Complexity, causality, change: Testing extra-linguistic triggers as causal mechanisms (CoCa)

Project summary:

CoCa explores the link between language complexity, sociolinguistic typology and language evolution with a focus on morphosyntactic variation in English. Specifically, the project puts the spotlight on the joint impact of various extra-linguistic triggers (such as proportion of non-native speakers, population size and network density) and their causal relationship with observed variation in language complexity. 

Currently, little is known about how such extra-linguistic triggers conspire to engender variation, and whether they are causally related to language complexity. Previous research has proposed many extra-linguistic triggers to explain variation in language complexity but has largely shied away from addressing causation. Yet, questions like “Does language contact affect language complexity?” have an inherently causal aspect. CoCa explicitly acknowledges this causal aspect by assuming that the various extra-linguistic triggers which have been proposed to influence language complexity are causally related to variation in language complexity. In this vein, the project utilises multivariate analysis techniques to model the joint impact of extra-linguistic triggers on individual morphosyntactic features, and combines them with artificial intelligence in the form of agent-based language games to test these extra-linguistic triggers as causal mechanisms for language complexity.

Finding evidence for a causal link between extra-linguistic triggers and language complexity will advance the state-of-the-art and theorising about the usage-based nature of language, in general, and about language complexity and evolution, in particular. Ultimately, understanding variation in language complexity will contribute to our understanding of what is universal in language.

The major objectives of the project are:

(1) to model the joint impact of extra-linguistic triggers on individual morphosyntactic features,

(2) and to test these extra-linguistic triggers as causal mechanisms for language complexity.

Funding:

• Baden-Württemberg Stiftung "Postdoctoral fellowship for leading early career researchers"