LINGUISTIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND APPROACHES

Abstract

The principle of economy in linguistics posits that language systems and users tend toward minimizing effort while preserving effective communication. This article provides a comprehensive theoretical overview of this principle, tracing its foundations in linguistic thought and examining its manifestations across phonetic, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and pragmatic levels. We review key theoretical perspectives – from functional views (e.g. André Martinet’s balance of clarity and effort) to generative grammar (economy conditions in the Minimalist Program) and pragmatics (Grice’s maxims of brevity and relevance). We then present a comparative analysis of how economy operates in English and Uzbek, two typologically different languages. Despite structural differences, both languages exhibit economical strategies such as sound reduction, morphological simplification, syntactic ellipsis, and pragmatic implicature. Examples from English and Uzbek illustrate similarities (e.g. omission of redundant elements) and differences (e.g. inflection vs. word-order economy). The analysis highlights that the drive for maximal communicative efficiency with minimal effort is a universal tendency, though realized through language-specific means. The article concludes that the economy principle is a unifying concept in linguistics, linking diverse theories and explaining parallel developments in distinct languages.