The Indispensable Complexity (When Harder is Easier). Lexical and Grammatical Expansion in three Italian L1 Learners

COMPLEXITY has become a key notion in EMERGENTIST approaches to language and cognitive development (MacWhinney 1999), namely, the approaches adhering to a functionalist, anti-modular and anti-innatist paradigm. In this context, “complexity” must be clearly stripped of any prima facie negative connotation: being “complex” is not necessarily the same as being “complicated or difficult” (Merlini Barbaresi 2003). Rather, it should be interpreted within terms of dynamic systems theory, as a way to characterize the particular level of language organization and its specific dynamics. Indeed, an important hallmark of language as a complex system is the deep interplay between lexical and grammatical development, which gives rise to various types of nonlinear dynamics in language ontogenesis. The role of complexity in language acquisition can also be clearly observed in the formation of the actionality-temporality-aspect-mood (ATAM) system, where grammar and lexicon development, cognitive maturation and language acquisition appear to be deeply intertwined