Horror Aequi

, or avoidance of identity, is a linguistic principle that language users have psychological or physiological motives or limits on cognitive planning to avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures.

The term originated in 1909 in Karl Brugmann, who used it to explain dissimilation, the tendency for similar consonants or vowels in a word to become less similar, which can often be chalked up to simply "euphony". Today, however, the term is usually applied instead to grammatical elements or structures.

One of the most widely cited definitions is that of Günter Rohdenburg: "the ''horror aequi'' principle involves the widespread (and presumably universal) tendency to avoid the use of formally (near-)identical and (near-)adjacent (non-coordinate) grammatical elements or structures."

In the study of phonology, such avoidance falls under the obligatory contour principle, which holds that certain consecutive identical sounds are not permitted (such as in Mandarin Chinese, where two third tones are not used consecutively).

The term is sometimes extended to the stylistic preference to avoid repeating the same word in a given text.

''Horror aequi'' in English

One illustration of in English is the use of ''and'' + rather than the typical ''to'' + following certain to-infinitive verbs such as ''wait'', ''try'' and ''check'' in order to avoid repeating the ''to'' + pattern. Thus, speakers typically use:
*I'll try to find a solution.
*I tried to open the door.
*I'll wait to hear the answer.
*I waited to start the process till the audience was assembled.

But following a to-infinitive, speakers will often use ''and'' instead of ''to'':
*I'm going to try and find a solution.
*I wanted to try and open the door.
*I'm going to wait and hear the answer.
*I wanted to wait and start the process.

In addition to using ''and'' instead of ''to'' in order to avoid , another strategy is to delay the second infinitive verb with intervening words or use an alternative infinitive clause. For example:
*I wanted to wait before starting the process.

Another reason why diligent writers may avoid the second ''to'' + structure is that it can be ambiguous. Since it is commonly interpreted as an elision of the first prepositional phrase from "in order to" it will avoid the oxymoronic interpretation "to wait in order to start the process" given that ''waiting'' and ''starting the process'' are contradictory.

Other examples clearly demonstrate how helps prevent confusion. Sentences with repetitive words or forms can be nearly incomprehensible even when adhering to grammatical rules.

*?The boy whom the girl whom the other boy had hit had called came running.

Confusion here comes from both the repeated embedded ''who'' relative clauses and from the lack of semantic variety. Merely adding semantic difference can add some clarity:

*?The number that the girl whom the horse had kicked had called was for animal control.

The principle holds that both of these examples would be avoided.

