linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

, redundancy refers to

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

that is expressed more than once. Examples of redundancies include multiple

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting ...

features in morphology, multiple features distinguishing

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s in

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, or the use of multiple words to express a single idea in

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...

Grammar

Redundancy may occur at any level of

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

. Because of

– a requirement in many languages that the form of different words in a phrase or clause correspond with one another – the same semantic information may be expressed several times. In the Spanish phrase ''los árboles verdes'' ("the green trees"), for example, the

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: ...

''los'', the

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

''árboles'', and the

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...

''verdes'' are all

inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...

to show that the phrase is

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

. An English example would be: ''that man is a soldier'' versus ''those men are soldiers.'' In phonology, a

minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...

is a pair of words or phrases that differs by only one phoneme, the smallest distinctive unit of the sound system. Even so, phonemes may differ on several phonetic features. For example, the English phonemes and in the words ''pin'' and ''bin'' feature different voicing, aspiration, and muscular tension. Any one of these features is sufficient to differentiate from in English.

Generative grammar Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguisti ...

uses such redundancy to simplify the form of grammatical description. Any feature that can be predicted on the basis of other features (such as aspiration on the basis of voicing) need not be indicated in the grammatical rule. Features that are not redundant and therefore must be indicated by rule are called distinctive features. As with

in morphology, phonologically conditioned alternation, such as coarticulation and

assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture * Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs ** Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the prog ...

add redundancy on the phonological level. The redundancy of phonological rules may clarify some vagueness in spoken communication. According to psychologist Steven Pinker, "In the comprehension of speech, the redundancy conferred by phonological rules can compensate for some of the ambiguity of the sound wave. For example, a speaker may know that ''thisrip'' must be ''this rip'' and not ''the srip'' because in English the initial

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

''sr'' is illegal."

Redundancy versus repetition

Writing guides, especially for technical writing, usually advise to avoid redundancy, "especially the use of two expressions that mean the same thing. Such repetition works against readability and conciseness." Others make a distinction between redundancy and repetition:

Repetition, if used well, can be a good tool to use in your writing. It can add emphasis to what you are trying to say and strengthen a point. There are many types of useful repetition. Redundancy, on the other hand, cannot be a good thing. Redundancy happens when the repetition of a word or idea does not add anything to the previous usage; it just restates what has already been said, takes up space, and gets in the way without adding meaning.

Computer scientist Donald E. Knuth, author of highly acclaimed textbooks, recommends "to state things twice, in complementary ways, especially when giving a definition. This reinforces the reader’s understanding."Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts: "Mathematical Writing" (1987)
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References

{{Authority control Rhetoric Semantics Syntax

Grammar

Redundancy versus repetition

See also

References