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A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory
Abstract
This book describes Optimality Theory from the top down, explaining and exploring the central premises of OT and the results that follow from them. Examples are drawn from phonology, morphology, and syntax, but the emphasis throughout is on the theory rather than the examples, on understanding what is special about OT and on equipping readers to apply it, extend it, and critique it in their own areas of interest. The book's coverage extends to work on first- and second-language acquisition, phonetics and functional phonology, computational linguistics, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Chapters conclude with extensive suggestions for further reading, classified by topic, and are supplemented by a massive bibliography (over 800 items).Table of Contents:Introduction: an overview of optimality theory; Part I. Core: 1. Basic architecture; 2. Constraint typology; 3. Modes of interaction; 4. Illustration; Part II. Context: 5. Classic generative phonology; 6. Conspiracies; 7. Representations and constraints on representations; 8. Other constraint theories (TCRS, DP, etc.); Part III. Results: 9. Endogenous constraints; 10. Consequences of markedness/faithfulness interaction; 11. Consequences of constraint violability; 12. Consequences of parallelism; Part IV. Connections: 13. Learnability and acquisition; 14. Parsing; Morphology and the lexicon; 15. Syntax and semantics; 16. Language variation and change; Part V. Issues and prospects: 17. Functionalism; 18. Opacity; 19. Serial OT; 20. Local conjunction; 21. 'Overkill'; 22. Other topics.
... For starters, several terms from other languages are inserted in English. Mango, curry, and guanxi (McCrum et al., 1986;2002;Baugh and Cable, 1993) are the most recent. ...
... OT does not use a derivative of the rewrite formula in its analysis but operates on the constraint level. Considering that all constraints are universal, that constraint is important for users of this theory because the argument regarding the constraint position must be valid and thorough to ensure that it is versatile as emphasized in this theory (McCarthy, 2002). Candidates are compared by applying a reversible hierarchy of constraints (McCarthy, 2002). ...
... Considering that all constraints are universal, that constraint is important for users of this theory because the argument regarding the constraint position must be valid and thorough to ensure that it is versatile as emphasized in this theory (McCarthy, 2002). Candidates are compared by applying a reversible hierarchy of constraints (McCarthy, 2002). The constraints on the lower levels can be minimised to comply with those on the higher levels. ...
... Em termos gerais, os linguistas veem os casos de morfologia não concatenativa sob a ótica da Morfologia Prosódica (cf. McCARTHY;PRINCE, 1986PRINCE, /1996 e seus desdobramentos, os quais buscam delimitar as dependências entre a morfologia e a fonologia em termos gerais e independentes. A observação dos casos de reduplicação, principalmente, leva os autores a perceber que a estrutura prosódica pode determinar uma dada forma morfológica; intensifica-se, assim, a discussão acerca da explicitação de como se dá a interface morfologia-fonologia. Nesse sentido, o molde passa a ser visto como uma restrição ao formato de um dado afixo, radical ou palavra e pode fazer referência a qualquer um dos níveis prosódicos da hierarquia prosódica. ...
... Com o advento da TO, a hipótese da Morfologia Prosódica foi substituída pela Teoria dos Templates Generalizados (cf. McCARTHY;PRINCE, 1993b). ...
Neste artigo, investigo as relações entre morfologia e fonologia nos blends (por exemplo, namorido < namorado + marido), de maneira a delimitar as características prosódicas e métricas desse processo de formação de palavras. Além disso, mostro que a interface morfologia-fonologia no blending se revela na existência de uma estrutura morfológica de composição que, por efeitos fonológicos e pragmáticos, se adequa à restrição prosódica de que tenhamos apenas um nó de palavra prosódica, de maneira que duas palavras são juntadas em uma só e, consequentemente, apresentam apenas um acento principal. O modelo teórico adotado é a Teoria da Otimidade (cf. PRINCE; SMOLENSKY, 1993), com base principalmente na Teoria da Correspondência (cf. McCARTHY; PRINCE, 1995; BENUA 1995) e, com base nesse modelo, proponho restrições atuantes na determinação do output ótimo do processo.
... it uses ranked constraints. OT is relatively recently developed by Prince and Smolensky (1993), McCarthy (2002. ...
... Although one may be stronger than the other at times the language does not follow one or the other but rather both simultaneously. McCarthy (2002) applies this directly to Arabic, and discusses two key hypotheses of OT which are crucial in understanding the development of the language. The first is that there is an infinite number of potential underlying representations and that these are not limited by language. ...
The work of this dissertation discusses the syllable structure in Mosul dialect of Arabic. Furthermore, stress in Mosul dialect. Optimality theory here is adopted to analyse both syllable structure and stress in Mosul dialect. It has been concluded that Mosul dialect allows initial clusters, as well as complex codas. The work includes four chapters. The first chapter includes introductions and background. It gives general idea about the importance of the syllable in phonology. Furthermore it talks about Iraqi Arabic in general, which is one of the dialects of Arabic. Then more precisely about Mosul dialect that is spoken in city of Mosul by Arabian, Christians and other groups living in Mosul showing how Mosul dialect became more distinctive dialect in Iraq. The second chapter involves theoretical phonology about Mosul dialect. It is concerned with giving general ideas about phonemes in Mosul dialect. It explains syllables and stress which consists of half of this work. The third chapter deals with Optimality theory. It is a tool which used in this dissertation to analyse syllables in Mosul dialect, as well as stress. The researcher took two main principles of Optimality Thoery. They are Markdness constaints, and faithfulness constraints. The final chapter (chapter four) includes conclusion of the study.
... On the other hand, phonological uniformity has been put forward in many studies (McCarthy 2001, Riehl 2003. According to this position, phonetic correlates of flaps such as closure duration, VOT, voicing duration, etc. are not uniform across derived words. ...
... As previously mentioned, it has been controversial whether uniformity across derived words arises at phonological level or phonetic level (McCarthy 2001, Riehl 2003, Steriade 2000. In this study, we examined whether the voicing contrast in word-final /t,d/ in English enjoys the status of contrast in words placed in a flapping environment created by attaching suffixes like "-ing, -y, -er, -est, -ist". ...
