Horror aequi

Horror aequi, also known as identity avoidance: 71  or avoidance of identity,: 100  is a linguistic principle that language users have psychological: 266  or physiological: 51  motives or limits on cognitive planning: 51  to avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures.

The term originated in 1909 in Karl Brugmann,: 219  who used it to explain dissimilation,: 266  the tendency for similar consonants or vowels in a word to become less similar,: 146  which can often be chalked up to simply "euphony".: 219  Today, however, the term is usually applied instead to grammatical elements or structures.: 219 

One of the most widely cited definitions: 39 : 71  is that of Günter Rohdenburg: "the horror aequi principle involves the widespread (and presumably universal) tendency to avoid the use of formally (near-)identical and (near-)adjacent (non-coordinate) grammatical elements or structures.": 205 

In the study of phonology, such avoidance falls under the obligatory contour principle,: 100  which holds that certain consecutive identical sounds are not permitted: 383–84  (such as in Mandarin Chinese, where two third tones are not used consecutively: 104 ).

The term horror aequi is sometimes extended to the stylistic preference to avoid repeating the same word in a given text, also known as elegant variation.

Horror aequi in English

One illustration of horror aequi in English is the use of and + verb rather than the typical to + verb following certain to-infinitive verbs such as wait, try and check in order to avoid repeating the to + verb pattern.: 236–42  Thus, speakers typically use:

But following a to-infinitive, speakers will often use and instead of to:: 236–42 

In addition to using and instead of to in order to avoid horror aequi, a strategy is to delay the second to + verb with intervening words.: 236  For example:

In some cases, the horror aequi principle is said to be responsible for stronger prescriptive rules, such as the ungrammatical use of verb + -ing followed by verb + -ing (gerund) where a to-infinitive in possible.: 39 

These pairs are grammatical:

However, when the first verb is in an -ing form, it is only grammatical to follow it with a to-infinitive. Thus, the latter of each pair is unacceptable:: 39 

Horror aequi does not influence verbs that may only be followed by an -ing verb.

Other examples clearly demonstrate how horror aequi helps prevent confusion. Sentences with repetitive words or forms can be nearly incomprehensible even when adhering to grammatical rules.: 101 

Confusion here comes from both the repeated embedded who relative clauses and from the lack of semantic variety. Merely adding semantic difference can add some clarity:: 101 

The horror aequi principle holds that both of these examples would be avoided.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ literally 'fear of the same': 51  or 'a dread of things that are equal' in Latin; cf. horror vacui

References

  1. 1 2 3 Baumann, Andreas; Mühlenbernd, Roland (2022). Ravignani, Andrea; et al. (eds.). "Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE)". The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE). Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS): 50–57. doi:10.17617/2.3398549. Archived from the original on 3 September 2023. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  2. ↑ Suzuki, Keiichiro (1998). A Typological Investigation of Dissimilation (Doctoral thesis). Tucson: University of Arizona. Open access icon
  3. 1 2 3 4 Levshina, Natalia (2022). Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108898652. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  4. 1 2 Malkiel, Yakov (1983) [1967]. "Multiple versus simple causation in linguistic change". From Particular to General Linguistics: Selected Essays, 1965-1978. Studies in Language Companion Series. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 251–268. ISBN 9789027230027. Archived from the original on 3 September 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 Berlage, Eva (2014). Noun Phrase Complexity in English. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107015128. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  6. ↑ Brugmann, Karl (1909). "Das Wesen der lautlichen Dissimilationen". Abhandlungen der Philologisch-Historischen Classe der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (in German). 27. Königlich Sächsische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften: 138–178. ISSN 2700-9505. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt (2006). Morphosyntactic Persistence in Spoken English: A Corpus Study at the Intersection of Variationist Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Discourse Analysis. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. Vol. 177. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110197808. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  8. ↑ Iyeiri, Yoko (2010). Verbs of Implicit Negation and Their Complements in the History of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 9789027211705. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Rohdenburg, Günter (2003). "Cognitive complexity and horror aequi as factors determining the use of interrogative clause linkers in English". In Rohdenburg, Günter; Mondorf, Britta (eds.). Determinants of Grammatical Variation in English. Topics in English Linguistics. Vol. 43. Series editors: Bernd Kortmann, Elizabeth Closs Traugott. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 205–249. ISBN 9783110176476.
  10. ↑ Leben, William R. (1973). Suprasegmental Phonology (PDF) (PhD thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 June 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  11. ↑ McCarthy, John J. (Summer 1981). "A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology". Linguistic Inquiry. 12 (3): 373–418. ISSN 0024-3892. JSTOR 4178229. Archived from the original on 11 March 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  12. ↑ Chen, Tsung-ying (June 2010). "Some Remarks on Contour Tone Units". Journal of East Asian Linguistics. 19 (2): 103–135. doi:10.1007/S10831-010-9057-9. ISSN 0925-8558. JSTOR 40928427. S2CID 120617163. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
  13. ↑ Sheldon, Neil (19 October 2021). "Horror aequi…". Statisticians React to the News. International Statistical Institute. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 25 July 2023. [Horror aequi…]…or fear of repeating a word is very common in the media. It's a journalistic compulsion that is detrimental to clear communication and understanding – but easy to avoid.