A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

94 complete assimilation
complete assimilation
see assimilation
complete feedback
see feedback
complex (adj.)
see complexity
*complex (adj.) In optimality theory, a constraint which penalizes syllables
which have more than a single consonant at an edge. The use of
the asterisk reflects a negative emphasis: complex onsets and codas are not
acceptable.
complexity (n.) The general sense of this term is found in linguistics, with
reference to both the formal internal structuring of linguistic units and the
psychological difficulty in using or learning them. The factors which contribute
to the notion of complexity are a major topic in psycholinguistics, in studies
of both adult comprehension and production, and of child language acquisition.
A central theme is the nature of the interaction between levels of difficulty
in cognitive and linguistic structures, and especially the way this affects
the order of emergence of language patterns in children. However, it has not
yet proved feasible to establish independent measures of complexity defined in
purely linguistic terms, such as the number of transformations in a sentence
derivation (see derivational theory of complexity), or the number of
features in the specification of a linguistic unit (see simplicity), largely because
of controversy over the nature of the linguistic measures used, and the interference
stemming from other psychological factors, such as the language user’s
attention and motivation.
Several restricted senses of complex are also used (mostly contrasting with the
term ‘simple’), e.g. ‘complex sentence’ (in two senses: either a sentence consisting
of more than one clause, or one consisting of a main clause and at least
one subordinate clause), ‘complex preposition’ (a preposition consisting of
more than one word), ‘complex word’ (one containing a free morpheme and at
least one bound morpheme), ‘complex tone’ (an intonational nucleus with
two distinct pitch movements), ‘complex stop’ (a plosive with two points of
articulation), ‘complex nucleus’ (a syllabic peak with two distinct vowel
qualities), ‘complex segment’ (a segment with two or more simultaneous oral
tract constrictions, in some models of feature theory), and so on. In generative
grammar, a ‘complex NP’ is a noun phrase with a clause as a
complement (e.g. the assumption that the engine is working) or adjunct (e.g.
the assumption that he made). The ‘complex NP constraint’ in classical transformational
grammar states that no element can be extracted out of a complex
NP (e.g. *Who did you make the assumption that he liked?) – in other words,
such constructions are syntactic islands.
complex NP constraint
see complexity
complex preposition In grammar, a term sometimes used for a multi-word
construction consisting of a noun or noun phrase both preceded and followed
by a single preposition, as in on account of and in accordance with. The term