Yun, Gwanhi. 2022. A mismatch in completeness between acoustic and perceptual neutralization in English flapping. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics 22, 1133-1158. This study attempts to reveal the acoustical characteristics of flapped /t/s and /d/s as well as phonetic correlates of word-final /t,d/ contrast and to examine whether English native listeners distinguish a flapped /t/ and /d/ by using the durations of pre-flap vowels. For these purposes, production and perception experiments were administered for English native speakers. First, we found that word final devoicing does not occur in /t,d/ contrast and significant differences lie in many acoustic correlates, including durations of preceding vowels, stop closure durations, voicing duration and F0 of the preceding vowels. Second, the result showed the evidence that English flapping is incomplete neutralization, exhibiting that many acoustic properties differ between /t/ flaps and /d/ flaps in duration of pre-flap vowels, flap duration, voicing duration and VOT. Furthermore, the perception task yielded high perceptibility of word final /t,d/ contrast due to the availability of many acoustic cues. Next, it was shown that English listeners have difficulty in deciding whether a flap is an underlying /t/ or /d/. This suggests that complete neutralization engenders imperceptibility of /t/ flaps and /d/ flaps. Finally, our identification test revealed that the manipulation of the duration of the pre-flap vowels does not function as a perceptual cue for word medial /t/-/d/ contrast embedded in a flapping environment. KEYWORDS flapping, word final devoicing, (in)complete neutralization, acoustic correlates of voicing, (im)perceptiblity, length of pre-flap vowels Gwanhi Yun A mismatch in completeness between acoustic and perceptual neutralization in English flapping
... En la tabla 12 se presentan algunos ejemplos del corpus en el que se basa el presente trabajo. Esta perspectiva coincide con la de McCarthy (2002), quien afirma que en el habla de muchos niños las consonantes de una palabra tienen un punto o modo de articulación idéntico; es decir, hay armonía consonántica. ...
El presente artÃculo discute algunos aspectos de adquisición de la fonologÃa del español, especÃficamente relaciones secuenciales de las consonantes; para ello, se asume que dichas relaciones implican dos tipos de contexto: (a) la sÃlaba y la palabra; (b) las relaciones entre segmentos adyacentes o cercanos en una secuencia. Los datos consisten en transcripciones de unidades léxicas de 55 niños monolingües de entre 2;0 y 6;00 años. Los recursos para la obtención de la muestra fueron diseñados de tal modo que permitieran al investigador explorar cada fonema en diferentes contextos fonéticos.
... If the Vocalic node is really shared between V 1 and V 2 , then the two vowels cannot actually share a Vocalic node without crossing 11 Padgett (1995a, 393) defines "sour grapes" as the failure to violate a constraint minimally, which can produce a variety of effects, of which the Huave-type pattern is only one. A different but more common use of the term in the vowel harmony literature refers to the hypothetical case where unbounded spreading fails to be initiated at all if it will eventually be blocked somewhere downstream in the harmonic span (see McCarthy 2003). Conditions on node spreading: problems from VC interaction ...
Assimilation is a central phenomenon in phonology, yet there is little consensus on either its representation or computation. In particular, the empirical distinction between spreading (feature sharing) and correspondence (feature copying) is disputed. In this paper, I identify novel diagnostics from two interacting assimilation processes in San Francisco del Mar Huave (isolate: Mexico). First, vowel-copy epenthesis displays a previously unattested blocking pattern that is problematic for spreading, but predicted by feature-copying approaches like Agreement By Correspondence. Second, in CV agreement, I argue that only feature sharing driven by Dep and Specify constraints can insightfully account for the role of underspecification, which produces a range of directionality effects. Huave shows that both spreading and correspondence are needed in phonological theory, and also demonstrates that monolithically assimilation-mandating constraints like Agree can be decomposed to derive assimilation from the interaction of more elementary, independently motivated principles of markedness and faithfulness.
... But it would be useful nonetheless to chart out and evaluate the sorts of phonological analysis that the theory currently makes available in accounting for the prosody of FOCUS. Below I will try out the assumption that the FOCUS phrase break called for by the phonological constraint system ( [7], [5]) is an intonational phrase break, even though more study of the question is necessary We can distinguish among the possible constraint-based approaches to FOCUS-induced phrasing: ...
... We assume that this is caused by a constraint in CD, which forbids a high falling tone PW-initially. Within the framework of Optimality Theory [8] [9], it is a top ranked constraint, which is never violated in CD. This is a tricky issue needing further study since this explanation offered here seems a little ad hoc. ...
... This study suggests a new approach in interacting with the usage of Quranic verses that are seen to be ungrammatical. This will be carried out according to the Optimality Theory framework (Prince & Smolensky, 2004;McCarthy, 2002) with adaptations following specific characteristics of the Arabic language, that has two types of optimality namely Usage Optimality (UO) and Grammatical Optimality (GO) (Musling, 2019). The details are as follows: ...
... Optimality Theory(OT) developed by Prince and Smolensky (1993) serves as a framework for data analysis. The theory is interested in well-formedness of candidates that satisfy certain constraints (Kager et al., 2004;McCarthy, 2002McCarthy, , 2008Prince & Smolensky, 2004). Meanwhile, the language and the aspect of the language under consideration determine the constraints that would be employed to rank the candidates to select the optimal (winning) candidate with an indication of hand ☞ (McCarthy, 2007). ...
This study examines compound stress in Igbo and Yoruba accents of Nigerian English and juxtaposes their patterns with Standard British English (SBE). Speech recorded from 60 educated Igbo and Yoruba speakers of Nigerian English and three Britons served as data and control respectively. These recordings were analysed perceptually and acoustically. Using simple percentage and chi-square, occurrence of tokens and levels of significance were checked between the compound stress patterns of educated Igbo and Yoruba speakers of English and SBE at 0.05 (p ≤ .05). Optimality theory serves as the theoretical framework. The findings indicate that educated Igbo and Yoruba speakers of Nigerian English, though share certain patterns with SBE, have significant patterns of variations in compound stress assignment. There was a systematic attempt by the Nigerian participants to align left, while SBE aligns right. This showed the propensity of the participants to analogically accentuate the constituent of the compounds that carry significant information. This pattern was supported by the higher pitch and durational values recorded by speakers of educated Igbo and Yoruba accents of Nigerian English. Even in cases where there were similarities in the patterns, the acoustic features vary. This is common to both accents of Nigerian English.
