Optimality Theory OTA01 1 8/6/04, 11:15 AM H OTA01 2 8/6/04, 11:15 AM Optimality Theory Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar Alan Prince Rutgers University Paul Smolensky Johns Hopkins University OTA01 3 8/6/04, 11:15 AM © 2004 by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky blackwell publishing 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Prince, Alan. Optimality theory : Constraint interaction in generative grammar / Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4051–1932–2 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 1–4051–1933–0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Optimality theory (Linguistics) 2. Constraints (Linguistics) 3. Grammar, Comparative and general—Phonology. I. Smolensky, Paul, 1955– II. Title. P158.42.P75 2004 415—dc22 2004000723 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12.5 pt Palatino by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com OTA01 4 8/6/04, 11:15 AM Contents Prefatory Note ix Acknowledgments x 1 Preliminaries 1 1.1 Background and Overview 1 1.2 Optimality 4 1.3 Overall Structure of the Argument 8 Part I Optimality and Constraint Interaction 11 Overview of Part I 13 2 Optimality in Grammar: Core Syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber 14 2.1 The Heart of Dell and Elmedlaoui 14 2.2 Optimality Theory 20 2.3 Summary of Discussion to Date 26 3 Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies I Do Something Only When: Triggering, or The Theory of Economy 27 Blocking and Triggering: Profuseness and Economy 27 3.1 Epenthetic Structure 28 3.2 The Failure of Bottom-Up Constructionism 33 4 Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies II Do Something Except When: Blocking, or The Theory of Profuseness 39 OTA01 5 8/6/04, 11:15 AM vi Contents 4.1 Edge-Oriented Infixation 40 4.2 Interaction of Weight Effects with Extrametricality 45 4.2.1 Background: Prominence-Driven Stress Systems 45 4.2.2 The Interaction of Weight and Extrametricality: Kelkar’s Hindi/Urdu 47 4.3 Nonfinality and Nonexhaustiveness 50 4.3.1 Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Raw Minimality 56 4.3.2 Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Extended Minimality Effects 61 4.4 Summary of Discussion of the Except When Effect 65 4.5 Except Meets Only: Triggering and Blocking in a Single Grammar 66 5 The Construction of Grammar in Optimality Theory 80 5.1 Construction of Harmonic Orderings from Phonetic and Structural Scales 80 5.2 The Theory of Constraint Interaction 82 5.2.1 Comparison of Entire Candidates by a Single Constraint 82 5.2.1.1 Ons: Binary constraints 82 5.2.1.2 Hnuc: Non-binary constraints 86 5.2.2 Comparison of Entire Candidates by an Entire Constraint Hierarchy 88 5.2.3 Discussion 91 5.2.3.1 Non-locality of interaction 91 5.2.3.2 Strictness of domination 94 5.2.3.3 Serial vs. parallel Harmony evaluation and Gen 94 5.2.3.4 Binary vs. non-binary constraints 97 5.3 Panini’s Theorem on Constraint Ranking 97 Part II Syllable Theory 101 Overview of Part II 103 6 Syllable Structure Typology: The CV Theory 105 6.1 The Jakobson Typology 105 6.2 The Faithfulness Interactions 107 6.2.1 Groundwork 108 6.2.2 Basic CV Syllable Theory 111 6.2.2.1 Onsets 111 6.2.2.2 Codas 114 6.2.3 The Theory of Epenthesis Sites 116 7 Constraint Interaction in Lardil Phonology 119 7.1 The Constraints 120 7.2 The Ranking 129 OTA01 6 8/6/04, 11:15 AM Contents vii 7.2.1 Some Ranking Logic 129 7.2.2 Ranking the Constraints 132 7.3 Verification of Forms 139 7.3.1 Consonant-Final Stems 140 7.3.2 Vowel-Final Stems 143 7.4 Discussion 146 8 Universal Syllable Theory: Ordinal Construction of C/V and Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetry 150 8.1 Associational Harmony 156 8.1.1 Deconstructing Hnuc: Berber, Take 1 156 8.1.2 Restricting to Binary Marks 159 8.2 Reconstructing the C and V Classes: Emergent Parameter Setting via Constraint Ranking 164 8.2.1 Harmonic Completeness of Possible Onsets and Peaks 164 8.2.2 Peak- and Margin-Affinity 166 8.2.3 Interactions with Parse 168 8.2.4 Restricting Deletion and Epenthesis 169 8.2.5 Further