Is language efficient or redundant? How language users distinguish the agent from the recipient in English and Dutch

peer reviewed ; Language is systemically redundant. That is, it often boasts several strategies to perform the same function (Van de Velde 2014). For instance, to form plurals, German may use an -e ending, as in Hund ~ Hunde ‘dog’, an -s ending, as in Hotel ~ Hotels ‘hotel’, an -en ending, as in Rechnung ~ Rechnungen ‘bill’ and so on. Similarly, to form the past tense, Dutch may use ablaut, as in bid ~ bad ‘pray’ or a -de suffix, as in graaf ~ graafde ‘digged’. However, such systemic redundancy does not entail syntagmatic redundancy. In other words, it is not necessarily the case that the vari... Mehr ...