An efficiency-based effect of frequency on lexicalization: a dyadic experiment

Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation states that the more frequent a word is, the shorter it tends to be. Zipf’s own explanation of the law in terms of the trade-off between cognitive effort and communicative accuracy, i.e., Principle of Least Effort, predicts that a similar pattern holds not only for word length but also for the lexical/compositional distinction. That is, lexical forms tend to express more frequent meanings compared to compositional forms. In this paper, we report on a dyadic communication experiment that supports this prediction.