Comparing explanations for the Complexity Principle: evidence from argument realization

Abstract

The likelihood with which language users insert optional words or morphemes that explicitly mark syntactic structure tends to increase in complex grammatical environments. This positive correlation between explicitness and complexity, best known as the Complexity Principle, has been observed for a multitude of case studies in both naturally occurring language and experimental settings. Researchers have sought the explanation for this Complexity Principle in three different domains: cognitive comprehension processing, the language channel, and cognitive production processing. Based on these accounts, we formulate predictions regarding the action radius of the Complexity Principle in the alternation between a direct and prepositional object of the Dutch verb zoeken ‘search’. These predictions are tested against corpus observations. Our results confirm accounts according to which optional elements indicate production difficulties, as well as those that explain the Principle as a result of restrictions on the language channel. In addition, our results indicate that the Principle is sensitive to context-determined restrictions that are the result of its underlying cause. This may present a possible caveat for alternation studies.

Revisiting the Uniform Information Density Hypothesis

“…To fully grasp the effects of the distribution of information in linguistic signals on language comprehension, spoken language data should be similarly analyzed. Of course, different factors are likely at play in language comprehension in the spoken domain, including e.g., the cognitive load of the speaker (Pijpops et al, 2018); such factors may make it even more difficult to disentangle the contribution of different effects to comprehension. We leave this analysis for future work.…”

Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation

“…Rosemeyer and Van de Velde 2020). A final, but equally important point which would deserve more in-depth attention concerns the question to what extent disambiguation as discussed int h i sp a p e rp l a y so u ti nt h ed o m a i no f cognitive production processing or cognitive comprehension processing: while the present account has takenat least implicitlya more listener-centric perspective in assuming ambiguity resolution by prepositional marking to be driven by issues in comprehension processing, Pijpops et al (2018) have, for example, shown that explicit PP-marking of objects in transitive clauses is more consistent with complexity management in language production (cf. also e.g., Grondelaers et al 2009).…”

How do translators select among competing (near-)synonyms in translation?

“…The first explanatory principle is commonly referred to as the complexity principle, which states that "in the case of more or less explicit grammatical options, the more explicit one(s) will tend to be favoured in cognitively more complex environments" (Rohdenburg 1996, 151), as more explicit expressions are easier to process. The complexity principle has been empirically verified in corpus-linguistic and psycholinguistic studies, for written and spoken language, and for translated and non-translated language (see Rohdenburg 1996Rohdenburg , 2016Ferreira and Dell 2000;Kruger 2019;Seeber 2013;Kruger and De Sutter 2018;Pijpops et al 2018).…”