Universal 1326:
- Original
- In every human language, redundancy, measured in phonological terms, hovers near 50%.
- Standardized
- In every human language, redundancy, measured in phonological terms, hovers near 50%.
- Keywords
- redundancy
- Domain
- phonology, morphology, syntax
- Type
- unconditional
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- unspecified
- Source
- Hockett 1963: 24
- Counterexamples
The notion is that if redundancy tends to increase much above this figure, communication becomes inefficient, and people speak faster or more sloppily, while decrease much below the figure leads to misunderstanding, and people slow down or articulate more clearly.