Key aspects of declarative phonology (original) (raw)

Constraints, exceptions and representations

Proceedings of ACL SIGPHON First Meeting, 1994

This paper shows that default-based phonologies have the potential to capture morphophonological generalisations which cannot be captured by non-default theories. In achieving this result, I offer a characterisation of Underspecification Theory and Optimality Theory in terms of their methods for ordering defaults. The result means that machine learning techniques for bull-(ling declm'ative analyses may not provide an adequate b~is for morphol)honological analysis.

Markedness and Economy in a Derivational Model of Phonology

Studies in generative grammar, 2005

Reviewed by ANDREW NEVINS, Harvard University Researchers across various disciplines from propositional logic to theoretical linguistics agree that rules and constraints are always logically intertranslatable, with Mohanan (2000 : 145ff.) being the most recent to emphasize the relevance of this insight for phonological theory : (1) p p q is equivalent to :(p & :q) [+nasal] p[+voice] *[+nasal, xvoice] Unfortunately, most linguists take this equivalence to mean that one should adopt a model which is either rules-only or constraints-only, for the sake of theoretical sanitation. Thus, proponents of Optimality Theory (OT) employ only constraints, while proponents of classical generative phonology (see, for example, Kenstowicz & Kisseberth 1979) employ only rules. At last, someone recognizes that intertranslatability does not mean that a given phonological model must choose between rules and constraints and should have only one or the other. As Andrea Calabrese argues in this book, logical equivalence does not imply equivalent explanatory adequacy for a given phonological phenomenon (34). According to Calabrese, an ideal phonological theory should contain BOTH constraints and rules (119), each serving a different function : (2) (a) Constraints are instructions to avoid a given configuration. (b) Rules are instructions to create a given configuration. Employing both rules and constraints allows for a principled separation between what is a 'conspiracy ', e.g. the ban on three consecutive consonants (*CCC) (Kisseberth 1970), and what is not, e.g. the ban on open syllables ending with [a] (*a] Syll) (McCarthy 2000). Calabrese proposes that only conspiracies should be handled with constraints, and illustrates at length with a discussion of vowel hiatus. Constraints are characterized by the fact that they have multiple repairs across languages. Thus, in the survey conducted by Casali (1998), vowel

Violable is variable: Optimality theory and linguistic variation

Language Variation and Change, 1997

ABSTRACTOptimality theory (OT) (McCarthy & Prince, 1993; Prince & Smolensky, 1993) has been proposed as a constraint-based theory of phonology in which the phonological facts of each language are accounted for by a language-specific ordering of a universal inventory of constraints. The constraints, expressing desirable (i.e., optimal) phonological states, evaluate possible candidate forms, selecting the optimal output. Any constraint may be violated by a surface form if it is overridden by a higherranked constraint; the ordinal sequence of constraints provides a weak quantification of constraint effects. Variability has been treated within OT by varying constraint orders. This model is analogous in several important respects to the variable rule model (VR) of Labov (1969) and Cedergren and Sankoff (1974). In VR, variable constraints express desirable phonological states which are variably realized on the surface, when not overridden by other constraints; constraints are probabilisti...

Optimality theory and the generative complexity of constraint violability

1998

Abstract It has been argued that rule-based phonological descriptions can uniformaly be expressed as mappings carried out by finite-state transducers, and therefore fall within the class of rational relations. If this property of generative capacity is an empirically correct characterization of phonological mappings, it should hold of any sufficiently restrictive theory of phonology, whether it utilizes constraints or rewrite rules.

