Re: Structure and complexity

Wugi wrote: 

Mine inkling: would not the ancient complexity to a large extent be the
creation of the Intelligentsia? (Who, unlike nowadays, didn't have to waste
their time on levelling activities like TV or newsgroups, nor to be busy
maximising their publicated production:)


No. Or at least, not often.

The process you are describing seems to have happened to some degree with respect to some writing systems (I am thinking of Japan).

But for languages, while there are certainly varieties limited to certain castes or groups in many cultures, and there are more or less codified forms of language for literary purposes (Sanskrit is the most obvious), I don't think you'll find examples of codifiers inventing complexity.

Still, it would have to be an ongoing achievement through various stages of
the language, considering the similarities of conjugation and flection
between different ancient groups.
Indeed. There is no doubt that the inflectional systems of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Old Irish etc were inherited from a common ancestor, and there is no reason to suppose that this ancestor was anything other than an ordinary vernacular.

At the other end you'd have the user groups of daily speech who tend to
simplify the language, a process you see at work from Latin through vulgar
Latin to Romance languages... Another factor may well be modernism in all
its aspects (printing, mass production...), not available in ancient times.
While it's clear from Old Latin inscriptions that the Latin declensional system was a basic part of the language, I believe that even in Classical times the vernacular was tending to use prepositions in place of some of the cases.

Colin
.

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