The complexity trade-off between morphological richness and word order freedom in Romance languages: A quantitative perspective

Abstract The complexity trade-off hypothesis suggests a balance between different linguistic features across human languages. This study investigates this hypothesis by quantitatively examining the evolution from Latin to Modern Romance languages. We focus on the trade-off between morphological richness and word order freedom, providing insights into their dynamic interrelations during linguistic evolution. Our analysis demonstrates that morphological richness and word order freedom are distributed along a continuum, with Latin exhibiting higher morphological complexity and freer word order and Modern Romance languages having lower morphological richness and more rigid word order. This evolution reflects the principles of efficiency in complex adaptive systems, showing a significant complexity trade-off where increases in one feature often result in decreases in the other. These findings indicate the adaptive nature of linguistic systems and offer valuable insights for diachronic typological research, enhancing our understanding of the complexity trade-off from a quantitative perspective.