When less is more

Abstract

The grammatical ambition to distinguish well-formed from ill-formed structures very often leads to more complicated analyses, which in turn can impede the use of analyses in further studies.  We argue thus that less ambitious and less complicated analyses can often provide more scientific insight. Two concrete cases are presented where less discriminating analyses enabled interesting investigations. In one case it was fortunate that the researchers could appeal an external, quantitative standard of quality to justify the simplification. At the risk of platitude, we conclude by confirming that the pursuit of simplicity shouldn’t be exaggerated.