... Faithfulness prohibits any distinction between the input and the output, and the input is not altered in the surface form. McCarthy (2008) proposed two principal faithfulness restrictions, namely MAXIMAL-ITY 8 (MAX) and DEPENDENCY (DEP). MAX strictly entails any item in the input to have an equivalent in the output. ...
Linguists argued that the Cockney dialect, in London, is expected to be replaced by Multicultural London English in the years to come. However, this does not imply that Cockney is dead, as recent research revealed that it just moved to Essex. This paper aims at examining whether (l) vocalisation, a common feature of Cockney, is still present in the London district of Bermondsey. Ten working-class English speakers, stratified by age and sex, have been recorded by means of sociolinguistic interviews. The results, discussed both quantitively and qualitatively, show that: (a) (l) vocalisation is present in all age cohorts, with young speakers favouring the non-standard feature; (b) preceding long vowels trigger (l) vocalisation.
... Faithfulness prohibits any distinction between the input and the output, and the input is not altered in the surface form. McCarthy (2008) proposed two principal faithfulness restrictions, namely MAXIMAL-ITY 8 (MAX) and DEPENDENCY (DEP). MAX strictly entails any item in the input to have an equivalent in the output. ...
Linguists argued that the Cockney dialect, in London, is expected to be replaced by Multicultural London English in the years to come. However, this does not imply that Cockney is dead, as recent research revealed that it just moved to Essex. This paper aims at examining whether (l) vocalisation, a common feature of Cockney, is still present in the London district of Bermondsey. Ten working-class English speakers, stratified by age and sex, have been recorded by means of sociolinguistic interviews. The results, discussed both quantitively and qualitatively, show that: (a) (l) vocalisation is present in all age cohorts, with young speakers favouring the non-standard feature; (b) preceding long vowels trigger (l) vocalisation.
... The term loop is not exact, as the three strata contain unique instances of GEN and EVAL to allow for multiple constraint rankings along a serial derivation. The introduction of loops (that do and do not adhere to their strict definition in computer science) is not an innovation of stratal OT: Harmonic Serialism (McCarthy 2001(McCarthy , 2010 posits loops between EVAL and GEN to allow for serial computation within a single stratum. The architecture for approaches that employ OUTPUT-OUTPUT constraints also arguably requires loops so that phonological objects outputted by EVAL can be reinserted into EVAL for further computation. ...
Hypocoristics have received considerable interest from phonologists in recent decades, particularly within the Optimality-theoretic literature. While most of these analyses have been situated in parallelist OT, I claim that this architectural choice entails hidden complexities. It is cross-linguistically common for multiple hypocoristics to be formed from a single proper noun, e.g., Matthew → Matt / Matty . In this case, parallelist OT must resort to co-phonologies to avoid ranking paradoxes, which results in significant analytical complexity. By contrast, I argue in this paper that a stratal analysis is crucial for capturing multiple patterns of Hypocoristic Formation (HF) within a single architecture. I present here data of disyllabic hypocoristics from Standard Chilean Spanish. These hypocoristics are derived from the proper nouns by means of two separate anchoring sites: to the left edge of the full name, or to prominence in the full name, i.e., the tonic syllable. In addition, hypocoristics may be prosodically- or morphologically-driven: they may solely be formed by truncating the material of the proper noun, or, in the latter case, there may also be additional suffixal material provided. These data, therefore, lend themselves to a four-way categorisation. I show that this categorisation can be fully accounted for within a stratal architecture, and without the need for additional co-phonologies. Within the analysis, I locate each of the anchoring sites within the lexical phonology: edge-anchoring occurs at the stem level, along with syllabification and stress assignment, while prominence-anchoring occurs at the word level. In this way, the input to edge-anchoring at the stem level comprises a string of segments, while the input to prominence-anchoring at the word-level contains prosodic units up to the foot, which permits word-level HF to anchor to prominence. I further posit that prosodic- and morphologically-driven HF are caused through the passing of hypocoristic morphemes from the morpho-syntax to the phonology. Purely prosodic HF is triggered through a null or covert morpheme, while morphological HF triggered by an overt one. The hypocoristic morphemes themselves are stored as diacritics in the proper nouns’ lexical entries. Furthermore, the constraints that select the hypocoristic forms as optimal are sensitive to the presence of this hypocoristic morpheme, which is reflected in tableaux through indexing. When a hypocoristic morpheme is present in the input of a proper noun to a particular stratum, these highly-ranked indexed constraints select a corresponding hypocoristic form as optimal. If the hypocoristic morpheme is absent, these constraints do not assign violations, and the proper noun is instead (vacuously) found optimal. This analysis thus unifies two distinct patterns of HF in one phonological grammar through the inclusion of indexed-constraints and the serial derivation in a constraint-based architecture.
... En raison de cela, certains auteurs ayant contribué à l'instauration de la posture optimaliste originelle se sont vus obligés d'abandonner leur idée initiale qu'il n'existerait pas de niveaux intermédiaires entre les formes d'entrée et de sortie (cf. Kiparsky 2000 ;McCarthy 2007). ...
... Constraint interactions are used instead of derivations for monostratal and (generally, or as much as possible) non-derivational accounts of language; see, e.g. McCarthy (2002) and Odden (2014). 2 Stress on the initial element of compounds is considered the default (see e.g. Liberman and Sproat, 1992;Giegerich, 2004); but see also Lee (2007) and Hirschberg (1993) for counter-examples and some complicating factors. ...
