Synchronic chain shifts in optimality theory optimality. Uc berkeley introduction to optimality theory in phonology. The rise of optimality theory ot shifted attention from theories of representations to a constraintsbased theory of phonological processes and their interactions. This fully revised third edition integrates updated references, new findings, and modern theories, to present readers with the most thorough and complete introduction to phonetics and phonology. Implicationally related error patterns and the selection. Though originally developed from generative phonology, the principles of optimality theory have also been applied in studies of syntax, morphology, pragmatics, language change, and other. An introduction to phonetics and phonology download.
These constraints are assumed to be universal, and the difference between child phonology and adult phonology, and between the grammars of different languages, now lies in differences in the ranking of the constraints. Give an introduction to a new linguistic theory, optimality theory ot study topics relevant to the development of ot, including a set of issues and problems connected to lexical phonology and athabaskan linguistics bridge the gap between doing a competent homework assignment and writing a good research paper themes of the course. Part of language acquisition can then be described as the process of adjusting the ranking of these constraints. This article accounts for that observation within a derivational version of optimality theory called harmonic serialism. Kager 1999 gives an entrylevel introduction to ot, mccarthy 2001 surveys. The ambitions of ot go well beyond phonology, though. Ppt optimality theory powerpoint presentation free to.
What are the advantages disadvantages of a rulebased method of phonological analysis over competing methods such as optimality theory. Sep 19, 2015 american english pronunciation the vowels sounds 2019 cac nguyen am,,, duration. Lecture notes introduction to phonology linguistics. This paper proposes an optimality theoretic analysis of stress assignment in levantine arabic. The fundamental idea behind ot is that surface forms of language. It will be of great value to students, instructors, and researchers alike whose interests lie in spanish, romance and general linguistics, as well as in optimality theory and variation and dialect studies. Though originally developed from generative phonology, the principles of optimality theory have also been applied in studies of syntax, morphology, pragmatics, language change, and other areas. The innovation of optimality theory ot is to view grammars as a set of ranked violable constraints. The recent literature features three approaches which focus squarely on the morphology phonology interface.
Posting in roa is open to all who wish to disseminate their work in. This article provides an introduction to the model for the nonlinguist. This learning occurs before infants can utter words or apprehend most phonological. Prince and smolensky 1993 introduced optimality theory ot as a framework for linguistic analysis. These restrictions can be formalized in terms of constraints. A reader is a collection of readings on this important new theory by leading figures in the field, starting with a lengthy excerpt from the original source, prince and smolenskys neverbeforepublished report optimality theory. If there is no gradual, harmonically improving path from a given underlying. Optimality theory will be welcomed by any linguist with a basic knowledge of derivational generative phonology. Optimality theory in phonological acquisition journal of. This article surveys the motivations for ot, its core principles, and the basics of analysis.
A surface form is optimal if it incurs the least serious violations of a set of constraints, taking into account their hierarchical ranking. This dissertation deals with the constraints that phonology imposes on the expo. This article surveys research in spanish phonology from the perspective of optimality theory, a formal linguistic framework based on ranked and violable constraints. Optimality theory in phonology california institute of. It also addresses some frequently asked questions about this theory and offers suggestions. This article argues that both languagespecific conflation and universal markedness relations can be expressed in optimality theory. This is a preprint version of an article to appear in. Constraint interaction in generative grammar optimality theory in phonology wiley online library. Otsoft is a windows program meant to facilitate analysis in optimality theory and related frameworks by using algorithms to do tasks that are too large or complex to be done reliably by hand. Abstract optimality theory was introduced in the early 1990s as an alternative model of the organization of natural human language sound systems. Concepts unique to the theory, including emergence of the unmarked, are also described. A reader an excellent introduction for those wishing to become acquainted with the most recent developments in generative phonology.
A reader is a collection of readings on this important new theory by leading figures in the field, including a lengthy excerpt from prince and smolenskys never. Browse other questions tagged phonology optimality theory or ask your own question. What does optimality theory explain that rulebased phonology. This relates to the phonology course i teach, in which one of the major assignments is a.
