<OT> New Posting: ROA-798

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 798-0106

Harmony at Base Omega: Utility Functions for OT

Alan Prince <prince at ruccs.rutgers.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=798


Abstract:
A 'utility function' turns a preference ordering into a
numerical scale. A constraint hierarchy imposes a lexicographic
order on a candidate set, which may  be unbounded and may
show unbounded numbers of violations. (For example, there
is no principled limit on the length of strings, and therefore
on the number of onsetless or coda-ful syllables, or epentheses,
they may contain.)  Although lexicographic order does not
admit utility functions in the general case, and although
OT cannot be comprehended under any system of exponential
weights for any given base, it turns out that utility functions
exist for OT, because the constraint set is finite and candidate
sets are denumerable. Here we exhibit a class of such functions.

Comments: 
Keywords: lexicographic, order, ordinal preference
Areas: Formal Analysis
Type: Squib

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=798