<OT> New Posting: ROA-1068

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ROA 1068-0110

The typological consequences of weighted constraints

Max Bane <bane at uchicago.edu>
Jason Riggle <jriggle at uchicago.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1068


Abstract:
A common `typological criterion' on linguistic models is
that they should predict (almost) all observed patterns
while minimizing overgeneration. For optimization-based
models, it has been argued that constraints should be ranked
rather than weighted to minimize overgeneration. Recently,
however, weighting has been shown to elegantly capture patterns
that ranking misses. To evaluate the issue, we provide software
that builds ranked/weighted-typologies. We find that some
independently motivated restrictions eliminate much overgeneratio
n but that, in general, weighting leads to numerous novel
(and odd) constraint interactions.

Comments: To appear in the proceedings of CLS 45
Keywords: Harmonic Grammar, typology, computation
Areas: Phonology,Formal Analysis
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1068