37.83, Calls: Language and Cognition - "Special Issue: Isomorphism and Optionality in the Linguistic System" (Jrnl)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-83. Fri Jan 09 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.83, Calls: Language and Cognition - "Special Issue: Isomorphism and Optionality in the Linguistic System" (Jrnl)

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Date: 07-Jan-2026
From: Benoit Leclercq [benoit.leclercq at univ-lille.fr]
Subject: Language and Cognition - "Special Issue: Isomorphism and Optionality in the Linguistic System" (Jrnl)


Journal: Language and Cognition
Issue: Isomorphism and Optionality in the Linguistic System
Call Deadline: 31-Mar-2026

This special issue aims to bring together a group of senior and junior
usage-based functionalists and variationist sociolinguists, two
communities that have often been seen as making contradictory claims
about the nature of isomorphism and optionality in language.
Functionalists tend to consider that language is geared towards
exclusive mappings of form and meaning, adhering to principles of
isomorphism (Haiman 1980: 516), contrast (Clark 1987), no synonymy
(Goldberg 1995: 67), or no equivalence (Leclercq & Morin 2023). By
contrast, variationists tend to express skepticism towards the
“doctrine of form-function symmetry” (Poplack 2018: 7) on the grounds
that language is rife with “alternative ways of saying ‘the same’
thing” (Labov 1972: 188). From this perspective, language would
instead appear to align with a principle of optionality (Man, Van Hoey
& Szmrecsanyi 2025). The tension between these perspectives raises
profound questions about how linguistic structures balance cognitive
pressures for systematicity with the fluidity of real-world usage.
Through this special issue, we aim to rekindle Hollmann’s (2017: 542)
incentive “to bring scholars from both fields around the same table”
to explore the extent to which these seemingly divergent perspectives
“can be reconciled” (De Smet 2019: 305). Specifically, we seek to
examine whether common ground can be established between the
principles of isomorphism and optionality, opening avenues for a more
integrated understanding of the interplay between form, function and
variation in language. For instance, how might the cognitive pressures
posited by functionalists - such as economy, optimal expressivity, and
communicative efficiency - interact with the sociolinguistic realities
of variation and choice? Are the principles of isomorphism and
optionality fundamentally complementary, representing different levels
or domains of linguistic analysis, or do they reflect deeper
theoretical and methodological divides that must be addressed? By
addressing these foundational questions, we hope to contribute to a
more comprehensive theory of the linguistic system that accounts for
both its structured regularities and its inherent variability,
ultimately enriching linguistic research across diverse paradigms.
There are a variety of questions that the opposition between
isomorphism and optionality raise. Among other topics, we will
consider the following:
1. What is the scope of isomorphism and optionality? Isomorphism,
which predicts a systematic difference in meaning, could be taken to
constitute a principle of no variation (Uhrig 2015: 331). Leclercq &
Morin (2023) contend that this conclusion may be premature, and that
the two views do not contradict each other. They propose that the
apparent conflict arises from differing focuses: variationists focus
on semantic (truth-conditional) content only (Labov 1978: 2), and
argue that different ways of expressing the same semantic content is
possible; functionalists, by contrast, typically discuss both semantic
and pragmatic meaning, and believe that a difference in form should
lead to a difference in at least one of those domains, such that two
constructions may perfectly be semantically identical but then would
have to be pragmatically distinct (Goldberg 1995: 67). This raises the
question: what counts as (a difference in) meaning? In a Construction
Grammar approach to language, not only semantic but also pragmatic and
social types of information are theorised to contribute to the meaning
of a construction (Leclercq & Morin 2025). By comparison,
variationists seem to view sociolinguistic variation as
language-external (Labov 2014: 23). So, do variationists “lack (...)
an articulated theory of meanings” (Lavandera 1978: 11), or is the
functionalists’ very rich view on meaning (Bolinger 1977: 4) too
bloated? Addressing these questions could help clarify the scope and
compatibility of the two approaches.
2. What are isomorphism and optionality principles of? Isomorphism is
not presented as a prescriptive rule that speakers need to follow but
as the natural outcome of more general cognitive pressures (e.g.
maximised economy and maximised expressive power in Goldberg 1995: 67;
optimal expressivity in Leclercq, Morin & Pijpops 2025). Does this
mean that isomorphism as a ‘principle’ is best understood as a strong
tendency rather than an absolute rule? To what extent do these
cognitive mechanisms truly (or only) support isomorphism? Are there
similar or other cognitive principles that underlie optionality?
Likewise, Leclercq & Morin (2023) argue that isomorphism is a property
of constructional knowledge and conventions independent of the
contingencies of language use, yet language use is precisely the
playground of variationists. This begs the additional question of how
much the features of conventionality and language use contribute to
defining criteria for spelling out the notions of isomorphism and
optionality, and their potentially complementary role. Addressing