Nuclear stress (or sentence stress) as a prosodic feature marks information flow in spoken English, and has received some treatment in the linguistics literature, most notably in pragmatics, but less so in newer phonological paradigms. Current theories in linguistics might shed light on this feature, such as Optimality Theory (OT) and cognitive grammar (CG). This paper compares potential insights and likely predictions of these two approaches for nuclear stress, by examining a recorded conversation of native US English speakers. The descriptive statistics indicate stress pattern distributions as expected, and some stress tokens show particular pragmatic and discourse functions of nuclear stress. The OT framework can better explain the interaction of different levels of prosody, grammar, and information structure, while CG might offer a more holistic explanation of stress, and its sociopragmatic and discourse functions, and may thus be likely more applicable to discourse studies, applied linguistics, and pedagogy. Implications are discussed for a CG theory of prosodic phonology, and for L2 pedagogy.
... When analysing data of speech errors collected in a natural setting, the theoretical generalisations presupposed should remain in focus: In this study we rely upon optimality theory (Prince andSmolensky, 2008 [1993]; McCarthy, 2002) and speech production theory (Levelt, 1999). The premise of optimality theory is that observed forms of language arise from optimal satisfaction in the speaker's resolution of conflicting constraints. ...
Due to the lack of cohesive data in linguistics revealing how the human brain functions, researchers make use of various disciplines including biology, neuroscience and psycholinguistics to investigate the relationship between language and the brain. Within the purview of psycholinguistics, this study presupposes optimality theory and Levelt’s theory of speech production, in order to analyse speech errors committed by non-brain damaged speakers of Kiswahili. These are mistakes made inadvertently during episodes of normal speech articulation. Speech errors are a natural and universal phenomenon across all human languages. Alongside the conventions constituting language games, speech errors can provide insightful evidence of intricate processes in the mental lexicon essential to speech production generally. It is noteworthy that the bulk of speech errors analysed in this study were premature cut-offs, since the speakers corrected their speech after their errors.
... The number of languages does not show a monotonic increase as sonority distances increase. Under Optimality Theory (OT), the variation in phonological grammar across languages is attributed to different constraint rankings of constraints in each individual language (McCarthy 2002(McCarthy , 2008Prince & Smolensky 1993Zec 2007). Under this framework, the finding from the current study that many languages do not have large sonority distances could be the effect of different constraint rankings in different languages. ...
An underlying assumption in terms of sonority distances is that clusters with large sonority distances are more common than those with small distances, as captured in the unmarked status of large sonority distances and formalized in terms of sonority constraints on consonant clusters. A cross-linguistic survey of attested sonority distances in 357 languages reveals that large sonority distances are not most commonly attested. Rather, there is a point of sonority distance at which the largest number of languages is attested. When the sonority distance exceeds a particular value, the number of languages starts to decrease, regardless of the sonority scales tested. The finding puts the unmarked status of large sonority distances to the test, suggesting a potential constraint that prevents large distances from surfacing.
... In an OT grammar, constraints interaction is all that is required to account for the VHR strategies adopted by any language. Indeed, it is a basic tenet of OT that variation in the strategies adopted by languages in resolving vowel hiatus is due to different ranking of universal constraints in a language specific constraint hierarchy (McCarthy, 2002;Prince & Smolensky, 2004). Constraints are not only universal, but they are also phonetically rounded, they mirror the process of speech articulation. ...
Previous phonological studies have indicated that a sequence of dissimilar hetero-syllabic/morphemic vowels are dispreferred across languages because it creates vowel hiatus. As a result, it may engender multiple repair mechanisms. However, the repair mechanisms do not apply liberally; they may be resisted in certain positions when segmental deletion or featural change fail to take place. Segments in phonetically and psycholinguistically privileged positions invariably resist such repair strategies that may be quite regular in the grammar of the language. In this study, a reanalysis of data from Lubukusu language (Bantu, Kenya) shows that a Positional Faithfulness (PF) account within an Optimality Theory (OT) framework may be felicitous in explaining both the initiation and resistance to the said repair processes. The findings indicate that the positional faithfulness of the vowel in question may determine whether it is deleted or which features may be changed based on a single constraint hierarchy in an optimal grammar of the language. Preservation of lexical contrast in positions that are critical in language processing is accounted for through positional sensitive constraint domination.
... In line with the OT tenet known as Richness of The Base (ROTB), generalizations about a language's inventory of sounds in the output must emerge from the phonological grammar, i.e., constraint ranking, and not from any restrictions placed directly on the input, nor from some combination of input restriction and phonological operation or constraint (Prince and Smolensky 2004, pp. 205, 225;McCarthy 2002McCarthy , pp. 70-71, 2008. It does not matter whether the input in Medieval Spanish contains /d͡ ʒ/ or /ʒ/ because their surface distribution should be predictable entirely by constraint interaction in the phonological grammar. ...
This article traces the development of voiced prepalatal obstruents /dʒ/ and /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish, the language spoken by the Sephardic Jews since before their expulsion from late-15th century Spain. Using Medieval Spanish as a comparative starting point, we examine diachronic innovations in the phonological status and distribution of affricate /dʒ/ and fricative /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish during the diaspora, focusing in particular on the effects of lexical borrowing from Turkish and French in territories of the former Ottoman Empire. In contemporary Sephardic communities that are in contact with non-Sephardic varieties of Mainstream Spanish, some speakers occasionally replace syllable-initial /∫/, /dʒ/, and /ʒ/ in certain Judeo-Spanish words by a voiceless velar /x/ in efforts to accommodate the pronunciation of the corresponding Mainstream Spanish cognate form. We provide a novel analysis of Judeo-Spanish voiced prepalatal obstruents, including their diachronic and synchronic variation under language contact. The analysis combines a constraint-based approach to phonological alternations, as formalized in Optimality Theory, with a usage-based representation of the mental lexicon, as proposed in Exemplar Theory, to account for speaker- and word-specific variability. A hybrid theoretical model provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between lexicon and grammar in Judeo-Spanish phonology than is available in previous structuralist descriptions.
