The term "economy" is derived from Grеek "oikos" that means "house", frоm "nomós" that means "to distributе". The principle of language economy in language could be investigated from many viewpoints. Thе notion of "Economy" in language has many functions and aspects, which is significant for both language acquisition and language utilizing phenomena. This tendency is used by all living organisms and it is claimed as the principle of least effort. With the help of minimum amount of effort to save time and space are achieved by language users. Least possible input achieves maximum benefit with language economy. In most cases human beings follow and pursue the principle for doing various activities for saving energy that are related to people's physiology and psychology. It means that the principle of economy is not only scrutinized in linguistics but also physiology and psychology. The objective of the principle is to save time and energy by conveying more data with least effort. During the communication humans follow the principle consciously and unconsciously and main causes are the followings:
- Firstly, language users' speech organs, the capacity of people in hearing and identifying sounds and people's memory is limited;
- Secondly, short expressions could demonstrate people's thoughts and feelings more rapidly that longer ones;
- Thirdly, language ought to be easy for utilizing.
One of the outstanding linguist Whitney clarified the role of principle of language economy and claimed " to make things easy to our organs of speech, to econimize time and effort in the work of expression" (Whitney, 1877:345). In addition, George Kingsley Zipf (1949) noticed that an inclination to economy is a criterion regulating any aspect of human behaviour, which is reached by the principle of least effort. During the linguistic evolution, words are always in the procedure of shortening, eleminating, altering in meaning, but the principle is preserved. Clear definition of linguistic economy is provided by André Marinet (1955). According to his notion, the act of communication demands clearness and precision and a remarkable organic interia, which produces effort relaxation. The principle of language economy is common aspect of all languages and it demonstrates in different ways.
The principle of language economy can be observed in English in terms of phonology, lexis, sytax and semantics. Constants within a word or between words might impact each other in pronunciation that makes the two similar or the same or a new sound. This process causes the economy principle in pronunciation and it is clarified in terms of sound assimilation, ellipsis and enclisis of speech sounds. Sound assimilation is an usual phonological phenomenon by one sound becomes more like a nearby sound that could happen either within a word or between words especially between two constants. The basic cause is to economize effort. For instance, when sounds d, t and n are just before bilabial consonants b, p and m respectively alter in the following statement "good boy" is often spoken as "gub boi".
Words are not separated from each another by pausing and usually the end of one word flows straight on to the beginning of the next. At the end of a sentence or a sense group pause only happens and in a sense group, the final constant of one word is connected to the beginning vowel of the following word that might sound better and be easier to pronounce. Take "Can I have a bit of egg" as an example. In pronunciation it is said like this: Ca-nI-ha-va-bi-to-fegg? This process is called enclisis. In addition, sound elision is the procedure of dropping of one or more sounds (a vowel, a constant, a whole syllable) in a word or phrase for pronouncing easier. For example, "I want to" and "Just now" are usually pronounced " ay wan tu " and "jus nau".
The principle of language economy illustrates in English lexicology and it can be elucidated in two aspects:
- High degree of lexicalization;
- Rich abbreviations.
In language there are two types of expressions for one notion: analytical expression and synthetic expression. The first one is utilized a phrase or clause or sentence to show the meaning whereas the second one is to use one word to indicate the same. In most cases language users prefer because it is more brief and economical. English is a synthetic language which has many affixes. There are 337 prefixes and suffixes that could be join before or after some words for creating new words. Moreover, lexical conversation is commonly used method of word-building. In that case the meaning is the same or extended a little. For example, to bottle (to put into a bottle), to bicycle (to go by bicycle) and humans do not need to memorize too many new words in conveying data, that is linked with principle of economy.
1a. After arriving home birds are caged.
1b. After arriving home birds are kept in a cage.
2a. Jack buses to work every day.
2b. Jack goes to work by bus every day.
In addition, language users utilize normally used method that are abbreviated units. The items are helpful in language in terms of economize effort, time and space. In daily life there commonly used abbreviations such as Ad (advertisement), Dept (department), Lab (laboratory), Max (maximum) and Min (minimum). According to some facts there are 5000000 abbreviations in English. To utilize abbreviations aids to save time and energy for humans.
Syntax has also some features of the principle of language economy like lower levels of syntactic structures are preferred in speech. For instance, words are utilised instead of phrases, phrases instead of clauses, clauses instead of sentences.
1. The informative lesson impressed all of us.
2. The lesson provided us lots of data, made a deep impression on us.
We can clarify from this example words are applied instеad оf phrases.
Besides that, relative pronouns has some features of the principle of economy.
3. I know the girl whose car is BMW.
The example demonstrates that one sentence is used instead of two sentences.
Economy principle is observed in many aspects of English and this principle is one of the languаge univеrsal that is common phenomenon for all languages in the world. Even it can be encountered both living and dead languages.