<OT> Call For Papers: Experimental Approaches to Optimality Theory -- Deadline Reminder

[Rutgers Optimality Archive]

Call For Papers: Experimental Approaches to Optimality Theory -- Deadline
Reminder

Note: Deadline for abstract submission is approaching fast!!

Experimental Approaches to Optimality Theory

Date: 18, 19, 20 May 2007
Location: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Invited speakers:  René Kager
(Utrecht), Joe Pater (University of
Massachusetts)
Contact:  Andries Coetzee (expot at umich.edu)
Website: http://www.ling.lsa.umich.edu/expot
Call Deadline: January 7, 2007
For information on how to submit an abstract, please visit the website.

Call for papers

Over the past few decades, experimental data have been used increasingly as
evidence in phonological theorizing. This is no less true of Optimality
Theory (OT) as is evidenced by the growing body of OT literature that uses
experimental data. The purpose of this workshop is twofold. On the one hand,
we want to investigate the extent to which experimental data can be used to
fine-tune OT analyses. On the other hand, we want to consider the challenges
that non-categorical experimental data may pose to OT.

We invite abstracts for 30 minute talks (with 10 minutes discussion) on any
topic that combines experimental approaches with OT. For the purpose of this
workshop, we give a broad interpretation to "experimental approaches", so
that it includes experiments as diverse as psycholinguistic/processing tasks
(word-likeness, phoneme identification, lexical decision, etc.), as well
acoustic/articulatory experiments. We also do not want to limit
contributions to papers that argue for OT. Papers that use experimental
evidence to point out shortcomings of OT are equally welcome. Lastly, it is
not required that a submission contributes new experimental data. Papers
that deal with the general challenges posed to OT by non-categorical
experimental data can also be submitted.

The following are examples of specific topics, but certainly do not exhaust
the possibilities:

(a) Testing analyses through experimentation. It sometimes happens that more
than one analysis is possible for some phenomenon, and that more traditional
data cannot distinguish the analyses. In such cases, it is often possible to
tease apart the analyses with psycholinguistic experiments. For instance, in
her analysis of onset clusters, Fleischhacker (2005) uses several kinds of
psycholinguistic experiments to argue for an account using faithfulness
constraints based on perceptual similarity, and against an account based on
sonority driven syllable structure.

(b)  Finding experimental evidence for constraints. Experimental data can
also help in determining what the constraints are. Kawahara (to appear) uses
several perceptual experiments to argue for the existence of different kinds
of Ident[voice]-constraints. Zsiga et al. (2006) uses acoustic data from
Tswana to argue against the existence of the constraint *ND.

Testing hypotheses on the architecture of the grammar. There are certain
aspects of the architecture of an OT grammar that allow testing with
experimental data. Davidson et al. (2004) uses both articulatory and
perceptual experiments to test such basic principles as richness of the base
and the initial-sate ranking of M >> F.

(c)  There is also research that points to potential problems in the
architecture of OT grammars. Coleman and Pierrehumbert (1997), for instance,
show that contrary to what is expected under the assumption of strictness of
constraint domination, a nonce form with a single severe constraint
violation is not necessarily rated as very bad in word-likeness rating
tasks.

(d)  Accounting for gradience in experimental data. Data collected through
experiments are non-categorical. Since classic OT is a categorical model of
grammar, experimental data pose a problem to classic OT. There have been
several proposals for how classic OT can be expanded in order to account for
these kinds of non-categorical data (Hayes 2000, Boersma and Hayes 2001,
etc.)

References

Boersma, Paul and Bruce Hayes. 2001. Empirical tests for the Gradual
Learning Algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry, 32.

Coleman, John and Janet Pierrehumbert. 1997. Stochastic phonological
grammars and acceptability. In 3rd Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group
in Computational Phonology: Proceedings of the Workshop, 12 July 1997.
Somerset: Association for Computational Linguistics. p. 49-56

Fleischhacker, Heidi. 2005. Similarity in Phonology: Evidence from
Reduplication and Loan Adaptation. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.

Hayes, Bruce. 2000. Gradient well-formedness in Optimality Theory. In Joost
Dekkers, Frank van der Leeuw, and Jeroen van de Weijer, eds. Optimality
Theory: Phonology, Syntax and Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kawahara, Shigeto. to appear. A faithfulness scale projected from a
perceptibility scale: The case of [+voice] in Japanese. Language, 82(3).

Zsiga, Elizabeth, Maria Gouskova, and One Tlale. On the Status of Voiced
Stops in Tswana: Against *ND. In C. Davis, A. Deal, Y. Zabbal, eds.
Proceedings of NELS 36. Amherst: GLSA.

_____________________________

Andries W. Coetzee              www.umich.edu/~coetzee

Department of Linguistics       Tel: (734) 764-3725
University of Michigan          Fax: (734) 936-3406
1190 USB
204 Washtenaw Avenue
Ann Arbor
MI 48109-2215