Remarks on Optimality Theory and Language Change

Holt, D. Eric

doi:10.1007/978-94-010-0195-3_1

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The fact that the auxiliary is accented in only one third of the cases suggests that structural constraints are ranked somewhat higher than pragmatic constraints; however, the occurrence of accented auxiliaries also points to an instable constraint ranking (e.g. Holt, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

German and French differ in a number of aspects. Regarding the prosody-pragmatics interface, German is said to have a direct focus-to-accent mapping, which is largely absent in French--owing to strong structural constraints. We used a semi-spontaneous dialogue setting to investigate the intonational marking of Verum Focus, a focus on the polarity of an utterance in the two languages (e.g. the child IS tearing the banknote as an opposite claim to the child is not tearing the banknote). When Verum Focus applies to auxiliaries, pragmatic aspects (i.e. highlighting the contrast) directly compete with structural constraints (e.g. avoiding an accent on phonologically weak elements such as monosyllabic function words). Intonational analyses showed that auxiliaries were predominantly accented in German, as expected. Interestingly, we found a high number of (as yet undocumented) focal accents on phrase-initial auxiliaries in French Verum Focus contexts. When French accent patterns were equally distributed across information structural contexts, relative prominence (in terms of peak height) between initial and final accents was shifted towards initial accents in Verum Focus compared to non-Verum Focus contexts. Our data hence suggest that French also may mark Verum Focus by focal accents but that this tendency is partly overridden by strong structural constraints.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the next sections, we will show that the two issues are connected, but require a slightly different view on the grammar of contemporary BrP. Building on Holt (2003) we will argue that constraint reranking does not only account for (synchronic) language variation, but also for (diachronic) language change. Two historical stages may co exist for a while, especially if they are tied to different registers.…”

Section: Plural Agreement Within the Dpmentioning

confidence: 90%

Brazilian Portuguese noun phrases: An optimality theoretic perspective

Oliveira

Swart

2015

Journal of Portuguese Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we examine the nominal system in Brazilian Portuguese (BrP), a challenge to cross-linguistic studies which rely on the generalization that a language that has indefinites should not have bare nouns. BrP has bare singulars, bare plurals, singular and plural indefinites. We examine the behavior of these phrases, mostly in object position of episodic predicates, and propose that each has a different semantics. The nominal system of BrP can be successfully explained, we argue, within the bi-directional Optimality Theory (biOT) theoretical framework developed by Hendriks et al. (2010). This approach allows us to describe and explain patterns of competition, and accounts for language variation by constraint reranking. For BrP, we propose the synchronic coexistence of two grammars: bare plurals appear in the formal variety of BrP that maintains plural agreement, and bare singulars appear in informal spoken BrP, along with plural definites and indefinites that lack plural agreement on the noun. Under this analysis, BPs denote inclusive plurals, while BSs get a non-atomic semantics that covers both mass and plural interpretations. * We would like to thank the two JPL reviewers, whose comments were really important for us to give the paper its final form.

show abstract

“…Pretendemos, neste texto, revisitar os principais trabalhos sobre o tratamento da variação e da mudança na perspectiva da Teoria da Otimalidade (TO), começando com as propostas seminais, que pouco alteraram o design da gramática, até chegar às abordagens mais recentes, que constituem verdadeiras extensões da TO. Nesse particular, destacamos quatro modelos: (a) o Modelo de Restrições Parcialmente Ordenadas (ANTTILA, 1997(ANTTILA, , 2002(ANTTILA, , 2007, (b) o Mecanismo de Rearranjos na Hierarquia (HOLT, 2003), (c) a TO Estocástica (BOERSMA & HAYES, 2001) e (d) o Modelo de Ranqueamento Ordenado de EVAL (COETZEE, 2004). Esperamos, com essa pequena amostra, mostrar que a TO pode ser bastante eficaz no tratamento da variação e se compatibilizar com modelos estatísticos para definir questões de frequência entre formas alternantes e explicar, numa perspectiva mais formalista, os caminhos da mudança linguística.…”

Section: Palavras Finaisunclassified

“…O artigo revisita os principais trabalhos sobre o tratamento da variação e da mudança na perspectiva da Teoria da Otimalidade (TO), começando com as propostas seminais, que pouco alteraram o design da gramática, até chegar às abordagens mais recentes, que constituem extensões da TO. Nesse particular, são descritos, com mais vagar, o Modelo de Restrições Parcialmente Ordenadas (ANTTILA, 1997(ANTTILA, , 2002(ANTTILA, , 2007, o Mecanismo de Rearranjos na Hierarquia (HOLT, 2003), a TO Estocástica (BOERSMA & HAYES, 2001) e o Modelo de Ranqueamento Ordenado de EVAL (COETZEE, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

A Mudança Linguística Na Perspectiva Da Teoria Da Otimalidade

Gonçalves

Rodrigues²

2019

Macab. Rev. Eletr. Netlli

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Remarks on Optimality Theory and Language Change

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

Brazilian Portuguese noun phrases: An optimality theoretic perspective

A Mudança Linguística Na Perspectiva Da Teoria Da Otimalidade

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About