Sætningskompleksitet i dansk

Abstract

This article gives an introduction to linguistic complexity and investigates the complexity of sentences in Danish from a diachronic perspective. By taking a recursion-based approach to the phenomenon, it can be shown that in the old part of the corpus (eighteenth/ nineteenth century) sentences are more complex than in the new part (twentieth/twentyfirst century). For instance, the older texts are found to contain more clauses per sentence, more clause complexes and more subordinate clauses of a higher degree of dependency than the contemporary texts. The observation that a similar development occurs in Swedish and German should be considered when trying to explain the process of complexity reduction.