Boolean operations and constraint interactions in Optimality Theory

ROA-229, 1997

This paper develops a theory of constraint interactions in which the requirements of two or more individual constraints are coordinated as a unit, or macro-constraint. Macro-constraints are required to account for certain types of phonological dependency; specifically, cases in which a complex linguistic pattern is co-conditioned by multiple factors. We examine examples of such patterns in Diyari, Zezuru Shona, Dongolese Nubian, and Bolivian Guaraní and show that an analysis which appeals to macro-constraints predicts attested outputs under otherwise standard assumptions concerning the evaluation of interacting constraints in OT. The behaviour of macroconstraints in restricting phonological behaviour reveals intriguing parallels with operations of conjunction, disjunction, and implication familiar from classical (or Boolean) logic. The analogy with logic is developed extensively, focussing on the operation of conjunction, and on differences between conjunction and implication. Finally, we show that the behaviours of constraints interacting under coordination bring into sharper focus subtle EVAL effects which do not emerge * This paper has profitted from the input of a number of colleagues. We thank

Review of Féry Caroline and Ruben van de Vijver (ed.). 2003. The Syllable in Optimality Theory

Yet another book about the syllable, one could say. Still, the editors convincingly argue that the book fills a lacuna by providing a systematic treatment and evaluation of the role of the syllable in the most popular modern phonological framework-Optimality Theory. The volume is a collection of fifteen chapters grouped into five parts, each dealing with a different aspect of syllable-based phonology. Part One, 'Introduction', prepared by the editors, is an excellent, short but comprehensive, overview of the problems the book will be concerned with. Part Two, 'Syllable structure and prosodic structure' (four chapters), deals with weight issues. The five chapters of Part Three, 'Nonmoraic syllables and syllable edges', treat the notorious 'unsyllabifiable' segments. Part Four, 'Segments and syllables', includes four chapters on the segmental structure of syllables, and finally, Part Five, 'How concrete is phonotaxis?', provides an apparent anticlimax with a chapter proposing syllable-independent phonotactics. Féry & van de Vijver emphasise the mutual benefit relation between the syllable and Optimality Theory (OT): while OT sheds new light on old syllable-related issues, the syllable allows OT to make valid phonological generalisations. For instance, they show that OT is able to account for syllable typology by means of its markedness and faithfulness constraints rather than by means of rules and rule conspiracies. The universally predictable implicational hierarchy of syllable structures can be explained as a result of the interaction (shown via ranking) among the constraints. If markedness constraints (like ONSET and NOCODA) fully dominate faithfulness constraints (e.g. a constraint against deletion and against epenthesis), we obtain the most unmarked syllable type, namely CV. The authors claim that the advantage of the OT explanation as opposed to the 'conspiracy of rules' explanation lies in the fact that while the rules 'do not know' their own ultimate function (e.g. hiatus avoidance, which may be obtained either via consonant epenthesis or vowel deletion), constraints always rank with reference to this ultimate function (i.e. faithfulness constraints with reference to markedness constraints). This advantage granted, it is worth remembering that Natural Phonology in both its earlier and later facets has advocated a functional account of phonological structures by means of either (earlier) simultaneous ordered application of universal natural processes or (later) preference hierarchies (compare markedness constraints) and semiotic principles (compare faithfulness constraints). The Swabian example (9) is easily handled by a processbased interpretation (bi[s]t → bi[S]t → bi[S]). Incidentally, the authors state that 'in Hawaiian, hiatus is freely allowed' (5), which is disputable. In fact, certain combinations of two vowels in Hawaiian are pronounced as one-syllable diphthongs (cf. Schütz 1995: 18), and diphthongisation is certainly one of the hiatus-avoidance strategies. The syllable as a prosodic constituent is a leitmotif of Part Two. In 'Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit' John J. McCarthy replaces the opaque Duke-of-York derivation in Bedouin Arabic (/ÁkAlAt → /kÁlAt → /AkÁlAt) with the improved sympathy theory account, in which the notion of cumulativity is employed. While in a Duke-of-York derivation, 'later steps do not accumulate the results of earlier steps' (25), in non-Duke-of-York derivations exactly this happens. In this way, the intermediate steps are not vacuous/opaque any more. The clear advantage of this analysis over the rule-based analysis is that it is transparent. However, the apparatus for comparing and evaluating unfaithful mappings is very complex, while in the case of Duke-of-York derivations usually one intermediate-stage