[PRL] linguistics question

[Eli Barzilay]

On Dec  1, Jeffrey D Palm wrote:
> There's a linguistics theory (I think) that states something such as:
> 
> Speakers are lazy and want to use as limited a vocublary as possible -- 
> i.e. have multiple meanings for words.  But listeners would rather have 
> as unabmiguous a vocabulary as possible -- one word, one meaning.
> 
> Does any know the name of this theory?  I'm pretty sure it has a name.

According to my wife -- principle of minimal effort which is forms the
linguistic motivation for Zipf's law.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                  http://www.barzilay.org/                 Maze is Life!