theory (MacNeilage 1998), which
follows this perspective and aims to explain the acquisition of one type of phono-
logical complexity, namely the C(onsonant)V(owel) co-occurrence patterns in the
world’s languages. This theory is supported by the experimental results of
372 Biolinguistics  Forum 

English or Korean learning (Lee et al. 2010) infants, as well as the acquisition data
of other languages.
Albert Bastardas-i-Boada (University of Barcelona) generalized a philoso-
phical, holistic view of language contact. He conceived of an ecosystem of lang-
uage, including brain/mind, social interaction, group, economics, media, and
political factors. All these dynamic factors co-produced and co-determined the
forms, usage, and evolution of language.
Unlike linguists, the anthropologist Thomas Schoenemann (Indiana
University) focused on complexity in the physical substrate of language (the
human brains) and of human behaviors. He advocated the theory of language-
brain coevolution (Deacon 1997), and suggested that an increasing complexity of
hominin conceptual understanding led to an increasing need for syntax and
grammar to fulfill efficient communications (Schoenemann 1999). He argued that
concepts were based upon networks connecting different brain regions, and that
the size of those regions across species was proportional to the degree of
elaboration of the functions they underlie. In the past, the increase in brain size
was correlated with the increase in degree of specialization of parts of the brain
(Schoenemann 2006).
The genetic linguist Jean-Marie Hombert (University of Lyon 2) focused on
the relation between population size, social complexity and language dispersal.
Based on genetic and demographic data, he suggested that Pygmy hunter-
gatherers and Bantu-speaking farmers in Central Africa shared a common
ancestry (Quintana-Murci et al. 2008, Berniell-Lee et al. 2009). This case study
illustrated that population size and hierarchy could be two important factors
within linguistic communities that helped develop linguistic complexity.

3. Measuring Complexity in Linguistics

Apart from describing and circumscribing linguistic complexity, many talks tried
to propose general procedures or quantitative measures to evaluate different
aspects of linguistic complexity. Artificial intelligence expert Luc Steels
(University of Brussels & Sony CSL, Paris) presented a general procedure to
account for linguistic complexity. This procedure includes five steps: (i) describ-
ing a complex linguistic structure, (ii) identifying its function, (iii) reconstructing
processing and acquiring mechanisms for this structure, (iv) surveying its vari-
ations in languages, and (v) identifying its selective advantage. Such an approach
helped pinpoint the different factors that contributed to linguistic complexity. In
addition, Steels presented several simulation studies that explored the evolution
of complexity in semantics and syntax. These studies supported his recruitment
theory of language evolution (Steels 2009), stating that (i) strategies and structures
that could satisfy communicative needs, reduce cognitive efforts, and increase
social coherence could be adopted by language users and survive in languages,
and (ii) the emergence of linguistic complexity was a process of self-organization
of existing systems and of recruitment of new mechanisms in a cultural environ-
ment.
Statistical physicist Vittorio Loreto (Sapienza University of Rome & Insti-
tute for Scientific Interchange, Torino) pointed out that statistical physics served
Biolinguistics  Forum  373

as an efficient means to study linguistic dynamics and complexity (Loreto et al.

