Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency ed. John A. Hawkins

Abstract

Reviewed by: Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency ed. John A. Hawkins Mohammad Rasekh-Mahnad Hawkins, John A. 2014. Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv + 271. UK £29.99 (softcover). The main goal of Hawkins in Cross-linguistic Variation and Efficiency, as in his Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars (2004), is to show that language usage shapes grammars. In his research program, Hawkins provides evidence from different languages to demonstrate that many typological patterns and language universals are rooted in language performance and gives evidence of the deep role performance plays in shaping grammars. He argues that performance and grammatical preferences are governed by principles of efficiency and complexity. To this end, the author reports his empirical findings regarding the cross-linguistic variation of syntactic structures (e.g., relative clauses, noun phrases). These findings stem from the integration of the study of generative linguistic rules, typological generalizations, language processing models developed in psycholinguistic studies, and experimental and empirical data collected by various linguists (Greenberg 1963, Dryer 1992, Haspelmath 1999, Comrie 1989). The first chapter “Language variation and the Performance-Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis”, introduces Hawkins’ Performance-Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis, previously introduced in his other works (1994, 2004), which states that “Grammars have conventionalized syntactic structures in proportion to their degree of preference in performance, as evidenced by patterns of selection in corpora and by ease of processing in psycholinguistic experiments” (p. 3). In the rest of this book, Hawkins provides empirical evidence and corpus-based data to support this hypothesis with the goal of convincing linguists that they need to incorporate this generalization into their theories of grammatical universals. The second chapter, “Three general efficiency principles”, begins with the summary of said principles, already proposed in Hawkins (2004). The “Minimize Domains” principle predicts that the human language processor prefers the smallest possible syntactic domains in which to evaluate a given grammatical relation. The “Minimize Forms” principle puts forth that minimizing the formal complexity of each linguistic form is preferred. Finally, “Maximize Online Processing” is a preference for selecting and arranging linguistic forms so as to provide the earliest possible access to as much of the ultimate syntactic and semantic representation as possible. Hawkins then discusses the relationship between complexity and efficiency, [End Page 221] emphasizing that if a message is delivered rapidly and with the least processing effort then that communication is deemed effective. The last section of this chapter provides some examples of syntactic alternations from different grammatical phenomena such as extraposition, head-complement ordering, and complex inflectional markings and functional categories, which are argued to support the idea that Hawkins’ efficiency principles cooperate and compete to make the grammar more efficient. In the third chapter, “Some current issues in language processing and the performance-grammar relationship”, Hawkins focuses on performance and provides a summary of some current related methodological and theoretical issues in psycholinguistics. He discusses ease of processing in relation to efficiency, emphasizing that the current literature on working memory simply says “that processing becomes harder, the more items are held and operated on simultaneously when reaching any one parsing decision” (p. 47). Hawkins also examines whether his efficiency principles are implemented from only the hearer’s perspective, or could also play a role in a speaker’s performance. The advantages and disadvantages of different methods of data collection used; online, acceptability, and corpus data, are also addressed. Hawkins then shows how grammatical facts could be accounted for by psycholinguistic model-building, noting that there is a correspondence between performance data and grammars. The final section of this chapter is a discussion of the incorporation of efficiency principles into Chomsky’s minimalist program (Chomsky 1995). The fourth chapter, “The conventionalization of processing efficiency”, focuses on how forms and rules of grammars are fixed or conventionalized “in favor of one or other performance alternative, in ways that reflect efficient processing” (p. 73). The author endeavours to show how grammaticalization and processing are related using data from constructions such as definiteness marking, sentential subject extraposition and heavy NP shift. He concludes that these phenomena are difficult to explain in purely grammatical terms and that they are better explained in terms of efficiency; “grammars appear to have...