CL² : Linguistic Complexity : Presentation

CL² : Linguistic Complexity

Presentation

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Team webmaster : François PELLEGRINO

CL²-SA1 : Acquisition, Structure and Evolution of Phonological Systems

CL²-SA2 : Cross-language integrative and cognitive study of language understanding

CL²-TT : Language and Complexity : Definitions and modelling

The human language capacity is based on cognitive abilities shared by all human beings but yet expressed in a wide diversity of languages. The cognitive organization –though constraining the shape of linguistic systems as a whole– still allows for several degrees of freedom regarding their components (phonology, morphology, etc.). It is thus possible to envisage human languages as complex adaptive systems exhibiting synchronic & diachronic dynamics. This project aims at developing in a coherent scheme considering an integrated view of language system associated with an internal study of each of its components, in the light of the science of complexity. This project has the ambition to lead to a better understanding of the interactions between language components and of the cognitive and physiological constraints shaping actual languages by answering the following questions: Is there any link between the complexity of a linguistic system and the complexity of cognitive processing? How difficulty of processing, complexity of description and cognitive complexity are articulated and/or interact? Are there minimal and maximal complexity constraints on linguistic systems? Is there any correlation or compensation between the complexities of components within a particular language? Is it possible to quantify the amount of information provided by each component of a given language? Can we characterize language acquisition profiles (possibly normal and pathological) in terms of acquisition of complexity?

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