<OT> New Posting: ROA-610

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 610-0803

Deriving Economy: Syncope in Optimality Theory

Maria Gouskova <gouskova at rci.rutgers.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=610


Abstract:
This dissertation proposes that markedness constraints in
Optimality Theory are
lenient: a form can be marked with respect to a constraint
only if there is another form that is unmarked. Thus, no
constraint bans the least marked thing. The central consequence
of this idea is that there are no economy constraints that
penalize structure as such. Economy effects follow from
the interaction of lenient markedness constraints. Economy
constraints are shown to be not only unnecessary but actually
harmful: their very presence in CON predicts unattested
patterns that remove structure regardless of markedness.

Chapter 2 develops the theory of CON and argues that various
structural economy
effects (preferences for smaller structures over larger
ones and for fewer structures over more) follow from constraint
interaction. Also addressed are economy effects that involve
the deletion of input structure, including foot-sized maximum
effects in truncation and syllable-sized and segment-sized
maximum effects in reduplication. OT?s economy constraints
of the *STRUC family are argued to produce unattested patterns
under re-ranking and are excluded from CON as a matter of
principle.

Chapter 3 examines metrical syncope in Hopi, Tonkawa, and
Southeastern Tepehuan. Different patterns fall out from
the interaction of the same metrical
markedness constraints in language-specific rankings. All
of these constraints have other, non-economy effects?in
principle, they can be satisfied by the addition of structure
as well as by removal of structure. Metrical shortening
and syncope remove marked structure, not all structure:
the well-formedness of an output is determined by the distributio
n of weight in its feet and exhaustivity of footing, not
by the number of syllables, moras, and feet.

Chapter 4 examines differential syncope in Lillooet, Lushootseed,
and the
Lebanese and Mekkan dialects of Arabic. Under the leniency
hypothesis, there are
constraints against low-sonority syllable nuclei and foot
peaks but not high-sonority ones; likewise, there are constraints
against high-sonority foot margins but not high-sonority
vowels in general. The interaction of lenient constraints
cannot duplicate the effects of economy constraints. There
are real crosslinguistic asymmetries in attested differential
syncope patterns that can only be explained if we abandon
the notion that ?everything is marked.?

Comments: 
Keywords: economy, *Struc, syncope, vowel shortening, vowel deletion, apocope
Areas: Phonology
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=610