these questions could provide a clearer framework for reconciling the
roles of cognitive, conventional, and usage-based factors in the study
of linguistic variation and structure.
3. What kinds of empirical and quantitative evidence bring support or
cast doubt on isomorphism and optionality? Besides the theoretical
considerations outlined above, it is important to examine how
empirical and experimental observations contribute to our
understanding of these concepts. There has been a surge of studies in
the more recent literature, making use of a wide variety of methods
and data sources (e.g. Gardner et al 2021, Levshina & Lorenz 2022,
Nijs & Van De Velde 2023, Weber & Kopf 2023, Cai & De Smet 2024, Hotta
& Hilpert 2025, Leclercq, Morin & Pijpops 2025). It remains essential
to determine how far these findings align with or diverge from the
theoretical positions outlined before, and whether they contribute to
a more refined understanding of the issues at hand. By focusing on the
interplay between theory and data, this special issue seeks to
highlight the empirical basis for these competing views and foster
discussion on their broader implications for linguistic research,
potentially offering new pathways for integrating theoretical and
empirical approaches.
Submission Guidelines:
Please send an abstract (max. 500 words + selected references) as PDF,
along with your contact details (title, affiliation, email address) to
both Guest Editors by 31 March 2026:
Benoît Leclercq – benoit.leclercq at univ-lille.fr
Cameron Morin – cameron.morin at u-paris.fr
Timeline:
31 March 2026: Deadline for abstract submission.
15 May 2026: Authors of shortlisted abstracts will be notified.
31 October 2026: Deadline for full paper submission and start of
review process.
References:
Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. Meaning and Form. New York: Longman.
Cai, Yingying  & Hendrik De Smet. 2024. Are categories’ cores more
isomorphic than their peripheries? Frontiers in Communication 9,
1310234.
Clark, Eve. 1987. The principle of contrast: a constraint on language
acquisition. In Brian MacWhinney (ed.), Mechanisms of Language
Acquisition, 1–33. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
De Smet, Hendrik. 2019. The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function
and context. In Bech, Kristin & Ruth Möhlig-Falke (eds.), Grammar –
Discourse – Context: Grammar and Usage in Language Variation and
Change. Berlin: De Gruyter, 305–332.
Gardner Matt Hunt, Eva Uffing, Nicholas Van Vaeck & Benedikt
Szmrecsanyi. 2021. Variation isn’t that hard: Morphosyntactic choice
does not predict production difficulty. PLoS ONE 16(6), e0252602.
Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach
to Argument Structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Haiman, John. 1980. The Iconicity of Grammar: Isomorphism and
Motivation. Language 56:3, 515–540.
Hollmann, Willem. 2017. Cognitive sociolinguistics. In Dancygier,
Barbara (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 533–48.
Hotta, Hikaru & Martin Hilpert. 2025. English comparative
constructions at different levels of schematicity: what is the role of
adjective-specific variability? Cognitive Linguistics.
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov, William. 1978. Where does the linguistic variable stop? A
response to Beatriz Lavandera. Working Papers in Sociolinguistics 44,
1–17.
Labov, William. 2014. What is to be learned. The community as the
focus of social cognition.In Pütz, Martin, Justyna A. Robinson &
Monika Reif (eds.), Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Social and Cultural
Variation and Language Use, 23-52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Lavandera, Beatriz. 1978. Where does the sociolinguistic variable
stop? Language in Society 7, 171–182.
Leclercq, Benoît & Cameron Morin. 2023. No Equivalence: A new
principle of no synonymy. Constructions 15, 1–16.
Leclercq, Benoît & Cameron Morin. 2025. The Meaning of Constructions.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leclercq, Benoît, Cameron Morin & Dirk Pijpops. 2025. The principle of
no equivalence: an agent-based model. Cognitive Linguistics.
Levshina, Natalia & David Lorenz. 2022. Communicative efficiency and
the Principle of No Synonymy: predictability effects and the variation
of want to and wanna. Language and Cognition 14:2, 249–74.
Ma, Ruiming, Thomas Van Hoey & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2025.
Isomorphism-inspired theorising about optionality and variation: no
empirical support from English grammar. English Language and
Linguistics.
Nijs, Julie & Freek Van de Velde. 2023. Resemanticising ‘free’
variation: The case of V1 conditionals in Dutch. In Kristin Kopf &
Thilo Weber (Eds.), Free variation in Grammar, pp. 229-257. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Poplack, Shana. 2018. Categories of grammar and categories of speech:
When the quest for symmetry meets inherent variability. In Shin, Naomi
& Daniel Erker (eds.), Studies in Functional and Structural
Linguistics, vol. 76, 7–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.
Uhrig, Peter. 2015. Why the principle of no synonymy is overrated.
Zeitschrift Für Anglistik Und Amerikanistik 63:3, 323–337.
Weber, Thilo & Kristin Kopf. 2023. Free variation, unexplained
variation? In Kopf, Kristin & Thilo Weber (eds.), Free Variation in
Grammar: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches, Amsterdam: John
Benjamins, 1–20.

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     General Linguistics
                     Linguistic Theories
                     Pragmatics
                     Semantics




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