Optimality Theory in Phonology

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of Optimality Theory (OT) as applied to phonology. OT is a theory of constraint interaction in grammar, which aims to solve a couple of problems that have confronted generative phonological theory since its earliest days. The first problem is conspiracies: in some languages, there is a constraint that seems to be satisfied in a variety of ways, as if the rules conspire to achieve a single target. The second problem is soft universals: unrelated languages show evidence of the same or similar constraints, but the constraints do not seem to hold in all languages. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 21.2 describes the architecture of OT, including its basic components and approach to typology. Section 21.3 addresses the status of the lexicon in OT. Section 21.4 and 21.5 describe some work on learnability, acquisition, and variation, and Section 21.6 concludes.

The gradual path to cluster simplification

“…In Cairene Arabic, vowels shorten in syllables that do not bear the main stress (Mitchell 1956: 111–112).In Latin, vowels shorten to allow a light-heavy sequence to be parsed as a well-formed moraic trochee consisting of two light syllables (Allen 1973, Mester 1994). Trochaic shortening is also found in Tonkawa (Hoijer 1933, 1946, Gouskova 2003) and Fijian (Dixon 1988, Hayes 1995). English trisyllabic shortening is an instance of trochaic shortening as well (Prince 1990).…”

“…To use a positional faithfulness constraint, we need to identify a context of greater faithfulness, and we have to say whether that context is defined on the input or the output. For instance, Max (Vː) prevents deletion of underlying long vowels, and it extends this protection to underlying long vowels that are shortened in the output, so its context must be defined on the input (Gouskova 2003, McCarthy 2005). On the other hand, Beckman (1998: ch.…”

A formalização da percepção da vogal baixa nasalizada do espanhol à luz do modelo BiPhon: estudo comparativo de fragmentos das gramáticas de falantes nativos e de brasileiros adquirindo o Espanhol como língua estrangeira / Formalization of the perception of the nasalized low vowel in Spanish in the light of the BiPhon model: a comparative study of grammar fragments of Spanish native speakers and Brazilian students learning Spanish as a foreign language

“…(KAGER, 1999, p.28) (b) *V NASAL = São proibidas vogais nasais. (KAGER, 1999, p. 28) A restrição *V NASAL é capaz de captar a ideia universal de que não há línguas que possuam apenas vogais nasalizadas (GOUSKOVA, 2009). Logo, prever restrição contra a nasalização vocálica versus contra vogal oral é o primeiro passo para a formalização do fenômeno aqui sob análise, com a comparação de duas línguas: português e espanhol.…”

Output optimization in the Irish plural system

“…The intuition behind wsp Ft is that (ˈ H) trochees are more ill-formed than (ˈ L) trochees because (ˈ H) trochees contain a prominent, heavy syllable in the weak branch of a foot – an extremely non-prominent position (e.g. Prince 1991; Hayes 1995; Dresher & van der Hulst 1998; Kager 1999: 151; Gouskova 2003; de Lacy 2004, 2007a; McCarthy 2008b, and citations therein). Bennett (2012) argues that wsp Ft is independently active in the phonology of Conamara Irish, though that dialect group is largely outside the focus of this paper (Section 2.7.1).…”