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Optimality Theory – Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar ~ ROA Version, 8/2002. Essentially identical to the Tech Report, with new pagination (but the same footnote and example numbering); correction of typos, oversights & outright errors; improved typography; and occasional small-scale clarificatory rewordings. Citation should include reference to this version. OPTIMALITY THEORY Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar First circulated: April, 1993 RuCCS-TR-2; CU-CS-696-93: July, 1993 Minor Corrections: December, 1993 ROA Version: August, 2002 Alan Prince Paul Smolensky Department of Linguistics Department of Cognitive Science Rutgers Cognitive Science Center The Johns Hopkins University Rutgers University [1993: University of Colorado at Boulder] [email protected] [email protected] Everything is possible but not everything is permitted … — Richard Howard, “The Victor Vanquished” “It is demonstrated,” he said, “that things cannot be otherwise: for, since everything was made for a purpose, everything is necessarily made for the best purpose.” — Candide ou l’optimisme. Ch. I. Remark. The authors’ names are arranged in lexicographic order. Acknowledgments Special thanks to John McCarthy for detailed discussion of virtually every issue raised here and for a fine-grained skepsis of the entire first draft of the ms., which resulted in innumerable improvements and would have resulted in innumerably more, were this a better world. We are particularly grateful for his comments and suggestions in r‘ Chs. 7 and 9. We also wish to thank Robert Kirchner, Armin Mester, and Junko Itô for remarks that have had significant impact on the development of this work, as well as David Perlmutter, Vieri Samek-Lodovici, Cheryl Zoll, Henrietta Hung, Mark Hewitt, Jane Grimshaw, Ad Neeleman, Diana Archangeli, Henry Churchyard, Doug Pulleyblank, Moira Yip, Tom Bever, Larry Hyman, Andy Black, Mike Jordan, Lauri Karttunen, René Kager, Paul Kiparsky, Mike Kenstowicz, Ellis Visch, András Kornai, Akin Akinlabi, Géraldine Legendre, Clayton Lewis, Merrill Garrett, Jim Martin, Clara Levelt, Mike Mozer, Maria Bittner, Alison Prince, Dave Rumelhart, Mark Liberman, Jacques Mehler, Steve Pinker, Daniel Büring, Katharina Hartmann, Joshua Legendre Smolensky, Ray Jackendoff, Bruce Hayes, Geoff Pullum, Gyanam Mahajan, Harry van der Hulst, William Labov, Brian McHugh, Gene Buckley, Will Leben, Jaye Padgett and Loren Billings. None of these individuals can be sensibly charged with responsibility for any errors that may have crept into this work. To Merrill Garrett (Cognitive Science, University of Arizona, Tucson) and to the organizers of the Arizona Phonology Conference we are grateful for providing in April 1991 the first public forums for the presentation of the theory, which proved a significant stimulus to the cohering thereof. We would also like to thank audiences at our 1991 LSA Summer Institute course and at the Feature Workshop there, at WCCFL 1992, at the OTS (Utrecht), University of California at Berkeley (Phonology Laboratory), the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Boulder Connectionist Research Group, Rutgers University (New Brunswick and Piscataway), Brandeis University, the University of Pennsylvania (the Linguistics Department and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science), Princeton University Cognitive Science Center, Stanford University (Phonology Workshop and Parallel Distributed Processing Seminar), the University of Rochester Cognitive Science Program, and the International Computer Science Institute of Berkeley CA. Financial support was provided by a University of Colorado Faculty Fellowship, by research funds from Rutgers University and from the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, and, most crucially, by NSF SGER BNS-90 16806 without which the rigors of long-distance collaboration would have proved daunting indeed. We remember Robert Jeffers with special appreciation for constructing the Rutgers environment that so greatly facilitated the progress of this work. Table of Contents 1. Preliminaries ..................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Overview ................................................... 1 1.2 Optimality ................................................................ 4 1.3 Overall Structure of the Argument............................................. 7 Part I Optimality and Constraint Interaction Overview of Part I.................................................................. 10 2. Optimality in Grammar: Core Syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber ................... 11 2.1 The Heart of Dell & Elmedlaoui.............................................. 11 2.2 Optimality Theory ......................................................... 17 2.3 Summary of discussion to date............................................... 22 3. