The Partitive Constraint in Optimality Theory

Anttila, Artο; Fong, Vivienne

doi:10.1093/jos/17.4.281

Cited by 39 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…We presented (11) as our initial hypothesis because it is the grammatically strongest one, in the sense of making the grammar responsible for explaining the greatest range of data. It appears necessary for OT grammars to admit floating constraints in order to deal with multiple types of variation: synchronic adult variation in phonology (Nagy andReynolds 1997, Anttila 1998) and syntax/semantics (Anttila and Fong 2000), diachronic variation (Zubritskaya 1997, Anttila and Young-mee to appear), variation in child language (Legendre, Hagstrom, Todorova and Vainikka 2000) and (under our interpretation here) variation across lexical strata (Itô and Mester 1995b, etc.). With this mechanism already introduced within grammatical theory, the grammatically strongest hypothesis would appear to be that it accounts for any other type of variation.…”

Section: Final Grammar = Base Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

The initial and final states: theoretical implications and experimental explorations of Richness of the Base

Davidson¹,

Jusczyk²,

Smolensky³

2004

Constraints in Phonological Acquisition

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In this chapter we present the initial stages of work that attempts to assess the 'psychological reality' of one of the more subtle grammatical principles of Optimality Theory ('OT'; Prince and Smolensky 1993), Richness of the Base. Within the OT competence theory, we develop several of this principle's empirical predictions concerning the grammar's final state (Section 1) and initial state (Section 2). We also formulate linking hypotheses which allow these predictions concerning competence to yield predictions addressing performance. We then report and discuss the results of experimental work testing these performance predictions with respect to linguistic processing in infants (Section 3) and adults (Section 4) .

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Section: Final Grammar = Base Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

The initial and final states: theoretical implications and experimental explorations of Richness of the Base

Davidson¹,

Jusczyk²,

Smolensky³

2004

Constraints in Phonological Acquisition

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“…It is therefore of some interest that the theory of variation explored here automatically provides a rationale for preferences in interpretation. This was first noted by Anttila and Fong (2000) who used this theory to derive preferences among the alternative readings of Finnish partitives.…”

Section: Deriving Patterns Of Ambiguitymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Recall that the same ranking resulted in a categorical contrast in my cat/ Ã the cat of me. This reveals a fundamental property of quantitatively interpreted optimality-theoretic grammars: the same ranking may yield both categorical and quantitative effects, depending on the input (Anttila, 1997, in press;Anttila and Cho, 1998;Anttila and Fong, 2000; see Boersma and Hayes, 2001 for a somewhat different theory). The interpretation in (36) is an empirical hypothesis and as such possibly wrong.…”

Section: Deriving Patterns Of Variationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This quantitative interpretation of optimality-theoretic grammars, first proposed in Anttila and Fong (2000), ties variation, ambiguity, preferences in expression, and preferences in interpretation together in a way that makes a number of unobvious empirical predictions. In particular, it yields a simple theory of BLOCKING (see e.g.…”

Section: Deriving Patterns Of Ambiguitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variation, ambiguity, and noun classes in English

Anttila

Fong

2004

Lingua

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This paper explores a theory of the meaning-form relation based on ranked and violable constraints [A. Prince, P. Smolensky, 1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and University of Colorado, Boulder], using the English genitive construction as a testing ground. Our main thesis is that partially ordered optimality-theoretic grammars allow us to relate four apparently independent empirical phenomena: (i) categorical grammaticality contrasts; (ii) variation and preferences in expression; (iii) ambiguity and preferences in interpretation; (iv) lexical organization. #

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“…Following ideas put forward by Antilla and colleagues (Antilla & Cho, 1998;Anttila & Fong, 2000) Bouma assumes underspecified, partial rankings that can be described by putting constraints in so-called strata. Using stratified grammars it is possible to achieve ambiguity in comprehension even if bidirectional optimization is taken into account.…”

Section: Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bidirectional grammar and bidirectional optimization

Blutner¹,

Strigin²

2011

Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today

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The human language faculty is a bidirectional system, i.e. it can be used by processes of approximately equal computational complexity to understand and to generate utterances of a language. We assume the general framework of optimality theory and treat the language faculty as a constraint-based system where the very same constraints are used both in comprehension and in generation. In the simplest case comprehension and generation can be modelled by unidirectional optimization: finding an optimal interpretations for a given speech input in the case of comprehension; producing an optimal expression for a given message in case of generation. In the simplest case, the speaker and the listener roles are strictly separated. However, there are linguistic observations which indicate that the listener's and the speaker's perspectives are integrated to some extent. Bidirectional optimization is an explicit proposal for doing the integration.In this article we propose a general architecture of the language faculty and discuss the precise extent to which speakers are listener-oriented and/or listeners are speaker-oriented. Interestingly, this extent does not seem to vary with regard to the different subsystems considered: the sensorimotor system, the system of grammar proper and the conceptual-intentional system (pragmatics). Though the experimental evidence is not very strong at the moment it seems in online processing the speaker takes the hearer into account but not vice versa. Besides the online (actual processing) view of bidirectionality we discuss bidirectional optimization as an offline phenomenon taking place during language acquisition, and giving rise to fossilization phenomena.

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The Partitive Constraint in Optimality Theory

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

The initial and final states: theoretical implications and experimental explorations of Richness of the Base

The initial and final states: theoretical implications and experimental explorations of Richness of the Base

Variation, ambiguity, and noun classes in English

Bidirectional grammar and bidirectional optimization

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