Communicative efficiency : language structure and use / Natalia Levshina.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Levshina, Natalia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pragmatics.

Communication.

Economy (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 291 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

All living beings try to save effort, and humans are no exception. This groundbreaking book shows how we save time and energy during communication by unconsciously making efficient choices in grammar, lexicon and phonology. It presents a new theory of 'communicative efficiency', the idea that language is designed to be as efficient as possible, as a system of communication. The new framework accounts for the diverse manifestations of communicative efficiency across a typologically broad range of languages, using various corpus-based and statistical approaches to explain speakers' bias towards efficiency. The author's unique interdisciplinary expertise allows her to provide rich evidence from a broad range of language sciences. She integrates diverse insights from over a hundred years of research into this comprehensible new theory, which she presents step-by-step in clear and accessible language. It is essential reading for language scientists, cognitive scientists and anyone interested in language use and communication.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Part I Different Types of Efficiency in Language

1 Communicative Efficiency: Main Concepts

1.1 What Is Communicative Efficiency?

1.2 Benefits and Costs in Communication

1.2.1 Types of Benefits

1.2.2 Types of Costs

1.2.3 Cooperation or Selfish Behaviour?

1.3 How to Be Efficient?

1.4 Three Principles of Efficient Communication

1.4.1 The Principle of Positive Correlation between Benefits and Costs

1.4.2 The Principle of Negative Correlation between Accessibility and Costs

1.4.3 The Principle of Maximization of Accessibility

1.5 'Good-Enough' Efficiency

1.6 Conclusions

2 Efficiency and Formal Length

2.1 Efficient Length Asymmetries

2.2 Accessibility of Referents and Length of Referential Expressions and Markers

2.2.1 Efficient Use of Referential Expressions: Hierarchy of Explicitness

2.2.2 Dependent Forms of Arguments

2.2.3 Expression of Coreferential Objects

2.3 Grammatical Coding Asymmetries and Splits

2.3.1 Global Markedness

2.3.2 Local Markedness

2.3.3 Coding Splits

2.4 The Use and Omission of Clause Connectors

2.4.1 Omission of Adverbial Clause Connectors

2.4.2 Omission of Complementizers and Relativizers

2.4.3 Resumptive Pronouns

2.5 Same-Subject and Different-Subject Constructions

2.6 Zipf's Law of Abbreviation

2.7 Phonetic Reduction and Enhancement

2.8 Conclusions

3 Efficiency and the Order of Meaningful Elements

3.1 Efficient Order

3.2 Factors Determining Efficiency of Order

3.2.1 Minimization of Memory and Surprisal Costs

3.2.2 Producing Accessible Elements First

3.2.3 Avoidance of Reanalysis

3.2.4 Diagrammatic Iconicity of Order.

3.2.5 Uniform Information Density

3.3 Cross-Linguistic Manifestations of Efficient Order

3.3.1 Minimization of Dependency Distances and Domains

3.3.2 Preferred Order of Elements within a Nominal Phrase

3.3.3 Cross-Linguistic Regularities in the Order of Morphemes

3.3.4 Subject-First Dominance

3.3.5 Continuous Constituents and Rarity of Crossing Dependencies

3.3.6 Greenbergian Word Order Correlations and Implications

3.4 Star Wars and Violations of Conventional Word Order

3.5 Conclusions

4 Other Ways of Saving Effort

4.1 Efficiency Beyond Coding Length and Word Order

4.2 Preference for Accessible Units and Interpretations

4.3 Analytic Support

4.4 Horror Aequi, or Avoidance of Identity

4.5 Entry Place for New Referents

4.6 Conclusions

Part II Efficiency and Language Evolution

5 Emergence of Efficient Language Patterns

5.1 Changes Leading to Efficient Patterns

5.2 Efficiency-Driven Formal Reduction

5.3 Efficiency-Driven Formal Enhancement

5.3.1 Reflexive Pronouns

5.3.2 Tense and Aspect

5.3.3 Alienable and Inalienable Possessive Constructions

5.3.4 Number Marking

5.4 Causal Models of Formal Reduction and Enhancement

5.4.1 A Pragmatic Model Based on the Principle of Negative Correlation between Accessibility and Costs

5.4.2 Zipf's Model of the Rational Artisan

5.4.3 A Usage-Based Model by Joan Bybee

5.4.4 Causal Models: A Conclusion

5.5 Suppletion, Compositionality and the Competition of Meanings for Forms

5.6 Word Order Optimization

5.7 A Note on Teleology

5.8 Conclusions

6 From Trade-Offs to Causal Networks

6.1 Trade-Offs in Linguistics

6.2 Problems with Trade-Offs

6.2.1 Looking for 'the Third Man': The Role of Context

6.2.2 Directionality of Relationships

6.2.3 Synergy Effects.

6.3 From the Trade-Off between Case Marking and Word Order to a Multivariate Causal Network

6.3.1 Research Questions

6.3.2 Types of Cues

6.3.3 Corpus Data

6.3.4 Correlational Analyses

6.3.5 A Causal Analysis

6.3.6 Interpretation of the Results

6.4 Conclusions

Part III Case Studies

7 Efficient Form-Meaning Mapping in Causative Constructions

7.1 The Causative Continuum

7.2 More than Just Direct and Indirect Causation

7.2.1 Causatives around the World

7.2.2 How Accessible Are Different Causative Meanings?

7.2.3 Taking a Multifactorial Approach: Evidence from a Parallel Corpus

7.3 Competition between Formal Parameters

7.4 Diachronic Evidence

7.5 An Artificial Language Learning Experiment

7.6 Conclusions

8 Differential Case Marking and Efficiency

8.1 Differential Case Marking

8.2 Cross-Linguistic Generalizations Related to Differential Case Marking

8.3 Explanations of Differential Case Marking

8.3.1 Disambiguation and Economy

8.3.2 Iconicity of Markedness and Economy

8.3.3 Indexing Function and High Transitivity

8.4 Reverse Engineering: Cross-Linguistic Generalizations and Corpus Data

8.4.1 A Reverse-Engineering Approach to Differential Case Marking

8.4.2 Recycling Old Data

8.4.3 Data from Informal Conversations

8.4.4 Summary of Findings

8.5 Development of Differential Case Marking

8.6 Experimental Evidence from Artificial Languages

8.7 Conclusions

9 Efficient Use of Function Words in English Alternations

9.1 Construction-Filler Predictability and Efficiency

9.2 Stay (at) Home, Save Lives!

9.3 Efficient Use of Help (to) Infinitive

9.4 Alternation Go (and) Verb

9.5 Conclusions

10 Conclusions and Perspectives

Appendices

Appendix 1: List of Languages in the Typological Sample Used in Chapter 7.

Appendix 2: Corpus Frequencies of Different A and P from Previous Studies Used in Chapter 8

References

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 07 Nov 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108898652

1108898653

9781108895811

1108895816

9781108887809

1108887805