Osmotic Pressure and the Structure of English

Abstract

Building upon the main thesis of Park (1992, 2001), this paper deals with the tendency toward compensatory equilibrium between equivalent structures in English from the "holistic" perspective of traditional grammar. The tendency here involves linguistic additions and deletions getting counterbalanced by surface contractions and expansions, respectively. The phenomenon discussed here is not unlike osmosis in the physical world in that it involves a patterned variation of linguistic elements relative to what they are in construction with. This phenomenon manifests itself on various planes of the structure of English, i.e. in the phonology, orthography, (morpho)syntax and semantics of the language. The main thrust of our discussion here is apparently applicable not just to English but also to Korean and other natural languages so that it may very well qualify as a linguistic universal.