<OT> New Posting: ROA-1033

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 1033-0609

An integrated grammatical/non-grammatical  model of phonological variation

Andries W Coetzee <coetzee at umich.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1033


Abstract:
Phonological variation is conditioned by both grammatical
and non-grammatical factors. Nearly all models of variation
in phonological theory are exclusively grammatical, and
do not account for the influence of non-grammatical factors
at all. In this paper, I argue that an adequate theory of
phonological variation should account for both grammatical
and non-grammatical influences on variation, and I develop
a noisy Harmonic Grammar model of variation that can do
this. The constraints used in Harmonic Grammar are ordinary
grammatical constraints (as in Optimality Theory), and the
influence of grammar on variation follows from this. The
influence of non-grammatical factors is accounted for by
scaling the weight of faithfulness constraints up or down,
resulting in less or more unfaithfulness.

Comments: 
Keywords: Harmonic grammar, variation, usage frequency
Areas: Phonology,Sociolinguistics
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1033