scholarly journals Overtly Headed XPs and Irish Syntax-Prosody Mapping

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Kalivoda ◽  
Jennifer Bellik
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Relative Ranking ◽  
Irish Data ◽  
Theory Application ◽  
Match Theory ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Analyses of Irish phonological phrasing (Elfner 2012 et seq.) have been influential in shaping Match Theory (Selkirk 2011), an OT approach to mapping syntactic to prosodic structure. We solve two constraint ranking paradoxes concerning the relative ranking of Match and StrongStart. Irish data indicate that while XPs with silent heads can fail to map to phonological phrases in certain circumstances, overtly headed XPs cannot. They also indicate that rebracketing due to the constraint StrongStart occurs only sentence-initially, contrary to predictions. We account for these puzzles by invoking Van Handel's (2019) Match constraint which sees only XPs with overt heads, and by positing a new version of StrongStart which only applies to material at the left edge of the intonational phrase. Our analysis is developed using the Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory application (SPOT) and OTWorkplace.

The ”true me”—one or many?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Berent ◽  
Melanie Platt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
Behavioral Test ◽  
Brain Scan ◽  
Moral Behaviors ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Recent results suggest that people hold a notion of the true self, distinct from the self. Here, we seek to further elucidate the “true me”—whether it is good or bad, material or immaterial. Critically, we ask whether the true self is unitary. To address these questions, we invited participants to reason about John—a character who simultaneously exhibits both positive and negative moral behaviors. John’s character was gauged via two tests--a brain scan and a behavioral test, whose results invariably diverged (i.e., one test indicated that John’s moral core is positive and another negative). Participants assessed John’s true self along two questions: (a) Did John commit his acts (positive and negative) freely? and (b) What is John’s essence really? Responses to the two questions diverged. When asked to evaluate John’s moral core explicitly (by reasoning about his free will), people invariably descried John’s true self as good. But when John’s moral core was assessed implicitly (by considering his essence), people sided with the outcomes of the brain test. These results demonstrate that people hold conflicting notions of the true self. We formally support this proposal by presenting a grammar of the true self, couched within Optimality Theory. We show that the constraint ranking necessary to capture explicit and implicit view of the true self are distinct. Our intuitive belief in a true unitary “me” is thus illusory.

scholarly journals Learning with hidden structure in Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar: beyond Robust Interpretive Parsing

Phonology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaja Jarosz
Keyword(s):  
Full Advantage ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Learning Algorithms ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Stochastic Formulation ◽  
Harmonic Grammar ◽  
Probabilistic Information ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Constraint Ranking

This paper explores the relative merits of constraint rankingvs. weighting in the context of a major outstanding learnability problem in phonology: learning in the face of hidden structure. Specifically, the paper examines a well-known approach to the structural ambiguity problem, Robust Interpretive Parsing (RIP; Tesar & Smolensky 1998), focusing on its stochastic extension first described by Boersma (2003). Two related problems with the stochastic formulation of RIP are revealed, rooted in a failure to take full advantage of probabilistic information available in the learner's grammar. To address these problems, two novel parsing strategies are introduced and applied to learning algorithms for both probabilistic ranking and weighting. The novel parsing strategies yield significant improvements in performance, asymmetrically improving performance of OT learners. Once RIP is replaced with the proposed modifications, the apparent advantage of HG over OT learners reported in previous work disappears (Boersma & Pater 2008).

Serialism and locality in constraint-based metrical parsing

Phonology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Pruitt
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Standard Theory ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Local Interactions ◽  
Local Systems ◽  
Stress Assignment ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Harmonic Serialism ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Constraint Ranking

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.

scholarly journals Vowel Epenthesis and Consonant Deletion in Japanese Loanwords from English

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji ◽  
Kazuko Shoji
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Vowel Epenthesis ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Constraint Ranking

<p>The current study examines Japanese loanwords from English in the framework of optimality theory (OT). The goal of this study is to investigate which vowels native Japanese-speaking borrowers epenthesize and when they delete consonants in modifying English source words. We aim to offer (i) a unified explanation with a single ranking of constraints for vowel epenthesis and (ii) a perceptual explanation for consonant deletion. Two experiments with native Japanese speakers were conducted to support the proposed analyses. The first experiment demonstrated that, when modifying illicit phonotactics in foreign words, native Japanese speakers select epenthetic vowels based on the constraint ranking of: Complex, CodaCond &gt;&gt; Max-IO  &gt;&gt; Palatal-Front, SyllableInventoryStructure (SIS), Ident-IO &gt;&gt; *Round, *Low &gt;&gt; *Front &gt;&gt; High &gt;&gt; Back &gt;&gt; Dep-IO. The second experiment revealed that Japanese loanwords can be subject to deletion of consonants rather than vowel epenthesis, due to the lack of perceptual salience; Japanese speakers delete consonants when they fail to perceive consonants in coda and clusters in source words, especially when the source words are aurally given.</p>

Domain modelling in Optimality Theory: Morphophonological cyclicity vs. stepwise prosodic parsing

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-43
Author(s):  
KAROLINA BROŚ
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Input String ◽  
Domain Specificity ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Structure Building ◽  
Harmonic Serialism ◽  
Chilean Spanish ◽  
Insight Into