... Unlike the previous phonological theories, OT proposes a clear mapping between underlying and surface structure. OT prepares a surface structure (McCarthy, 2002). Markedness and faithfulness constraints in OT explain the formal order of RP English pronunciation and the deviations demonstrated by the broadcasters in their speech. ...
p style="text-align: justify;">The pronunciation patterns of most speakers of English as a second language are characterized by regional and ethnic phonological features of their native language. This study sought to examine the consonant articulation of Hausa speakers of English in broadcasting industry in Nigeria. The research was guided by Optimality Theory framework (OT). Participants were drawn from four electronic media in Bauchi State, Nigeria and data were elicited through production test and recording of news broadcasts live from the stations. The findings revealed that the participants ranked IDENTCONT as a high ranked constraints which allowed the importation of voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/ from the phonemic inventory of Hausa language into English spoken by the subjects. The results further discovered that /p/ is substituted with/ɸ/ and /θ/ is substituted with /t/, /d/ or /s/. Similarly, /ð/ is realized as /d/ or /z/. /ʒ/ is produced as /dʒ/ or /ʃ. These deviations from RP were caused by phonological processes of spirantinzation/Frication, stopping and affrication.</p
... Franck et al., 2010;Lago et al., 2015;Patson & Husband, 2015;Schlueter et al., 2019;Tanner et al., 2014;inter alia). 9 Such prioritization could arise through the application of ranked constraints similar to Optimality Theory (Bresnan, 2000;McCarthy, 2002) (Badecker & Kuminiak, 2007) or the use of a special cue looking for a marked representation (Wagers et al., 2009). 10 A potential challenge that arises for retrieval accounts assuming a privative number system is why partial activation of the attractor should yield more retrieval errors in production, where by our hypothesis number cues are not used in retrieval, than in comprehension trials with singular attractors, where singular number is assumed to be unmarked and hence not used. ...
Studies of agreement attraction in language production have shown that speakers systematically produce verb agreement errors in the presence of a local noun whose features differ from that of the agreement controller. However, in attraction experiments, these errors only ever occur in a subset of trials. In the present study, we applied a naturalistic scene-description paradigm to investigate how attraction affects the distribution of errors and the time-course of correctly inflected verbs. We conducted our experiment both in the lab and in an unsupervised web-based setting. The results were strikingly similar across the experimental settings for both the error and timing analyses, demonstrating that it is possible to conduct production experiments via the internet with a high level of similarity to those done in the lab. The experiments replicated the basic number attraction effect, though they elicited comparable interference from both singular and plural local nouns, challenging common assumptions about a strong plural markedness effect in attraction. We observed slowdowns before correct verbs that paralleled the distribution of agreement errors, suggesting that the process resulting in attraction can be active even when no error is produced. Our results are easily captured by a model of agreement attraction in which errors arise at the point of computing agreement, rather than reflecting earlier errors made during initial encoding of the subject number.
... An optimal candidate is at the top of the harmonic order of the candidate set. According to McCarthy (2002), the core universal elements of OT can be schematized as follows: -2- ...
The paper addresses cases of schwa epenthesis in nouns within the constraint-based framework of Optimality Theory. The basic assumption underlying the present work is that the placement of the schwa in non-derived trisegmental and quadrisegmental nouns to which vowel-initial suffixes are added is governed mainly by sonority and alignment constraints along with other constraints on syllable structure. The sonority constraints force the schwa to epenthesize before the most sonorous consonant in a /CCC/ sequence, while the alignment constraints require that the right edge of the output form correspond to an iambic foot consisting of a minor syllable following or preceding a major syllable. When higher order sonority constraints are not at stake, forms on the pattern [CCəC], or [CCəCC-V] emerge as optimal; otherwise, the forms that emerge as optimal are [CəCC] or [CəCCC-V].
Keywords: Optimality Theory, Sonority, syllable structure, minor syllable, major syllable, alignment constraints, Iambic foot.
... In contrast to previous analyses of these data, which assumed rule-based derivational frameworks (Hualde 1988b;Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1987;Lombardi 1990;van de Weijer 1992;Artiagoitia 1993;LaCharité 1993), the current paper uses parallel evaluations of output candidates based on constraint violations in the framework of Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky 2004). The advantages of OT over rule-based approaches have been shown in the literature of the past two decades and hence they are not the main focus of the present article (e.g., McCarthy & Prince 1995;Rubach 1997;Kager 1999;McCarthy 2001;Bermúdez-Otero & Hogg 2003; Łuszczek forthcoming; among others). Regarding the theory of representation, the paper assumes that features are organized hierarchically on autosegmental tiers (Clements 1985;Sagey 1986). ...
The representation of affricates remains an unsettled issue in phonology. The main question is whether affricates should be treated as simple or complex segments. In the former view, affricates are stops specified for an additional feature, such as [strident]; in the latter, affricates are complex segments specified for [+continuant] and [–continuant] in an unordered fashion. Using the framework of Optimality Theory, this paper investigates similarity avoidance effects in Basque under the two competing theories of representation. The posited OCP effects involve the avoidance of [strident] and [–continuant] clusters. Importantly, the complex segment approach requires the use of two additional constraints militating against [+continuant] and [+obstruent] clusters. The analysis successfully accounts for the imperfective formation data as well as for other processes in Basque, such as simplification of stop clusters, stop+fricative coalescence and lenition of voiced obstruents. Additionally, the article discusses asymmetries in consonant mutations connected with the OCP effects. In particular, the preference of surface fricative+stop clusters over stop+fricative clusters is attributed to a high-ranked markedness constraint, NOAFFRICATECONTRAST. An important conclusion of the analysis is that the complex segment approach creates unnecessary complications, as the parallel framework allows to maintain satisfactory generalizations within the simple segment approach.
... René Kager (1999) gave a very useful introduction to the theory. Later, the theory was substantially expanded by John J. McCarthy (2002). Initially, it was meant for phonology only, but later it was applied in morphology, syntax and semantics as well. ...
The paper is strictly based on the study of the distribution of various allomorphs in Meeteilon morphology in order to study the morphosyntactic nature of the word. Allomorphs can be distributed phonologically, morphologically and lexically. However, for Meeteilon there is only phonologically conditioned allomorphs. The classification of these allomorphs will be helpful in the segmentation of morphemes, morpheme identification, parts of speech tagging and other fields related to natural language processing by setting the phonological rule which accounts morphological alternation. Finally, an introduction to optimality theory approach has been applied in the final devoicing of the syllable.
