Measuring redundancy: the relation between concord and complexity

Abstract

Syntagmatic redundancy involves constructions in which a single meaning relates to more than one form in a clause or phrase. Redundancy has been claimed to facilitate language processing and acquisition, and to be a linguistic universal, because of these advantages. At the same time, the repeated expression of meaning has been argued to make languages more complex because of the violation of principles of economy and transparency. This paper first investigates the relation between redundancy and complexity by examining how redundancy scores on well-known metrics of complexity. This assessment shows that redundancy makes languages more complex according to metrics of objective complexity, while it has contradictory effects according to metrics of subjective complexity. To empirically test whether redundancy makes acquisition and processing easier or harder, a cross-linguistically valid way of measuring redundancy first needs to be established. The second part of the paper involves an attempt in this direction. It presents a typological study on cross-linguistic variation in four types of concord, showing that languages differ with respect to the number and types of redundancy constructions they allow. The ranking of the 50 sample languages as to their redundancy-based complexity serves as a testable hypothesis for acquisition and processing research.