Gereon Müller (2020). Inflectional morphology in harmonic serialism. (Advances in Optimality Theory.) Sheffield & Bristol, CT: Equinox Publishing. Pp. x + 350.

Phonology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-520
Author(s):  
Itamar Kastner
Phonology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Pruitt

This paper proposes a model of stress assignment in which metrical structure is built serially, one foot at a time, in a series of Optimality Theory (OT)-style evaluations. Iterative foot optimisation is made possible in the framework of Harmonic Serialism, which defines the path from an input to an output with a series of gradual changes in which each form improves harmony relative to a constraint ranking. Iterative foot optimisation makes the strong prediction that decisions about metrical structure are made locally, matching attested typology, while the standard theory of stress in parallel OT predicts in addition to local systems unattested stress systems with non-local interactions. The predictions of iterative foot optimisation and parallel OT are compared, focusing on the interactions of metrical parsing with syllable weight, vowel shortening and constraints on the edges of prosodic domains.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Shaftoe

This paper discusses coda lenition phenomena in Chilean Spanish, seeking to create a unified analysis for coda obstruent gliding and /s/-reduction. The paper invokes Moraic Theory to motivate lenition of certain segments in coda position. Using Harmonic Serialism, a serial variant of Optimality Theory, Chilean Spanish is shown to have a minimum sonority requirement on coda segments, and lenites insufficiently sonorous segments. /s/ is shown to place-delete to [h] to avoid sonority restrictions. The lack of /ʔ/ causes obstruents to diverge their derivation from that of /s/. Lenition to glottal segments is preferred, but gliding occurs if this is impossible.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-43
Author(s):  
KAROLINA BROŚ

This paper examines opaque examples of phrase-level phonology taken from Chilean Spanish under the framework of Stratal Optimality Theory (OT) (Rubach 1997; Bermúdez-Otero 2003, 2019) and Harmonic Serialism (HS) (McCarthy 2008a, b, 2016). The data show an interesting double repair of the coda /s/ taking place at word edges. It is argued that Stratal OT is superior in modelling phonological processes that take place at the interface between morphology and phonology because it embraces cyclicity. Under this model, prosodic structure is built serially, level by level, and in accordance with the morphological structure of the input string. In this way, opacity at constituent edges can be solved. Stratal OT also provides insight into word-internal morphological structure and the domain-specificity of phonological processes. It is demonstrated that a distinction in this model is necessary between the word and the phrase levels, and between the stem and the word levels. As illustrated by the behaviour of Spanish nouns, affixation and the resultant alternations inform us about the domains to which both morphological and phonological processes should be assigned. Against this background, Harmonic Serialism embraces an apparently simpler recursive mechanism in which stepwise prosodic parsing can be incorporated. What is more, it offers insight into the nature of operations in OT, as well as into such problematic issues as structure building and directionality. Nevertheless, despite the model’s ability to solve various cases of opacity, the need to distinguish between two competing repairs makes HS fail when confronted with the Chilean data under examination.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaja Jarosz

<p class="Phon-Paragraph">A growing body of research provides evidence supporting Harmonic Serialism (HS; McCarthy 2000, 2008a, 2010; Elfner to appear; Pruitt 2010), a serial version of Optimality Theory in which a single ranking of constraints is used iteratively to construct a derivation. This work has led to new insights into several outstanding problems in phonology and has highlighted problematic over-predictions of parallel OT, showing that HS predicts a more restricted range of interactions that better reflects typology. Although HS makes it possible to capture certain generalizations stated at intermediate levels of representation, it does not provide a general solution to phonological opacity. For this reason McCarthy developed a significant elaboration of HS, OT with Candidate Chains (OT-CC; McCarthy 2007), which evaluates complete HS-like derivations in parallel. This paper proposes a novel extension of HS, Serial Markedness Reduction (SMR), which combines advantages of HS and OT-CC. Like OT-CC, SMR includes a family of constraints that enables the modeling of both counterfeeding and counterbleeding opacity. However, SMR significantly streamlines the machinery necessary to model opacity as compared to OT-CC, relying on the gradual optimization inherent to HS to construct a single optimal derivation. The formal and empirical differences between OT-CC and SMR are discussed.</p><p> </p>


Phonology ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. McCarthy

When a medial consonant cluster is simplified by deletion or place assimilation, the first consonant is affected, but never the second one: /patka/ becomes [paka] and not *[pata]; /panpa/ becomes [pampa] and not [panta]. This article accounts for that observation within a derivational version of Optimality Theory called Harmonic Serialism. In Harmonic Serialism, the final output is reached by a series of derivational steps that gradually improve harmony. If there is no gradual, harmonically improving path from a given underlying representation to a given surface representation, this mapping is impossible in Harmonic Serialism, even if it would be allowed in classic Optimality Theory. In cluster simplification, deletion or Place assimilation is the second step in a derivation that begins with deleting Place features, and deleting Place features improves harmony only in coda position.


