<OT> New Posting: ROA-877

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 877-1006

Constraints on phonological interactions

Lev Blumenfeld <levblume at ucsc.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=877


Abstract:
Optimality Theory (OT) is committed to a view of phonology
where significant generalizations are placed in the character
of output structures. Markedness constraints state these
surface preferences, and grammars are free to choose from
a variety of paths (repair strategies) that enforce the
output structures. OT faces systematic difficulties with
cases where a given markedness constraint is observed to
cause fewer repairs than predicted by the theory. This 
dissertation examines several cases of this type, termed 
'too-many-solutions' problems. I argue that the difficulty 
faced by OT is due to the significant phonological 
generalizations being most insightfully stated not as output 
preferences, but preferences for input-output mappings. I 
argue for a new type of OT markedness constraint to handle 
such 'procedural' generalizations. Unlike traditional 
markedness constraints, these new constraints penalize 
dispreferred processes rather than output forms. The 
typology of interactions between prosodic and segmental 
properties provides the empirical evidence for the proposals. 
The asymmetry between, on the one hand, those phonological 
categories to which stress can be sensitive, and on the 
other, those properties which it can condition has posed an 
intractable too-many-solutions problem for standard OT. At 
the root of the difficulties, I argue, is the fact that the
important generalization in the domain of prosody-segmental 
interactions is in the processes, not the outputs. The formal 
proposals are first developed with reference to this 
empirical domain. I propose a theory of procedural markedness 
constraints which refer to the direction of interaction 
between the relevant categories. These constraints penalize 
the candidates that involve typologically unobserved repair 
strategies in such a way that those candidates cannot be 
optimal. In the final part of the dissertation I apply the 
new theory of constraints to another problematic too-many-
solutions case, the typology of vowel syncope and epenthesis. 
Here, too, the procedural markedness constraints become 
necessary to account for systematic gaps in the conditioning 
environments of the two processes.

Comments: 
Keywords: optimality theory, prosody, too-many-solutions, syncope, epenthesis
Areas: Phonology
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=877