Necessary Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei 170 8.2.6 Sufficient Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei 172 8.3 The Typology of Onset, Nucleus, and Coda Inventories 177 8.3.1 The Typology of Onset and Nucleus Inventories 177 8.3.2 Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetries 184 8.3.3 An Example: Berber, Take 2 193 8.4 Simplifying the Theory by Encapsulating Constraint Packages 197 8.4.1 Encapsulating the Association Hierarchies 197 8.4.2 An Example: Berber, Take 3 199 8.4.3 Sufficiency and Richness of the Encapsulated Theory 200 Part III Issues and Answers in Optimality Theory 203 Overview of Part III 205 9 Inventory Theory and the Lexicon 207 9.1 Language-Particular Inventories 207 9.1.1 Harmonic Bounding and Nucleus, Syllable, and Word Inventories 209 9.1.2 Segmental Inventories 212 9.2 Universal Inventories 218 9.2.1 Segmental Inventories 219 9.2.2 Syllabic Inventories 224 9.3 Optimality in the Lexicon 225 OTA01 7 8/6/04, 11:15 AM viii Contents 10 Foundational Issues and Theory-Comparisons 232 10.1 Thinking about Optimality 232 10.1.1 Fear of Optimization 232 10.1.2 The Reassurance 233 10.2 The Connectionism Connection, and Other Computation- Based Comparisons 234 10.2.1 Why Optimality Theory Has Nothing To Do with Connectionism 234 10.2.2 Why Optimality Theory Is Deeply Connected to Connectionism 235 10.2.3 Harmony Maximization and Symbolic Cognition 236 10.3 Analysis of ‘Phonotactics + Repair’ Theories 238 10.3.1 CV Syllable Structure and Repair 242 10.3.2 General Structure of the Comparisons: Repair Analysis 245 10.3.3 Persistent Rule Theory 247 10.3.3.1 English closed syllable shortening 248 10.3.3.2 Shona tone spreading 250 10.3.3.3 Summary 251 10.3.4 The Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies 252 Appendix 258 A.1 The Cancellation and Cancellation/Domination Lemmas 258 A.2 CV Syllable Structure 262 A.3 Panini’s Theorem on Constraint Ranking 264 References 266 Index of Constraints 281 Index of Languages 283 General Index 284 OTA01 8 8/6/04, 11:15 AM Prefatory Note This book derives from an informally circulated manuscript which was issued as a Technical Report by the University of Colorado Computer Science Department (CU-CS-696-95) and the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS-TR-2), eventually coming to repose on the Rutgers Optimality Archive as ROA-537 (http://roa.rutgers.edu). The current text is content-wise identical to its predecessors, with correction of as many typos, oversights, inconsistencies, and outright errors as we could track down. Footnote and example numbering has been retained. In revising the biblio- graphy, we have tried to reconcile the twin goals of reference: to identify our sources and to provide the reader with usable modes of access to them. Those familiar with an earlier version of the text will not find new notions or notations here, but in various places a certain amount of local rewording has been attempted in the name of clarity. The authors’ names are arranged in lexicographic order. Alan Prince Paul Smolensky January, 2004 OTA01 9 8/6/04, 11:15 AM 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; special thanks also to Junko Itô, Armin Mester, and Jaye Padgett for a valuable fine-grained re- view of the completed manuscript. These have resulted in innumerable improve- ments and would have resulted in innumerably more, were this a better world. We wish to thank Robert Kirchner, Armin Mester, and Junko Itô for specific remarks that have had significant impact on the development of this work; John McCarthy for his comments and suggestions in re chapters 7 and 9; Jane Grimshaw, Géraldine Legendre, and Bruce Tesar for much valuable discussion; as well as Vieri Samek-Lodovici, Cheryl Zoll, Henrietta Hung, Mark Hewitt, Ad Neeleman, Diana Archangeli, Henry Churchyard, Doug Pulleyblank, Moira Yip, Tom Bever, Larry Hyman, Andy Black, Mike Jordan, David Perlmutter, Lauri Karttunen, René Kager, Paul Kiparsky, Mike Kenstowicz, Ellis Visch, András Kornai, Akin Akinlabi, 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, Loren Billings, and Fuad Isabegovic.