2011). Relying on language game simulations (Baronchelli et al. 2006, 2010,
Puglisi et al. 2008), he argued that this approach could help understand: (i) How
collective behaviors (e.g., common lexical items or linguistic categorization
patterns) originated in local interactions, (ii) what were the minimum require-
ments for a shared linguistic feature to emerge and diffuse, (iii) how to examine
asymptotic states in language evolution, and (iv) what roles population size and
topology played in language evolution.
Mathematician Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho (Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya) analyzed the effect of two quantifiable constraints on the word order
bias in languages, namely, the predictability of a sequence of words and the
amount of online memory for handling the head-modifier dependencies (Ferrer-
i-Cancho 2008). The results obtained from this mathematical analysis, and also
observed in simulation studies (e.g., Gong et al. 2009), illuminated empirical
findings (e.g., Dryer 2008) and inspired further discussions (e.g., Cysouw 2008).
Linguist Lucía Loureiro-Porto (University of Palma de Majorca), collabor-
ating with statistical physicist Maxi San Miguel and Xavier Castellόό, defined two
quantitative parameters, social prestige of different languages and individual
volatility (speakers’ willingness to shift their current language to another), to
examine the effect of social complexity on language competition. Using agent-
based modeling and two sets of abstract equations of language competition
(Abram & Strogatz 2003, Minett & Wang 2008), these scholars compared
language competition in different social networks, and observed that (i) volatility
was more powerful than prestige to cause language death and (ii) bilingualism
accelerated language death (Castelló et al. 2008).
Apart from artificial simulations, evolutionary linguist Bart de Boer
(University of Amsterdam) argued that the cultural learning paradigm (Galantucci
2005, Scott-Phillips & Kirby 2010) could help distinguish the effect of cultural
learning from the effect of cognitive biases on linguistic complexity. His case
experiment of whistle transmission in chains of human subjects revealed that the
emergence of complex combinatorial structures was mainly due to cultural
learning, with only limited influence from cognitive biases.
Psycholinguist Fermin Moscoso del Prado (University of Lyon 2) adopted
the general framework of information theory and applied Gell-Mann’s (1995)
notion of ‘effective complexity’ to language. Accordingly, the complexity of a
linguistic system could be reflected by the length of the most compact grammar
that describes the structural regularities of this system. He showed how to
mathematically apply this approach to large text corpora, and how different
linguistic components — lexicon, syntax, pragmatics or morphology — could be
evaluated independently. A comparison between English and Tok Pisin corpus
indicated that it was erroneous to claim that creole/pidgin grammars are simpler
(McWhorter 2001).
Linguists Christophe Coupé, Egidio Marsico, and François Pellegrino
(University of Lyon 2) concentrated on phonological systems and proposed a
quantitative approach to analyze their complexity. Based on a genetic linguistics
balanced dataset of 451 phonological inventories, namely the UPSID database
(Maddieson 1984, Maddieson & Precoda 1990), they measured the strength of
374 Biolinguistics  Forum 

interactions between phonemes, and suggested that the degree of complexity of

the inventories was actually quite low. An evolutionary model was then derived
from the synchronic data in an effort to further assess the extent to which the
structure of the inventories could be understood and predicted (Coupé et al.
2009).

4. Future Research of Complexity in Linguistics

The workshop gathered many state-of-the-art studies on linguistic complexity,

and offered opportunities for interested scholars to exchange ideas, methods, and
findings across research areas and disciplines. It provided several important
guidelines for the future research in linguistic complexity. First, complexity in
linguistics is manifest in many aspects, including not only linguistic structures,
but also population interactional dynamics, and cultural environments. As for
the linguistic structures, variation and diversity of languages provide a rich
repertoire of phenomena, which should be considered when we devise general
theories of structural complexity (Evans & Levinson 2009). To this end, the
typological database, namely the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS, see
http://wals.info), which records different types of structural variations across
many of the world’s languages, serves as an important resource for future
research.
As for the language users, neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic research,
which examines empirical bases of linguistic behaviors in the human brain and
traces individual differences in language acquisition and processing, will bear
significantly on the embodied aspects of linguistic complexity. Meanwhile, struc-
tural complexity reflects conceptual/cognitive complexity. Examining structural
complexity could help us better understand the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis (Sapir
1929, Whorf 1940) and discuss how linguistic structures and usage influence hu-
man thoughts and non-linguistic behaviors.
As for the cultural environment, research on language contact from histori-
cal linguistics, sociolinguistics, population-based studies (e.g., Mufwene 2001,
2006, Ansaldo 2009) as well as simulations (e.g., Steels 2000, Brighton et al. 2005,
Gong 2010) will yield useful insights on how interactions and cultural variations
affect linguistic complexity, and vice versa.
Regarding these various approaches, challenge remains to cross the gap
between quantitative approaches and wider and more conceptual notions, such
as bit complexity, evolutionary complexity, or structural complexity — to recall only a
few mentioned earlier. Quantitative approaches may provide figures, but these
figures sometimes fail to necessarily uncover the true mechanisms at hand.
Meanwhile, conceptual notions are instructive, but sometimes these notions suf-
fer from a lack of empirical studies to support them. Therefore, revisiting earlier
theories with the vocabulary and concepts of complexity theory is undoubtedly
useful to better frame intricate phenomena, and further articulation with smaller
scale aspects could be even more precious.
Second, a significant question concerning linguistic complexity that
requires further investigation is the degree to which all languages are equally
complex, or, whether there is compensation among linguistic components, say,
Biolinguistics  Forum  375

