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The Syllable in Optimality Theory [REVIEW ] The Syllable in Optimality Theory Ed. by Caroline Féry and Ruben van de Vijver, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, ix+415pp. MAFUYU KITAHARA Waseda University/MIT* Keywords: Optimality Theory (OT), opacity, syllable, cumulativity, Evolutionary Phonology (EP) 1. Introduction According to the preface, this book is based on a conference held in 1998, more than a decade ago, on the same topic as its title. The book was published first in 2003 (reissued in 2008 as paperback) including papers by contributers other than the participants of the conference. Although many updates and more extended discussion following the conference are given, some of the theoretical devices and viewpoints are already outdated in the rapidly changing world of theoretical phonology. For example, Sympathy Theory is an incomplete and flawed framework that nobody looks back on (see McCarthy (2007) for details); comparative tableaux have become popu- lar to see the relative harmony of candidates at a glance (Prince (2002)); stochastic approaches to OT helped by simulation software are flourishing (Boersma and Pater (2008)); and so on. Some of the theoretical insights about the nature of OT presented in this collection of papers are still viable, though. Therefore, the purpose of this review is not to give a thorough introduction of each paper, but to try to shed light on fundamental issues and problems in theoretical phonology through the keywords and topics raised in this book. In my view, the fore- most and outstanding issue in OT since the late 1990’s is opacity: a hidden intermediate stage of derivation plays a role in determining the output. Two articles in this book directly address this topic: McCarthy’s “Sympathy, Cu- * I would like to thank Haruka Fukazawa, John McCarthy, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of EL for helpful comments, support, and suggestions. All errors are my own. English Linguistics 28: 1 (2011) 120–130 －120－ © 2011 by the English Linguistic Society of Japan REVIEWS 121 mulativity, and the Duke-of-York Gambit” and Ito and Mester’s “On the Source of Opacity in OT: Coda Processes in German.” We will first con- centrate on these two articles to grasp the properties of the opacity problem in OT. Through the discussion of opacity, however, we will see that many theoretical assumptions about phonological representations, the architecture of the grammar, and the nature of phonological processes are shared by other articles in the volume. Those will be briefly covered in this review when it is necessary. One of the contributers to this book, Juliette Blevins published a stimulat- ing and controversial book in 2004: Evolutionary Phonology, which includes an in-depth criticism of the Optimality-Theoretic framework. Her article in this volume entitled “The Independent Nature of Phonotactic Constraints: An Alternative to Syllable-Based Approaches” shares the core argument of EP. This is an interesting contrast within a single volume: OT vs. EP. We will cover this issue in a separate section in order to see the development of major theories in a larger perspective. There are 15 papers, each comprising a chapter, in this volume. Those other than the three mentioned above are: “Overview” by the editors; “The Controversy over Geminates and Syllable Weight” by Stuart Davis; “The Syllable as a Unit of Prosodic Organization in Japanese” by Haruo Kubozono; “Prosodic Weight” by Draga Zec; “Syllables and Moras in Arabic” by Paul Kiparsky; “Semisyllables and Universal Syllabification” by Young-mee Yu Cho and Tracy Holloway King; “Onsets and Nonmoraic Syl- lables in German” by Caroline Féry; “Extrasyllabic Consonants and Onset Well-Formedness” by Antony Dubach Green; “Beyond Codas: Word and Phrase-Final Alignment” by Caroline R. Wiltshire; “Ambisyllabicity and Fricative Voicing in West Germanic Dialects” by Marc van Oostendorp; “The CiV-Generalization in Dutch” by Ruben van de Vijver; and “The Rela- tive Harmony of /s+stop/ Onsets” by Frida Morelli. As is obvious from the titles, recurrent topics up to Féry’s paper are syllable weight and semisyl- lables. From Dubach’s paper on, the topic gradually shifts toward syllable edges, syllable contact, and clusters. Those are common representational devices inherited from the derivational era. Thus, some of the papers are still concerned with OT-translation or OT-reanalysis of derivational rem- nants. However, the ALIGN family of constraints is so powerful that al- most all aspects of prosodic organization including syllables and moras are reorganized with some OT flavor. Morelli’s paper is worth-mentioning in this respect. One of the strong points of OT is its intrinsic orientation to typology. The typology of syllables involving /s+stop/ clusters successfully 122 ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1 (2011) shows the merits of the OT analysis. 