<OT> New Posting: ROA-683

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 683-0904

Taking a Free Ride in Morphophonemic Learning

John J. McCarthy <jmccarthy at linguist.umass.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=683


Abstract:
As language learners begin to analyze morphologically complex
words, they face the problem of projecting underlying representat
ions from the morphophonemic alternations that they observe.
Research on learnability in Optimality Theory has started
to address this problem, and this article deals with one
aspect of it. When alternation data tell the learner that
some surface [B]s are derived  from underlying /A/s, the
learner must sometimes generalize by deriving *all* surface
[B]s, even nonalternating ones, from /A/s. An adequate learning
theory must therefore incorporate a procedure that allows
nonalternating [B]s to take a 'free ride' on the /A/ ->
[B] unfaithful map.

Comments: To appear in Catalan Journal of Linguistics 4 (special issue on Phonology in Morphology, edited by Maria-Rosa Lloret and Jesús Jiménez)
Keywords: learnability, opacity, chain shift
Areas: Learnability,Phonology
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=683