Author(s):  
Andrew Lamont

Majority Rule is an unattested process where agreement is controlled by the largest class in the input. As a function from inputs to outputs, Majority Rule requires more computational expressivity than do attested phonological transformations. This paper examines how Majority Rule arises in parallel Optimality Theory and Harmonic Serialism. It is shown that in HS, Majority Rule relies on globally evaluated output constraints, which are known to produce computationally complex pathologies. However, without them, HS is unable to produce iterative harmony at all. We propose adopting directional constraint evaluation in HS as a way of modeling harmony while maintaining local representations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Faisal Al-Mohanna

The word stress system in San&rsquo;ani Arabic exhibits patterns of stress placement that associate some level of prominence with syllables with long vowels and syllables that end in the left-leg of a geminate. The fact that such syllables always succeed in attracting stress away from other non-final CVC syllables, even beyond the final trisyllabic window, clearly indicates the role that underlying moraicity plays in the stress algorithm. The proposed account, offered in this paper for the word stress system in San&rsquo;ani, is couched in Harmonic Serialism, as a serial version of Optimality Theory. Key to the analyses presented is the assumption of gradual prosodification. The distinction drawn between faithful and unfaithful prosodic operations allows for applying some in a parallel fashion, but confines others to serialism. Central to the analysis, as well, is the exceptional case of final stress, which is mainly attributed to the intrinsic prominence of syllables with underlying bimoraic sequences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-859
Author(s):  
Wei Wei ◽  
Rachel Walker

Various phenomena involving the interaction of reduplication and phonology have been brought to bear on evaluating parallel versus serial theories of phonology. In Base-Reduplicant (BR) Correspondence Theory ( McCarthy and Prince 1995 ), implemented in the classic parallel version of Optimality Theory (P-OT; Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004 ), the mapping from the underlying representation to the surface output is direct, without intermediate stages. In P-OT, the candidate-generating function GEN can simultaneously introduce multiple changes to the input. In contrast, the theory of Serial Template Satisfaction (STS; McCarthy, Kimper, and Mullin (MKM) 2012 ) is an approach to reduplication couched within Harmonic Serialism ( McCarthy 2000 et seq .), a version of OT with serial evaluation that includes intermediate levels of structure. In Harmonic Serialism, GEN is restricted to making no more than one change at each derivational step, a property known as gradualness. An argument put forth in favor of STS is that it does not admit a number of reduplicative patterns that MKM claim are unattested, which are otherwise predicted by BR Correspondence Theory in P-OT ( MKM 2012:225 ). Among these are patterns formerly interpreted as overapplication, backcopying, and underapplication. While such patterns previously served as arguments for BR Correspondence Theory ( McCarthy and Prince 1995 , 1999 ), MKM reexamine those cases and conclude that they do not provide solid evidence against a serial approach. Among the remaining patterns, coda-skipping reduplication and derivational lookahead appear to offer the strongest arguments in favor of STS. These are the two patterns for which the parallel and serial versions of OT make quite distinct predictions. However, recent studies have called the status of arguments involving both patterns into question. Zukoff (2017) shows that STS does not actually exclude coda-skipping reduplication, because certain mechanics that STS employs to account for attested partial onset skipping would predict coda skipping. Adler and Zymet (2017) identify a reduplication pattern in Maragoli that poses a type of lookahead problem for STS: the ordering of reduplication and hiatus-driven glide formation depends on lookahead to the surface form of the reduplicant, which favors a simple onset. In light of the ongoing discussion on these issues, this squib focuses on another kind of lookahead effect in reduplication where the amount of material copied would depend on a subsequent phonological change in the setting of a serial evaluation. Due to the stepwise gradual change in Harmonic Serialism, STS predicts that lookahead effects are not possible, while the potential for multiple, simultaneous changes in P-OT predicts that they exist. In this squib, we argue that a reduplicative affixation in Mbe instantiates a lookahead effect—specifically, one that closely resembles a hypothetical pattern that MKM identify as a problem for STS, were it to be attested. Furthermore, the variation in reduplicant size is arguably a case of “simple-syllable reduplication,” a pattern claimed not to be predicted by STS. This reduplicative pattern in Mbe is straightforwardly accounted for in P-OT. However, in STS the pattern cannot be understood as a lookahead phenomenon, which gives rise to a treatment with unwanted stipulations and complications. We consider three alternatives in STS involving allomorphy or different templatic approaches, but find shortcomings in each.


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