2. Opacity 2.1. Revised Sympathy Theory Opacity in its original form in the derivational era was defined as in (1). (1) Opacity: Kiparsky (1973) A phonological rule ρ of the form A → B/C D is opaque if there are surface structures with any of the following characteris- tics: a. Instances of A in the environment C D b. Instances of B derived by ρ that occur in environments other than C D (1a) says that A appears even though it should have been changed to B, and (1b) says that B appears even though it should not. McCarthy (page 36 of the book under review) lays out why this is problematic for OT by using examples from Bedouin Arabic. (2) Bedouin Arabic derivation UR /katab/ /katab-at/ /kitib-at/ Gloss: ‘he wrote’ ‘she wrote’ ‘she was written’ Initial syllabifi- ka.tab ka.ta.bat ki.ti.bat cation: Syncope: I → φ/C σ kit.bat Trisyllabic V → φ/C Lσ kta.bat Deletion: Raising: a → i/C σ ki.tab kti.bat In this derivation, kti.bat is opaque with respect to Syncope, because it con- tains i in an open syllable. An interaction of stress and the above deriva- tion provides a challenge for Classic OT. The stress of the UR /katab-at/ is first assigned to the initial syllable as it is the head of the trochaic foot: (káta)bat. However, the Trisyllabic Deletion process in (2) deletes the stressed vowel resulting in a stress shift: ktíbat. Before getting into an actual tableau analysis, let us see the relevant con- straints. McCarthy proposes that, from an LL sequence, an iambic foot is achieved either by lengthening the second syllable (LH) or by deleting a mora of the first syllable (ΔL: Δ stands for a moraless semisyllable). The following GRP HARM constraint formally handles this quantitative difference, where the weight of the second syllable y is greater than the first one x. REVIEWS 123 (3) Formulation of Grouping Harmony (GRP HARM ) In an iambic foot (x ’y), |y| > |x|. (|α| ≡ weight of α in moras) The next relevant constraint is a relative faithfulness constraint which has a wide applicability over any phonological scale. The two versions in (4) provide that the input and the output are exactly the same or adjacent to each other. (4) Relative faithfulness on phonological scales a. STAY (S): Input and output have the same position on the scale S. b. STAY -ADJ (S): Input and output have the same or adjacent po- sitions on the scale S. These relative constraints are for handling Raising and Syncope pro- cesses in (2) by incorporating the duration scale: a > i > φ. This is a straightforward representation of the intrinsic duration of vowels. Thus, STAY (Dur(ation)) assigns one violation for an a → i change, and two viola- tions for an a → φ change, while STAY -ADJ (Dur) assigns one violation for an a → φ change. An antagonistic markedness constraint against these relative faithfulness constraints is called REDUCE , originally proposed by Kirchner (1996). (5) REDUCE A short vowel in an open syllable has zero duration. Assign one violation mark for each increment of duration above φ on the scale Dur. Now, the tableau in (6) illustrates the problem. The opaque candidate (6a) is the desired output, but less harmonic than the transparent candidate (6c), indicated by a leftward pointing hand. (6) Transparent candidate wins over opaque candidate /katab-at/ GRP HARM STAY -ADJ (Dur) REDUCE STAY (Dur) Opaque a. (k.tí).bat * *! ** b. (ki.tí).bat *! ** ** Transparent c. (kát).bat * * An early version of Sympathy Theory (McCarthy (1999)) can handle this situation by invoking intercandidate faithfulness relations. A sympathetic constraint SYM (pathy) measures the faithfulness between a particular sym- pathetic candidate and all the other candidates. This sympathetic candidate is chosen by a “selector” constraint, notated by the symbol . As shown 124 ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1 (2011) in (7), the opaque, but correctly winning candidate (7a) is more similar to the sympathetic candidate (7b) than (7c) to (7b). (7) Opaque candidate wins over transparent candidate via sympathy /katab-at/ GRP HARM SYM STAY - REDUCE STAY ADJ (Dur) (Dur) Opaque a. (k.tí).bat * * * ** Sympathetic b. (ki.tí).bat *! ** ** Transparent c. (kát).bat **! * * A critical revision of the theory in McCarthy’s paper has arisen from the recognition that intercandidate faithfulness is too powerful a device. The SYM constraint can directly measure the similarity on any dimension, which predicts the unattested type of opacity called feeding Duke-of-York (DY) derivations. DY derivations have the general form A → B → A, which looks like they are going forward and then backward without leaving any trace of change at the surface. McCarthy then proposes the notion of cumulativity, which indirectly mea- sures the similarity by the shared faithfulness violations. Let us take a look at the faithfulness part of the tableau in (7), recast as (8). The difference between the opaque (8a) and the transparent (8c) candidate is that the viola- tion marks for STAY (Dur) are shared by (8b) and (8a), but not by (8c) and (8a).
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