The type-wise productivity of lexical V-V compounds in Japanese is investigated systematically from the perspective of thematic proto-roles. It is shown that the degrees of productivity are sensitive not only to the quantitative advantage of transitive verbs but also to the complexities encountered in the process of argument matching between two verbs to be combined via compounding. The correlation between such complexities and productivity is captured by an optimality-oriented approach that takes advantage of a set of markedness constraints. The constraints are not simply capable of selecting the most optimal candidate of a single comparison, but useful for comparing different winning candidates from separate and mutually independent comparisons as well. The current approach distinguishes itself from those based on the traditional concept of transitivity of verbs, which merely describe—but are not capable of predicting—the observed patterns of productivity.
This paper is a descriptive and analytic study of the tones and tone sandhi of the Southern Wu dialect of Lóngyóu (龙游), a city of c. 400,000 inhabitants located about 375 km southwest of Shanghai in Western Zhejiang Province, China. It is based on data collected in 2018 from two female native speakers. Our data is analyzed with Praat (Boersma and Weenick in Praat: doing phonetics by computer, 1992–2021) to document the F0 and duration correlates to the tonal categories and their sandhi changes. Evidence is presented for the representation of the tones in terms of Register and Contour (Bao in On the nature of tone, 1990; The structure of tone, Oxford University Press, 1999). One of the sandhis is analyzed as the conjunction of two Optimality Theoretic (Prince and Smolensky in Optimality theory, MIT Press, 1993, 2004) markedness constraints. A lexically-determined reflex of the Middle Chinese chiuhsheng metatony is also documented.
Natural phonology is a linguistic theory developed by David Stampe and Patricia Donegan that seeks to explain the phonological patterns observed in human languages. The phonological processes are seen as natural and regular reactions to the limitations of the human vocal and auditory system. A natural class refers to a combination of segments which tend to behave similarly because they have features in common. The problem of this study is that NP heavily depends on theoretical arguments and introspection rather than empirical data. Only limited rules can categorize the natural classes and apply to features. This research aims at identifying the gist of the theory of natural phonology, clarifying its principles and processes. This study hypothesizes that there are no regular processes and there are phonological variation across languages. The model adopted of this study is Donegan and Stampe 1979. This study concludes that NP supposes that the samples of speech are governed by innate and universal set of phonological processes.
The current study investigates whether some of the variation in h-production observed among Quebec francophone (QF) learners of English could follow from their at times assimilating /h/ to /ʁ/. In earlier research, we attributed variation exclusively to QFs developing an approximate (“fuzzy” or “murky”) representation of /h/ that is not fully reliable as a base for h-perception and production. Nonetheless, two previous studies observed via event-related potentials differences in QF perceptual ability, which may follow from the quality of the vowel used in the stimuli: /ɑ/ vs. /ʌ/ (detection vs. no detection of /h/). Before the vowel /ɑ/, /h/ exhibits phonetic properties that may allow it to be assimilated to and thus underlyingly represented as /ʁ/. If /h/ is at times subject to approximate representation (e.g., before /ʌ/) and at others captured as /ʁ/ (before /ɑ/), we would expect production of /h/ to reflect this representational distinction, with greater accuracy rates in items containing /ɑ/. Two-way ANOVAs and paired Bayesian t- tests on the reading-aloud data of 27 QFs, however, reveal no difference in h-production according to vowel type. We address the consequences of our findings, discussing notably why QFs have such enduring difficulty acquiring /h/ despite the feature [spread glottis] being available in their representational repertoire. We propose the presence of a Laryngeal Input Constraint that renders representations containing only a laryngeal feature highly marked. We also consider the possibility that, rather than having overcome this constraint, some highly advanced learners are “phonological zombies”: these learners become so adept at employing approximate representations in perception and production that they are indistinguishable from speakers with bona fide phonemic representations.
Stress assignment is challenging in L2 situations, especially when the L1 and L2 speakers do not have similar stress elasticity, placement, and timing. The primary concern of this study investigates stress assignment among Tiv-English (TivE) speakers. Such a rare study is available on TivE, unlike other major varieties (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) of Nigerian English (NE) that have widely received scholarly examination; the present study, therefore, delves into a preliminary study on the stress patterns of TivE in word isolation and passage reading with two-five syllable words. A total of 1,822 tokens were produced by fifty (50) Tiv bilinguals from the two public universities. Participants are between 18 and 65 years and satisfy the educated variety of TivE from the two institutions that accommodate Tiv bilinguals as respondents from different parts of Benue State. The audio recordings at 44,100 Hz were annotated in Praat for stress assignment transcription. Analysis of word stress by isolation and passage reading showed that 84.5% of stress in isolation is similar to other varieties, while 15.6% showed variation. The findings show more similarities than differences in two-syllabic word stress. These patterns were consistently ranked as NSR>>ROOTING>>LHR>>RHR.
This paper is a practice-led case study on Fred Lerdahl's "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems". The model attempts to define an artificial compositional grammar in terms of a "universal listening syntax" based on Lerdahl's co-authored A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Through demonstrating the practical application of the constraints, the author reflects on the model's usefulness in light of the contemporary compositional context. Notably, the theory presents abstracted pitch and rhythmic material as an aesthetically neutral syntax, therefore it can only provide stylistically ambiguous infrastructures akin to a musical maquette that needs to be further enacted at the composer's discretion.
This paper is a nonconventional endeavor that strictly attempts to systematize the process of translation in a solid fashion almost similar to other modern linguistic disciplines where such major disciplines such as phonology, syntax and semantics are oftentimes approached and investigated on competence-based criteria. Since professional translation should be meticulously oriented and objectively described as a multi-phase process that hinges upon deliberateness, any set of choices that a translator has to consider before picking up his/her final choice must undergo a strictly discreet process of elimination of all less successful candidates. Therefore, the researcher argues that such deliberate choices can be best analyzed and justified in light of implementing a set of rule ordering. This very idea of rule ordering has been borrowed from the field of phonology as introduced by Kiparsky (1968) and revisited by Kiparsky (1982.a. and 1982.b.), then more precisely implemented and extended some decades later by Mascaro (2011) also in phonology and by Nunes (2004) in Syntax. Such rule ordering and rule flipping can feed or bleed and thus counter-feed or counter-bleed our linguistic choices at the phoneme level, the syllable level, the morpheme level and the lexeme level. By and large, this logical process can be relatively and satisfactorily extended to the field of translation as an endeavor in the cause of neatly and cogently highlighting and justifying any possible grammatical, lexical and stylistic choices that professional translators may opt for as stable and productive filters based on their idealized translation competence which is rooted in the foundations of Dell Hymes' communicative competence (Hymes, 1976; Hymes, 2003).
