‘Simplification’ is very difficult to define, though each of us feels that he knows how to speak simply, and it may well be that most of Ferguson’s ‘foreigner talk’ rules would be regarded by their users as ‘simplification’. Even within one language community we have no overall measure of linguistic complexity, if for no other reason than that the choice of a different lexical item may simplify the lexicon but complicate the syntax (as in ‘which place’ for 'where').
- Le Page (1977), a pag.231