Abstract
Syntagmatic redundancy involves the multiple expressions of a single meaning within a phrase or clause. It is often claimed to be a linguistic universal that serves to facilitate expressivity, processing, and learnability. However, there is little empirical evidence supporting this theory. This paper combines a typological study of concord, a form of syntagmatic redundancy in which a lexical and a grammatical item with overlapping meanings are expressed in the same phrase or clause, with a functional analysis of concord. The purpose of the study was to find out if redundancy is indeed universal or whether there are cross-linguistic restrictions. The goal of the functional analysis was to provide better understanding of what motivates different forms of redundancy. Reference grammars of a 50-language variety sample were analyzed for the existence and communicative functions of four types of concord. The results show that argument concord and temporal concord are nearly universal, whereas only a subset of languages allow for negative concord and plural concord. Two functional principles are shown to motivate concord: the need to be precise, and the need to emphasize crucial information. These principles lead to distinct types of redundancy: The need to be precise results in accidental redundancy in the case of an obligatory grammatical marker, whereas the need to emphasize information invokes purposeful redundancy. The two types of redundancy are shown to be fundamentally distinct in their communicative nature as well as their characteristic diachronic development.
Highlights
A common phenomenon in everyday speech is the repetition of information: Language users may express a single piece of information multiple times within the same phrase or clause
How can we explain that all languages in the sample allow for argument concord and temporal concord, whereas only 88% of the languages allow for negative concord and 41% for plural concord? Why would a grammar allow for multiple expressions of a single meaning in one place, yet restrict it in another? Is this in any way related to the different semantic and pragmatic communicative effects that the various types of concord have been shown to exhibit?
Whereas argument concord and temporal concord were attested in all sampled languages, negative concord was attested in 88% of the languages and plural concord in 41%
Summary
A common phenomenon in everyday speech is the repetition of information: Language users may express a single piece of information multiple times within the same phrase or clause. Many linguists believe the non-transparency of redundancy decreases learnability (SLOBIN, 1973; AKSU-KOÇ; SLOBIN, 1985; HENGEVELD; LEUFKENS, 2018), which leads to the question of whether syntagmatic redundancy is advantageous or disadvantageous to the language learner This functional analysis leads to the evaluation of claims regarding the supposed functions that redundancy fulfills and provides a better understanding of the competing motivations behind redundancy in different languages In this way, I demonstrate that a functionalist analysis is able to account for the ubiquity of syntagmatic redundancy, as well as for the variation in types of redundancy present in the languages of the world.
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