A reader kindle edition by mccarthy, john j download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Many criticisms of ot are, according to its proponents, based on fundamental misunderstanding of how it works. Markedness conflation in optimality theory phonology. Lexical and postlexical phonology in optimality theory. The role of features in a theory of phonological typology a major goal of generative phonology. This book is a compilation of readings on ot in phonology, starting with the original and most important one, prince and smolenskys optimality theory.
Optimality theory is a theory of phonology that drops chomskyan replacement rules in favor of a set of ranked constraints. Optimality theory is a complex linguistic model of constraintbased patterns and markedness hierarchies and it is billed clearly as nativist. It espouses a serialist view of morphology that is rejected by most current phonologists. Optimality theory in phonology alan prince and paul smolensky 1. A reader is a collection of readings on this important new theory by leading figures in the field, including a lengthy excerpt from prince and smolenskys neverbeforepublished optimality theory. Optimality theory was introduced in the 1990s by linguists alan prince and paul smolensky optimality theory. Stress assignment in polysyllabic words in levantine. Generating interlanguage syllabification in optimality theory acl. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading optimality theory in phonology. The early stages abstract recent experimental work indicates that by the age of ten months, infants have already learned a great deal about the phonotactics legal sounds and sound sequences of their language. Mccarthy university of massachusetts amherst abstract.
Exercises accompany chapters 17, and there are sections on further reading. Optimality theory assumes that these components are universal. The rutgers optimality archive is a distribution point for research in optimality theory and its conceptual affiliates. The proposed hierarchy incorporates two constraints, namely extendedlapser, which restricts stress to one of the last three syllables, and alignleft, which demands that the left edge of the prosodic word be aligned with a foot. Optimality theory prince smolensky 1993 optimality theory is a theory of language and grammar in which wellformedness constraints on outputs determine grammaticality. Phonology is the study of the smallest units without meaning of language. Second language phonology in optimality theory barbara. Optimality theory ot is a theory of constraint interaction.
This tutorial presents an introduction to the contemporary linguistic framework known as optimality theory ot. Constraint interaction in generative grammar, 19932004. Differences in grammars reflect different rankings of the universal constraint set, con. So what phonological patterns does optimality theory explain that rulebased phonology doesnt. It is argued here that optimality theory ot provides the means to derive the full range of dissimilatory effects from the ocp, through the ranking of the ocp with faithfulness constraints.
Optimality theory ot has applications throughout the. If you dont want phonology to be just a technique for datacompression, you have to seek the locus of explanatory action elsewhere prince smolensky, 1993 5 why outputoriented. This article provides an introduction to the model. In harmonic serialism, the final output is reached by a series of derivational steps that gradually improve harmony.
Perception, salience, the lexicon, and optimality theory 193210, which offers an ot interpretation of loan word phonology without employing the notion of phonetic salience relied on in earlier ot analyses of the topic. The basic principles of optimality theory are introduced and. Spanishenglish and portugueseenglish interlanguage phonology. A number of passages in the text offer guidance in eliciting useful and valid data from native speakers. For those interested in an indepth understanding of the application of this theory in phonology, the author provides exercises at the end of every section. The prevailing nonsequential approach to phonology, the optimality theory, ot, is based not on rewrite rules but on constraints. Nov 30, 2016 in this weeks episode, we take a look at optimality theory. Ot provides new angles on longstanding diachronic questions, whilst historical data and models of change bear directly on the assessment of ot. Optimality theory ot shifts the focus of linguistic discovery from rules and derivations to constraints and rankings. The section on segmental phonology begins with a paper by haike jacobs and carlos gussenhoven, loan phonology. This is an introduction to optimality theory, whose central idea is that surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints. Other classes with a p focus in the mit linguistics program include 24. Autosegmental phonology later evolved into feature geometry, which became the standard theory of representation for theories of the organization of phonology as different as lexical phonology and optimality theory. In linguistics, optimality theory frequently abbreviated ot.