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.

scholarly journals The syntax and prosody of apposition in Shingazidja

Phonology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-145
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. O'Connor ◽  
Cédric Patin
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Intonational Phrases ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Match Theory

This paper investigates the syntax–prosody interface with respect to apposition in Shingazidja. We examine the syntactic properties of two types of apposition (restrictive and non-restrictive). While restrictive apposition appears to form a single constituent, the syntactic data for non-restrictives are ambiguous between a single constituent analysis and an analysis in which the appositive and its anchor are syntactically separate. Prosodic data confirm the single constituent analysis for restrictive apposition, and provide evidence that non-restrictive appositives are syntactically linked to their antecedent and prosodically embedded in their host clause. The phenomenon of final raising emerges as the principal indicator of intonational phrases in Shingazidja; tone shift signals phonological phrasing. Our analysis is formalised in Optimality Theory through a comparison of Align/Wrap theory and Match theory. A Match-theory account predicts the existence of recursive phonological phrasing, and we present evidence supporting this prediction.

scholarly journals On the Left-/Right-Branching Asymmetry in Mandarin Tone 3 Sandhi

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Restricted Version ◽  
Strong Start ◽  
Prosodic Structures ◽  
Match Theory ◽  
Mandarin Tone

In Mandarin, a left-/right-branching asymmetry is observed when the Tone 3 Sandhi (T3S) process interacts with the syntactic structure of an expression: while expressions that have a left-branching syntactic structure only have a non-alternating sandhi pattern in which all but the rightmost T3 is changed to the sandhi tone, for expressions that have a right-branching syntactic structure various sandhi patterns are possible. This paper proposes that T3S applies cyclically bottom-up on a prosodic structure matched from the syntactic structure of an expression, along the lines of the Match Theory of syntactic-prosodic constituency correspondence (Selkirk 2011). The interaction of Match Phrase constraints and Strong Strong Start, which is a more restricted version of Selkirk’s (2011) Strong Start constraint, predicts that different prosodic structures are possible outputs for a right-branching expression, while for a left-branching expression the only possible output is a left-branching prosodic structure. The various possible sandhi patterns for a right-branching expression and the non-alternating sandhi pattern for a left-branching expression are derived when T3S applies cyclically bottom-up on the proposed prosodic structures.

scholarly journals A AQUISIÇÃO FONOLÓGICA DO INGLÊS COMO L2 À LUZ DA OT: OS VERBOS CONTENDO A MARCA «-ED»

Organon ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ubiratã Alves
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Initial State ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Constraint Ranking

This paper focuses on the acquisition, by Brazilian Portuguese speakers, of both the syllabicstructure and the sonority of the coda segments of the English verbs containing the morpheme “-ed”.The analysis which was developed under the framework of Optimality Theory was able to show theevolution of the learners’ constraint ranking from the initial state H0 to the hierarchy which led tonative-like production. The analysis has also shown that, regarding the acquisition of the syllabicstructure, the production of native-like forms implied not only the demotion of constraints, but also theabandonment of an input originated from the written form, and the subsequent acquisition of a newunderlying representation which was able to lead to the production of the target structures. In thisregard, the analysis has revealed that, as for L2 acquisition, variable output forms do not need to besolely originated from the constraint ranking, given the fact that such outputs may also come from theexistence of more than one input representation maintained by the same learner

scholarly journals Phonological and perceptual factor symbiosis in loanword adaptation

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Alice Rwamo ◽  
Constantin Ntiranyibagira
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Perceptual Similarity ◽  
Perceptual Factor ◽  
Loanword Adaptation ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Production Factors ◽  
French And English ◽  
Constraint Ranking

This paper examines the two-way interaction of perceptual and production factors in the light of resolving French and English loan structures in Kirundi. The investigation is framed within the view that loanword adaptation results from attempts to match the non-native perception of the L2 input, within the confines of the L1 grammar. Neither a purely perceptual nor a purely grammatical account can explain the facts. Based on 239 French and 44 English corpora of loans, this study examines loanword adaptation at both the phonemic and the phonotactic levels. We prove how the constraint-ranking Optimality Theory (OT) can account for the phonological adaptations of loans but with limitations. The adaptation cannot be fully understood unless perceptual similarity and auditory factors are integrated in the grammar. This study enriches our understanding of the role of perceptual similarity and perceptual salience in phonology and their relationship to constraint ranking.

scholarly journals Sībawayhi's Observations on Assimilatory Processes and Re-syllabification in the Light fo Optimality Theory

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 48-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz Edzard
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Constraint Ranking

The last seven chapters (chs. 565–71) of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb contain many phonetic and phonological observations that can be conveniently recast in terms of theories of linguistic preference and natural generative phonology (Hooper 1976), notably in terms of the approach of Vennemann (1983, 1988). Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) offers a formal means to capture the “constraint ranking” that is implicit in Sībawayhi’s rejection of disallowed forms and evaluation of parallelly occurring and competing forms (“candidates”). The relevant phenomena under investigation in this paper are mainly assimilatory processes but also re-syllabification and haplological syllable ellipsis.

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