This paper aimed at testing McCarthy’s proposal of deletion within the framework of Harmonic Serialism (HS) (2018). According to him, the place feature of a target consonant is first delinked to a glottal and then the rest of the features are totally lost. However, the gradual operations of the t-deletion, for example, are not logical due to the distance in place of articulation between the target alveolar and the default glottal in the first HS step. In addition, since the glottal sound is a back sound, it needs a lot of effort from the muscles to produce it. Therefore, reducing an alveolar segment to a glottal becomes heavier than the alveolar sound itself. In investigating the Taizi Yemeni Arabic glottal deletion as in /madrasah/ (مدرسة ), ‘school’, which becomes [madrasa] or [madrasa:], the phoneme /h/ meets a single step as it is regarded as a placeless segment. The assumption of featural reduction of place and then total deletion fails to improve gradual harmony and, therefore, cannot be modeled in a harmonic improvement tableau. This is a contradictory logic and goes against the HS gradualness system of deletion, in which deletion is a two-step process. As a consequence, it is suggested to deal with deletion as a one-step process rather than a two-step process.
Contrary to universally held assumptions, classic OT constraint interaction , without conjoined constraints, distance faithfulness or P-Maps, can generate chain shift and saltation patterns. These new results are derived by constructing OT grammars with the required properties. The key is to derive the relevant alternating segments from under-specified segments, thus reconceptualizing these patterns as involving mappings among elements, some of which may possibly never appear in output forms. It is now apparent that the presumed failure of classic OT to generate chainshifts cannot play a role in evaluating the merits of classic OT vis-à-vis other models of phonological computation.
This research focuses on the linguistic landscape (abbreviated as LL) and explores how both linguistic and non-linguistic markedness are manipulated in commercial advertisements to create a compelling impact on potential customers, thereby attracting their attention to the product. The study utilizes data collected from commercial signs found on social media platforms and snapshots taken within the Mataram Municipal area. These gathered data are then subjected to analytical processing, taking into account the verbal and non-verbal context surrounding the advertisements. Additionally, the conceptual aspects of the speakers are also considered to support the analysis of the marked and unmarked status of the analyzed terms. The findings reveal that the exposure of markedness in the signage heavily relies on foregrounding techniques. Foregrounding is primarily achieved through the violation of the speakers' expectations regarding the terms used, encompassing both linguistic and socio-cultural perspectives that readers possess. Furthermore, these foregrounding techniques are reinforced by the proximity between the text and the surrounding context of the signage and its environment. By combining these textual and environmental elements, advertisers aim to optimize the intended message conveyed by the signage.
This article conducts a comparative study between Optimality Theory in linguistics (Prince and
Smolensky 1993) and the Dorsal-Ventral Model of Speech processing (Hickok and Poeppel
2004). The study makes use of the descriptive-analytical method. In Optimality Theory there are
two major types of constraints: Faithfulness and Markedness. According to this theory, linguistic
forms arise from interaction between Faithfulness and Markedness constraints. In contrast, the
Dorsal-Ventral model of speech processing has two dorsal and ventral streams. The ventral
stream is for speech comprehension, and the dorsal stream is for speech production. Here we first
compared the ventral and then dorsal stream with the Optimality Theory. By comparing the
ventral stream with Optimality Theory, the selection of optimal phonological representation has
been described. By comparing the dorsal stream, the selection of optimal phonetic representation
has been described. Following this stage, clinical evidences are mentioned to increase the
strength of research analyses, and finally conclusions are presented. The results show that
Optimality Theory is also neurologically compatible with the Dorsal-Ventral model of speech
processing. Since in Optimality Theory, it is constraints that determine the optimal output, the
neural explanation of constraints is currently not possible.
This paper discusses a case of putative dominance reversal in the Komo language (Otero 2015, 2019), which we analyze as a related, but distinct repair strategy called “Use it or Lose it” (Mullin & Pater 2015).Mullin & Pater (2015) argue that Use it or Lose it harmony is a pathological prediction of Agree for the same basic reason that “Sour Grapes” harmony (Wilson 2003, 2006; Heinz & Lai 2013) has been regarded as pathological – both Use it or Lose it and Sour Grapes harmony patterns are non-myopic (Wilson 2003, 2006). Wilson argues that unbounded spreading patterns are universally myopic, and as such, no theory should predict that the realization of some element in spreading – trigger or target – depends on downstream information. However, recent research has shown that some patterns in natural languages are, in fact, non-myopic, indicating that the predictions of Agree are not as problematic as previously thought. This paper argues that the best analysis of Komo relies on the activity of [Atr] and both regressive [+Atr] spreading and [+Atr] trigger effacement are repairs to a single marked structure in the language, *VC0[Hi, Atr].
This study adopts a theoretical analysis of the learnability of English word-stress. It intends to provide an Optimality-theoretic analysis of word-stress learnability among Moroccan learners of English. Language acquisition, from an Optimality Theory perspective, is a process of reordering the constraints from an initial state of the grammar to the language-specific ranking of the target grammar. To account for stress development, this paper makes use of the Constraint Demotion Algorithm (Tesar & Smolensky, 1996; 2000), which learners adopt to infer the correct hierarchy of constraints. Starting with a default hierarchy supplied by Universal Grammar, learners proceed with the recursive demotion of higher-ranked constraints until the correct ranking is reached. The algorithm, starting by initializing the hierarchy, assumes that constraints are unranked and thus hosted in the same stratum. Sixty Moroccan learners participated in the study. The informants are third-year students at Ibn Tofail University. They were administered an oral multiple-choice test that elicited their intuition about English stress patterns. The overall findings of the study reveal that learners’ prior (L1) ranking influences their learnability of English stress. That is, Moroccan learners misplace stress in English words due to the initial state of their grammar. From the findings, OT is evidenced to successfully predict learning stages using CDA, wherein each demotion signals a learning stage.