Core syllabication in imdlawn tashlhiyt berber the construction of grammar in optimality theory optimality theory. The basic assumptions of this constraintbased theory as a general model of grammar are first outlined, with formal notation being defined and illustrated. In class we mainly approached phonology from a rulebased perspective, and were breifly told of ots constraintbased approach in passing. Unlike previous treatments of optimality in computational linguistics. Optimality theory is a general model of how grammars are structured. This paper compares some of the different claims that have been made concerning acquisition by traditional rulebased derivational theories and the more recent framework of optimality theory. What are the advantages disadvantages of a rulebased. Optimality theory ot does not allow for constraints on the inputs of phono. Nicholas rolle lectures at uc berkeley on optimality theory in phonology ling 115 2016.
Laypeople would usually call these the vowels and consonants of a language. Theoretical insights from ot enrich our understanding of spanish phonology, and spanish data also figure prominently in the latest theoretical developments within ot. No less central to the field is optimality theory, an approach developed within morpho phonology in the early 1990s. It is a theory that has been most widely accepted in the realm of phonology, but has implications for all areas of linguistics. Im guessing, though, that there are good reasons why it arose. Offers an outstanding comprehensive monographic treatment of spanish phonology from within current linguistic theory, the first in decades. Germanic, phonological developments began with the introduction of. Government phonology, which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological. The gradual path to cluster simplification phonology. Optimality theory has drawn a good deal of criticism, most of which is directed at its application to phonology rather than syntax or other fields. Ot is a fairly recent theory of grammar the first widely read publication was spread around the linguistic community in 1993 and it is quite influential, especially in phonology.
The morphologyphonology connection home linguistics. It can lead to much more elegant analyses in some cases. Compiles the most important readings about optimality theory in phonology from some of the most prominent researchers. Thus, in spoken languages, the sounds k, ee, n, oo etc. In the next section, i will present the salient features of korean phonology and il phonology of korean speakers of english ilke in terms of ot. Your book is focused on oldfashioned rewrite rules.
The main idea is that grammars impose a set of restrictions on what are valid surface forms. A read is counted each time someone views a publication summary such as the title, abstract, and list of authors, clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the fulltext. I understand how basic optimality theory as applied to phonology works, but ive never understood how it came into popularity. In contrast, dominance relations in markedness hierarchies are universal. Section 3 examines possible implications of optimality theory for studies of language processing, discussing work on the computability of optimality theoretic grammars, as well as some conceptual similarities between optimality theory and work in connectionism and dynamical systems. Skype, spinning, spotify, slang not included in the. Optimality theory as applied to language was originally proposed by the linguists.
Claim that skype is an unconfined application able to access all ones own personal files and system resources. As the theory of representations in syntax has ramified, the theory of operations has dwindled in content, even to triviality and, for some, nonexistence. Bybee university of new mexico usagebased functionalism is the term used here to designate the particular version of american functionalism that argues that language use shapes language structure. Find materials for this course in the pages linked along the left. Department of linguistics, school of arts and sciences, rutgers, the state university of new jersey. Optimality theory and african language phonology cascadilla. The basic assumptions of this constraintbased theory as a general model of grammar. The problem is how to derive all these different ways of avoiding this configuration from a single principle. Lecture notes introduction to phonology linguistics and. Linguistic and cognitive explanation in optimality theory. This 2003 book combines two themes of central importance to linguists and their mutual relevance in recent research. Derivational residue in phonological optimality theory ben hermans, marc van oostendorp.
Pdf the freeride procedure to morphophonemic learning is. What does optimality theory explain that rulebased. However, i dont understand how optimality theory can deal with phonological opacity. Although much of the interest in ot has been associated with its use in phonology the area to which ot was first applied, the theory is also applicable to other subfields of.
A similar distinction between native and nonnative morphemes can be. Optimality theory ot is a linguistic model originally proposed by the linguists alan prince and paul smolensky in 1993. The proper treatment of optimality in computational phonology. This is provided in the further reading sections at the end of each chapter. Section 2 gives an example of syntax within the theory. In this paper i will examine several basic principles of. Syllabus introduction to phonology linguistics and. Optimality theory optimality theory prince and smolensky 1993 ot is a theory of constraint interaction. Ot differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, such as autosegmental phonology and linear phonology spe, which typically use rules rather. For our purposes, it will be convenient to classify phonological changes under two headings, roughly corresponding to the. On the theoretical side, and relying on the empirical results obtained, we provide arguments that support the.
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