economy (n.)

A criterion in LINGUISTICS which requires that, other things being equal, an analysis should aim to be as short and use as few terms as possible. It is a measure which permits one to quantify the number of FORMAL constructs (symbols, RULES, etc.) used in arriving at a solution to a problem, and has been used, explicitly or implicitly, in most areas of linguistic investigation. This application of Occam’s razor (‘entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity’) was a major feature of the proposals for evaluating analyses made by early GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. In generative PHONOLOGY it has been claimed that the preferred analysis is one which is overall the more economical, i.e. it uses fewer FEATURES and RULES. On the other hand, it has been argued that it will not always be the case that the simpler solution, in this quantitative sense, will be the intuitively more ACCEPTABLE one, or the one which allows the most informative LINGUISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT GENERALIZATIONS to be made. In the MINIMALIST PROGRAMME, several economy principles are introduced as a means of evaluating DERIVATIONS. These principles, such as LAST RESORT, LEAST EFFORT, and SHORTEST MOVE, compare derivations involving the same lexical resources, and discard all but the most economical derivations.

Linguistic economy is a difficult criterion to work with: simplification made in one part of an analysis may cause difficulties elsewhere. And, until a total description is made, any suggestions concerning economy are necessarily tentative. But generative theory argues that this notion is of major theoretical importance, and several attempts have been made to provide a formal account of what is involved in it, as in the notion of a SIMPLICITY METRIC.

A simple example of relative economy of statement can be found in the opening rules of a generative grammar, if one were to make these apply in a linear order:

A reason for this particular ordering becomes clear when one considers what would have happened had rule (3) been used before rule (2): the NP in rule (3) would then REWRITE that introduced in rule (1), and the NP in rule (2) would still need to be expanded, thus requiring an additional rule (4), as follows (with subscripts added, for clarity):

The first ordering would thus seem to be superior, in terms of economy.