whether a language with a rich morphology tends to exhibit a simple phonology

or syntax. Such assumptions are found in most introductory textbooks to lingu-
istics, yet there are very few attempts to provide strong arguments for or against
them. A reason for this is the difficulty in coming with complexity measures that
can address the various linguistic components, such as lexicon, syntax, phon-
ology, morphology, and so on in an integrative manner. Most current studies are
usually confined to one of these domains, and need to be revised to reach
beyond. To this end, databases like WALS may once again come in handy, and
corpora or entropy based approaches or measures (such as Fermin Moscoso del
Prado’s) seem promising for the future research.
Third, unlike previous theories that relied upon biological evolution to
explain the origin of language and the evolution of linguistic universals (e.g.,
Pinker & Bloom 1990), modern theories pay great attention to cognitive abilities
in humans and cultural processes in which language is acquired and transmitted.
Language is inseparable from its socio-cultural environment and cultural evo-
lution is too rapid for biological evolution to fix adaptations to arbitrary features
of language (Christiansen & Chater 2008). Therefore, many universal properties
of language should be ascribed to general cognition and cultural evolution
(Evans & Levinson 2009, Dunn et al. 2011). The different angles adopted by many
talks in the workshop to describe and explain linguistic complexity — from joint
action, shared intentionality, brain-language co-evolution, individual processing
and memory constraints, to human migration, population size and hierarchy,
social networks and cultural learning — are actually falling into these two
perspectives. Incorporating these perspectives into linguistics will greatly change
the nature of this discipline (Levinson & Evans 2010).
Finally, it seems that no single discipline can alone account for all aspects of
linguistic complexity. On the one hand, although linguists can carefully record in
detail different types of variations in modern languages, powerful methods are
needed to bring light to the correlations hidden in surface structures, to notice the
selective pressures cast by other relevant factors, or to reconstruct the evolution-
ary trajectories leading to those variations.
On the other hand, although the research methods from other disciplines,
such as genetics, anthropology, statistical physics, mathematics, and computer
modeling, can quantitatively shed light on aspects of linguistic complexity, with-
out sufficient guidance from linguistics, studies adopting those methods may pay
unjustified attention to trivial factors or overlook more significant ones. For
example, Atkinson’s (2011) mathematical analysis based on the phonemic di-
versity in languages was questioned by some of the workshop attendees for dis-
regarding the influence of population size or language contact. Dunn et al.’s
(2011) approach to word-order typology, inspired by evolutionary biology, was
also criticized for ignoring the powerful effect of contact on typological change.
Therefore, questions concerning linguistic complexity have to be tackled
based on a multi-disciplinary approach, a prerequisite to making sense of seem-
ingly contrary positions, providing alternative perspectives, and ruling out solu-
tions plausible only in the framework of a single discipline. This approach could
offer the best prospect of arriving at an adequate and comprehensive under-
standing of linguistic complexity (Bickerton & Szathmáry 2009).
376 Biolinguistics  Forum 

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Tao Gong Christophe Coupé

University of Hong Kong CNRS & Université Lyon 2
Department of Linguistics Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage
Pokfulam Road ISH, 14 avenue Berthelot
Hong Kong Island 69007 Lyon
Hong Kong France
[email protected] [email protected]

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