On Re-Ranking and Explanatory Adequacy in a Constraint-Based Theory of Phonological Change

Gess, Randall

doi:10.1007/978-94-010-0195-3_3

Cited by 10 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…OT has sometimes been criticized for not being able to solve a paradox in diachronic phonology: a grammar will only change if the child has a different input from the previous generation --but the previous generation will only provide such a different set of forms if it already has a different grammar (see e.g. McMahon, 2000 andGess, 2003).…”

Section: Grammar Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Selective lexicon optimization

Oostendorp¹

2014

Lingua

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Phonological generalizations that are not absolute, but rather statistic, are a traditional problem for formal phonological theory. This paper gives an example of such a phenomenon and then proposes how such a skewed lexical distribution can be understood in terms of language learning in optimality theory. If lexicon optimization is extended minimally so as to incorporate the fact that the learner is confronted with (random, phonetic) variation, individual words may change, in order to start satisfying lower ranked markedness constraints. If sufficient words have undergone such a change, this may eventually lead to constraint reranking and therefore grammatical change.

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Section: Grammar Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Selective lexicon optimization

Oostendorp¹

2014

Lingua

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“…as a corresponding perceptual output), we rely on approaches grounded in the reception and processing of speech as the source of change (see e.g. Gess 2003;Jun 1995a;1995b;Russell Webb and Bradley 2009). This is especially important as it concerns the effect of positional prominence (Beckman 1998;Steriade 2001;Wright 2001Wright , 2004.…”

Section: Sound Change As a Speaker-listener Conspiracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the emergence of a typological anomaly: Vowel nasalization in French

Terry¹,

Webb²

2011

BLS

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“…This provides that no constraint holds at the level of input and implies that all grammars should contend with all possible input. The present approach assumes full specification at a lexical evaluative level, which is filtered by declarative constraints (see Myers, 1999;Gess, 2003Gess, , 2004. Itô, Mester and Padgett (1995) demonstrate that OT's non-derivational framework denies any serial ordering or minimalism, providing that underspecification is an output -rather than an input -property.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reader is referred toHayes, Kirchner and Steriade (2004),Hayes (2004) andLindblom (2006) for more complete discussion of the issues surrounding the phonetics -phonology divide and the place of phonetically based constraints within contemporary phonological theory. 12 Similar constraints have been formalized as * Gesture(Boersma, 1998) and Conserve Articulatory Effort(Gess, 2003(Gess, , 2004, inter alia.…”

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confidence: 99%

Minimalism and French /ʀ/: Phonological representations in phonetically based phonology

Webb

2009

French Language Studies

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ab st rac t This paper examines the phonological structure of French rhotics and their treatment in a production grammar. Assuming emergent featural specification, it is argued that the underlying representation of /R/ contains only values for sonorance, continuance and place of articulation. Grammatical analysis is undertaken in an Optimality Theoretic framework, where evaluation highlights the effect of effort reduction and perceptual augmentation on /R/, also demonstrating that more richly specified segments are unaffected by these constraints. The proposal is shown to be compatible with antecedent analyses and data from regional forms and registers. i nt roduc t i onThis article examines the phonological representation of French /R/. 1 Based on the premise that form emerges from language use and that abstract structure is acquired, rather than innate, it is argued that /R/ is structurally minimal, including only values for continuance and dorsality in most varieties of French. Variable surface forms are shown to be the product of phonetically based constraints, the interaction of which is formalised in a broadly Optimality Theoretic (OT; Prince & Smolensky 1993) grammatical model. It is noted that the unique representational minimalism of /R/ renders this segment particularly sensitive to phonetically based constraints.The article proceeds as follows. The first section examines the phonetic and phonological characteristics of French /R/, surveys previous accounts, and addresses larger issues associated with rhotic sounds. An alternative specification of /R/ is advanced in the second section, drawing upon non innatist and emergent featural theories. The third section focuses on grammatical treatment * I am grateful to three anonymous referees for suggestions in making this paper more coherent. Thanks also to B. Tranel and B. Bullock for useful comments on earlier versions of this work. It goes without saying that all remaining shortcomings are my own.

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On Re-Ranking and Explanatory Adequacy in a Constraint-Based Theory of Phonological Change

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Selective lexicon optimization

Selective lexicon optimization

Modeling the emergence of a typological anomaly: Vowel nasalization in French

Minimalism and French /ʀ/: Phonological representations in phonetically based phonology

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