This study analyzes wh-questions from the perspective of the theories of the Minimalist Program and Optimality Theory. We look at specific wh-constructions, including the gap strategy, the in-situ strategy, multiple wh-questions, and relativized wh-questions. This paper shows both the similarities and differences between OT and MP in analyzing wh-elements. One crucial difference is that OT solves the problem of optionality and clearly tackles some aspects of the syntax-pragmatics interface.
The paper works in the area of linguistic landscape (hence LL). It concerns with the issue of how markedness (linguistic and extra-linguistic) is manipulated in commercial ads in creating dramatic effect on the part of potential customers and hence attract attention on the product. The data of the study derive from commercial signages on the social media and direct snapshot taken around Mataram Municipal. The data gathered are then analytically processed by considering the verbal and non-verbal context surrounding the ads. In addition, speakers’ conceptual aspects are also taken consideration to support the marked and unmarked status of the terms analysed. It is found that markedness is exposed on the signages relies much on such strategy as foregrounding techniques. The foregrounding takes the form mainly of violation of the speakers expect on the term. The violations include both linguistic and socio-cultural perspective that the readers have. The foregrounding techniques are further supported by textual adjacency between the text and co-textual adjustment in the signage and the signage environment (topography). It is through the combining of such textual and environmental elements the advertisers expect to maximize the meaning of signage.
The present study aims at contrasting the patterns governing noun diminutive formation between Tafili Spoken Arabic (TSA), a dialect in Jordanian Arabic (JA), and Jijilian Spoken Arabic (JSA), a dialect in Algerian Arabic, and then accounting for that within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). Throughout the analysis of the collected data, it is found that the diminutive forms in both dialects are based on a change in the phonological processes of a word by insertion, deletion or changing of some phonological segments. However, the present study has disclosed that noun diminutive forms in TSA result from the application of the following phonological processes: vowel epenthesis, vowel shortening, glide insertion, vowel syncope, and the insertion of the glottal stop at the beginning of words. Whereas noun diminutive forms in JSA result from the application of the following phonological processes: vowel syncope, vowel epenthesis, vowel shortening, glide insertion, degemination and metathesis. The application of OT to account for those phonological processes indicates that they happen from a continual conflict between some markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints. The researchers recommend for another study to be applied investigating and contrasting the patterns governing noun diminutive formation between other two dialects by accounting for that within the framework of OT.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memaparkan realisasi fonem nasal bahasa Jepang oleh mahasiswa jurusan Sastra Jepang semester lima Universitas Padjadjaran. Sumber data pada penelitian ini adalah hasil tuturan dari lima orang mahasiswa. Data diperoleh dengan metode perekaman suara terhadap tuturan mahasiswa. Adapun temuan dari penelitian ini adalah semua partisipan merealisasikan fonem nasal pada kata sanpo menjadi alofon nasal bilabial [m], mahasiswa yang berbahasa ibu bahasa Jawa merealisasikan fonem nasal pada kata minna menjadi alofon uvular nasal [ɴ], fonem nasal pada kata niku direalisasikan menjadi alofon alveolar nasal [n], terjadi denasalisasi pada empat mahasiswa ketika mengucapkan kata shougakkou, fonem nasal pada kata hon direalisasikan menjadi alofon uvular nasal oleh semua partisipan, mahasiswa perempuan memiliki pitch suara yang lebih tinggi, dan tuturan mahasiswa laki-laki lebih keras daripada tuturan mahasiswa perempuan. Selain itu, realisasi yang berbeda dari fonem yang sama membentuk aturan fonologis yang berbeda.
This work describes and analyzes the evolution of the consonantal system of one child, Marilyn. The period considered ranges from two to three years old, which corresponds to when most changes took place in her phonological system. The analysis focuses specifically on: consonant acquisition in word-final position and in word-medial branching rhymes, the acquisition of voicing contrasts as well as fricatives substitutions by [l] and processes affecting consonantal place and manner of articulation. The theoretical framework used in the analysis is based on segmental and prosodic representations along with a formalism based on constraint interaction. The interaction between the various constraints governs the shape of surface forms as well as relations between underlying and surface forms. I also take into consideration the effects of external factors which can influence Marilyn’s productions. In particular, I focus on the effects of the specific physiology of the child’ immature vocal tract, the question of motor control, in addition to the frequency of consonants in the ambient language.This work thus integrates external factors into the phonological analysis in order to explain Marilyn’s productions during the time period under investigation. This integration reveals the existence of a complex but systematic interaction between phonological and external factors. I demonstrate that the child’s phonological system reacts to constraints imposed by the external factors, which yields the emergence of various phonological processes in Marilyn’s speech.
It has been universally accepted (e.g., Kager, 1999; Hayes and White, 2015) that “classical OT” (without, e.g., local constraint conjunction) can generate neither chain shift patterns (e.g., /b/ ∼ [B] and /p/ ∼ [b] in the same contexts) nor saltations (/p/ ∼ [B] but /b/ stays [b]). We provide existence proofs for classic OT grammars (inputs and ranked constraints) that, in fact, generate both patterns, as long as reconceptualization of the problems is granted: e.g., for chainshifts, instead of considering derivations between fully specified segments (/b/ →[B] and /p/ →[b]), we select an underlyingly underspecified segment that surfaces, depending on context, as [b] or [B], and another that surfaces as [p] or [b]. Our solutions are thus weakly equivalent to the versions of the chain shift and saltation problems as traditionally considered, because, although they involve the same surface alternations, they do not involve the exact same input-output mappings. Our point is not to compare our solutions with others (involving, e.g., local constraint conjunction, applied to chain shifts most famously by Kirchner (1996)) but rather to show that failure to generate surface chain shift and saltation patterns can no longer be invoked against models using only “classical OT” machinery.
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