To be is not always to be The hypothesis of cognitive universality in the light of studies on elliptic language behaviour

Abstract.— This paper introduces evidence as to whether the cognitive base of natural languages is universal or not. When a speaker or writer has too little time or space to use complete, grammatically well-formed sentences, he will first leave out the parts of speech which are least essential for the decoding process of the receiver. If, in two different languages, different parts are left out, the cognitive base of the languages cannot be the same. It was predicted that native Finnish-speaking subjects will be more prone to leave out the verb from newspapers headings and from reports of sporting events, than will native Swedish-speaking subjects. In addition, it was expected that Finnish subjects will rate sentences lacking verbs as more, and sentences lacking nouns, as less "language correct" than will Swedish subjects. It was also predicted that in perception of a sporting event, Finnish reporters will focus on topological, and Swedish, on vectorial, information. The predictions were borne out exactly by the findings, which thus are strongly negative to the universality hypothesis.