See also

*Uses of English verb forms
*

Notes

References

{{Reflist, refs=
{{cite journal , last1=Baumann , first1=Andreas , last2=Mühlenbernd , first2=Roland , date=2022 , title=Less of the Same: Modeling Horror Aequi and Extravagance as Mechanisms of Negative Frequency Dependence in Linguistic Diversification , url=https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_3398549_10/component/file_3405708/content , journal=The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE) , editor-last1=Ravignani , editor-first1=Andrea , editor-last2=Asano , editor-first2=Rie , display-editors=1 , institution=Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) , volume= , issue= , pages=50–57 , doi=10.17617/2.3398549 , access-date=25 July 2023 , archive-date=3 September 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230903194408/https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_3398549_10/component/file_3405708/content , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Berlage , first=Eva , date=2014 , title=Noun Phrase Complexity in English , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DjeNAwAAQBAJ , series=Studies in English Language , location=Cambridge , publisher=Cambridge University Press , page= , isbn=9781107015128 , access-date=26 July 2023 , archive-date=26 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726191640/https://books.google.com/books?id=DjeNAwAAQBAJ , url-status=live
{{cite journal , last1=Brugmann , first1=Karl , author-link=Karl Brugmann , date=1909 , title=Das Wesen der lautlichen Dissimilationen , url=https://archive.org/details/abhandlungenderphilosachs27/page/138/mode/2up , journal=Abhandlungen der Philologisch-Historischen Classe der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften , institution=Königlich Sächsische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften , volume=27 , issue= , pages=138–178 , issn=2700-9505 , doi= , language=de , access-date=25 July 2023
{{cite journal , last1=Chen , first1=Tsung-ying , date=June 2010 , title=Some Remarks on Contour Tone Units , url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40928427 , journal=Journal of East Asian Linguistics , volume=19 , issue=2 , pages=103–135 , issn=0925-8558 , doi=10.1007/S10831-010-9057-9 , jstor=40928427 , s2cid=120617163 , language=en , access-date=30 August 2023 , archive-date=31 August 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831155016/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40928427 , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Iyeiri , first=Yoko , date=2010 , title=Verbs of Implicit Negation and Their Complements in the History of English , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ykVr9-VH6GAC , location=Amsterdam , publisher=John Benjamins Publishing , page= , isbn=9789027211705 , access-date=26 July 2023 , archive-date=26 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726191639/https://books.google.com/books?id=ykVr9-VH6GAC , url-status=live
{{cite thesis , degree=PhD , last=Leben , first=William R. , date=1973 , title=Suprasegmental Phonology , publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology , url=http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/theses/leben73.pdf , access-date=31 August 2023 , archive-date=1 June 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601022504/http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/theses/leben73.pdf , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Levshina , first=Natalia , date=2022 , title=Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hmeZEAAAQBAJ , location=Cambridge , publisher=Cambridge University Press , page= , isbn=9781108898652 , access-date=26 July 2023 , archive-date=26 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726191643/https://books.google.com/books?id=hmeZEAAAQBAJ , url-status=live
{{cite journal , last1=McCarthy , first1=John J. , author-link=John McCarthy (linguist) , date=Summer 1981 , title=A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology , url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178229 , journal=Linguistic Inquiry , volume=12 , issue=3 , pages=373–418 , issn=0024-3892 , doi= , jstor=4178229 , language=en , access-date=30 August 2023 , archive-date=11 March 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230311085035/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178229 , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Malkiel , first=Yakov , author-link=Yakov Malkiel , date=1983 , orig-date=1967 , chapter=Multiple versus simple causation in linguistic change , title=From Particular to General Linguistics: Selected Essays, 1965-1978 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4WkRj0Uq3jkC&pg=PA251 , series=Studies in Language Companion Series , volume=3 , location=Amsterdam , publisher=John Benjamins Publishing , pages=251–268 , isbn=9789027230027 , access-date=2 September 2023 , archive-date=3 September 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230903194406/https://books.google.com/books?id=4WkRj0Uq3jkC&pg=PA251 , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Rohdenburg , first=Günter , date=2003 , chapter=Cognitive complexity and ''horror aequi'' as factors determining the use of interrogative clause linkers in English , title=Determinants of Grammatical Variation in English , editor-last1=Rohdenburg , editor-first1=Günter , editor-last2=Mondorf , editor-first2=Britta , others=Series editors: Bernd Kortmann, Elizabeth Closs Traugott , series=Topics in English Linguistics , volume=43 , url= , location=Berlin , publisher=Mouton de Gruyter , pages=205–249 , isbn=9783110176476
{{cite web , url=https://blog.isi-web.org/react/2021/10/horror-aequi/ , title=Horror aequi… , last=Sheldon , first=Neil , date=19 October 2021 , website=Statisticians React to the News , publisher=International Statistical Institute , access-date=25 July 2023 , quote= orror aequi…��or fear of repeating a word is very common in the media. It's a journalistic compulsion that is detrimental to clear communication and understanding – but easy to avoid. , archive-date=26 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726191641/https://blog.isi-web.org/react/2021/10/horror-aequi/ , url-status=live
{{cite book , last=Szmrecsanyi , first=Benedikt , date=2006 , title=Morphosyntactic Persistence in Spoken English: A Corpus Study at the Intersection of Variationist Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Discourse Analysis , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EoAwQgxM128C , series=Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs , volume=177 , location=Berlin , publisher=Mouton de Gruyter , page= , isbn=9783110197808 , access-date=26 July 2023 , archive-date=26 July 2023 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726191641/https://books.google.com/books?id=EoAwQgxM128C , url-status=live

Syntactic relationships
Phonaesthetics
Linguistic theories and hypotheses
Latin words and phrases