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies I Blocking and Triggering: Profuseness and Economy ................................... 23 3.1 Epenthetic Structure....................................................... 24 3.2 Do Something Only When: The Failure of Bottom-up Constructionism........................... 28 4. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies II Do Something Except When: Blocking, or The Theory of Profuseness .................... 33 4.1 Edge-Oriented Infixation ................................................... 33 4.2 Interaction of Weight Effects with Extrametricality .............................. 38 4.2.1 Background: Prominence-Driven Stress Systems ......................... 38 4.2.2 The Interaction of Weight and Extrametricality: Kelkar’s Hindi ............. 41 4.3 Nonfinality and Nonexhaustiveness ........................................... 44 4.3.1 Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Raw Minimality .................. 49 4.3.2 Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Extended Minimality Effects ......................... 54 4.4 Summary of Discussion of the Except When Effect............................... 59 4.5 Except meets Only: Triggering and Blocking in a Single Grammar .................. 59 5. The Construction of Grammar in Optimality Theory ..................................... 73 5.1 Construction of Harmonic Orderings from Phonetic and Structural Scales .......................... 73 5.2 The Theory of Constraint Interaction.......................................... 74 5.2.1 Comparison of Entire Candidates by a Single Constraint .................. 74 5.2.1.1 ONS: Binary constraints .................................... 75 5.2.1.2 HNUC: Non-binary constraints ............................... 78 5.2.2 Comparison of Entire Candidates by an Entire Constraint Hierarchy......... 79 5.2.3 Discussion....................................................... 83 5.2.3.1 Non-locality of interaction .................................. 83 5.2.3.2 Strictness of domination.................................... 85 5.2.3.3 Serial vs. Parallel Harmony Evaluation and Gen................. 86 5.2.3.4 Binary vs. Non-binary constraints ............................ 88 5.3 P~Ãini’s Theorem on Constraint Ranking....................................... 88 iii Part II Syllable Theory Overview of Part II ................................................................. 92 6. Syllable Structure Typology I: the CV Theory.......................................... 93 6.1 The Jakobson Typology.................................................... 93 6.2 The Faithfulness Interactions................................................ 95 6.2.1 Groundwork ..................................................... 95 6.2.2 Basic CV Syllable Theory.......................................... 98 6.2.2.1 Onsets.................................................. 99 6.2.2.2 Codas ................................................. 102 6.2.3 The Theory of Epenthesis Sites ..................................... 104 7. Constraint Interaction in Lardil Phonology ............................................ 107 7.1 The Constraints ......................................................... 107 7.2 The Ranking............................................................ 117 7.2.1 Some Ranking Logic............................................. 117 7.2.2 Ranking the Constraints........................................... 120 7.3 Verification of Forms .................................................... 127 7.3.1 Consonant-Final Stems ........................................... 128 7.3.2 Vowel Final Stems............................................... 132 7.4 Discussion ............................................................. 135 8. Universal Syllable Theory II: Ordinal Construction of C/V and Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetry ............................. 139 8.1 Associational Harmony.................................................... 144 8.1.1 Deconstructing HNUC: Berber, Take 1................................ 144 8.1.2 Restricting to Binary Marks........................................ 147 8.2 Reconstructing the C and V Classes: Emergent Parameter Setting via Constraint Ranking ............ 152 8.2.1 Harmonic Completeness of Possible Onsets and Peaks................... 152 8.2.2 Peak- and Margin-Affinity......................................... 154 8.2.3 Interactions with PARSE ........................................... 156 8.2.4 Restricting Deletion and Epenthesis.................................. 157 8.2.5 Further Necessary Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei.............. 158 8.2.6 Sufficient Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei .................... 160 8.3 The Typology of Onset, Nucleus, and Coda Inventories.........................
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