A Time to Throw Away Stones: Qohelet’s Enigmatic Reference to Stones as a Hinge for the Themes of War and Peace in the Time Poem

The time poem in Eccl 3.1–8 reflects a marked structure and progression of themes. These connections suggest that the initial lines of vv. 2, 5, and 8 open their respective stanzas by focusing on a similar theme: war and peace. This thread clarifies the meaning of Qohelet’s enigmatic throwing and gathering stones, activities for which no fewer than nine interpretations have been suggested. While interpreters have favored a reference to sexual intercourse, this view is unlikely. I contend that a preferable solution modifies an earlier interpretation relating the throwing and gathering of stones to acts of wartime and peacetime. The throwing away of stones relates to the demobilization of the military, while the gathering of stones relates to the mobilization for war (1 Sam 17.40; 2 Chron 26.14–15). This interpretation offers a more consistent approach to the themes of war and peace developed in the poem’s stanzas.

Nasalization as a Repair for Voiced Obstruent Codas in Noon

The Senegalese language Noon exhibits a pattern by which the voiced stop phonemes /b, d, ɟ, g/ surface as nasals [m, n ɲ, ŋ] in coda position, undergoing complete neutralization with /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/. This allophonic alternation can be seen as a repair to the cross-linguistic constraint against voiced obstruents in coda position. However, the only otherwise attested repair to this marked structure is devoicing. Why should devoicing be so overwhelmingly preferred to other logical alternatives such as nasalization or gliding? Steriade (2008) answers this question with reference to her P-Map hypothesis, arguing that a [b~p] alternation is preferred because the perceptual distance between these sounds is less in this environment than between [b] and [m]; in essence, the synchronic system prefers a repair that changes a sound as little as possible, as determined by perceptual distinctness. The Noon facts are a clear counter-example to this prediction, and challenge any answer to the above question which requires synchronic systems to prefer the most “phonetically natural” repair.

Unifying Phonotactics and Derived Environment Blocking through Prosodic Constraint Indexation

<p>This paper presents a theory of prosodic constraint indexation that derives the blocking of markedness-reducing processes at prosodic and morphological junctures. The principle claim is that markedness constraints are indexed to prosodic categories, and are violated only when a marked structure is fully contained within the span of the indexed constituent. The interaction of prosodically-indexed constraints with faithfulness constraints accounts for both<strong> </strong>static phonotactic restrictions and derived environment blocking effects. Furthermore, they account for domain restrictions that can not be derived by CrispEdge constraints, which reference only prosodic edges. Where Strict Layering is violated, prosodic constraint indexation correctly predicts that more marked segment sequences can be admitted in extraprosodic affixes than in root morphemes.</p>

The nature of regressions in the acquisition of phonological grammars

<p>Children’s acquisition of their L1 phonological grammar is typically understood as a gradual progression from an initial universal state towards a language-specific one, in which learners incrementally change their grammars to better approximate the target. One challenging problem for this view, however, are the many reports of ‘U-shaped development’ in which production temporarily regresses, diverging further from the target rather than drawing closer. Based on existing and novel analyses of longitudinal data, this paper argues that phonological regressions should <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> be captured directly within the normal workings of children’s error-driven mechanisms for grammar learning. It also identifies a kind of regression that seems plausible but is nonetheless apparently unattested: one in which markedness constraints flip-flop over time, so that improvement on one marked structure entails regression on another. With this initial empirical base, the paper then demonstrates that an error-driven OT-like learner which stores its errors and imposes certain persistent biases can in fact easily regress in the unattested way. Section 5 discusses how OT’s grammatical parallelism is in part responsible for creating the unattested regression pattern, and how a serial constraint-based grammar like Harmonic Serialism (McCarthy 2007 <em>et seq</em>) avoids this regression. </p>

Emergent faithfulness to morphological and semantic heads in lexical blends

In many languages, sounds in certain "privileged" positions preserve marked structure which is eliminated elsewhere (Positional Faithfulness, Beckman 1998). This paper presents new corpus and experimental evidence that faithfulness to main-stress location and segmental content of morpho-semantic heads emerges in English blends. The study compared right-headed (subordinating) blends, like motor + hotel -&gt; motel (a kind of hotel) with coordinating blends like spoon + fork -&gt; spork (equally spoon and fork).<br /><br />Stress: Analysis of 1095 blends from Thurner (1993) found that right-headed blends were more faithful to stress location of the second source word than were coordinating blends. Given source words with conflicting stress (e.g., FLOUNder + sarDINE), participants preferentially matched the blend that preserved second-word stress (flounDINE) to a right-headed definition.<br /><br />Segmental content: When source-word length was controlled, segments from right-headed blends were more likely to survive than those from coordinating blends. Given source words that could be spliced at two points (e.g., flaMiNGo + MoNGoose), participants preferentially matched the one that preserved more of the second word (flamongoose) to a right-headed definition.<br /><br />These results support the hypotheses that Positional Faithfulness constraints are universally available, that heads are a privileged position, and that blend phonology is sensitive to headedness.<br /><br />

Voice contrast and culumative faithfulness in Luwanga nouns

Luwanga has a seemingly allophonic surface distribution of voiced and voiceless obstruents. This commonplace distribution typically requires the proposition that segments are specified as either [±voice] underlyingly, with their counterparts derived via phonological rule. Drawing evidence from consonant alternations in Class 9/10 nouns and their derivatives, obstruents contrast for [voice], at least in stem-initial position. Elsewhere, voice is non-contrastive. The outcome of this alternation, although transparent, cannot be captured in a standard constraint-based optimality theoretic framework and instead requires machinery employed to address surface opacity. This paper illustrates that the result of competing pressures to remain faithful to the underlying segmental structure, as well as to a consonant’s specification for [voice], is the seemingly transparent but analytically opaque retention of marked structure. We illustrate that this type of cumulative faithfulness is best addressed via one of two evaluative mechanisms capable of capturing additive effects, namely Local Constraint Conjunction and Harmonic Grammar.

Case Study

Recently, the development of the constraint-based framework of optimality theory has been adopted and applied to the assessment and treatment of children with phonological disorders. This paper provides a demonstration of the application of optimality theory to the assessment and treatment of a single child with a phonological disorder. First, a tutorial of the theory is provided. Then, several prototypical error patterns evident in the child's productions are analyzed within the framework. These errors are accounted for by assuming that constraints against marked structure are ranked over constraints that require faithfulness to input forms within the child’s grammar. Following that, a demonstration of how optimality theory accounts for different types of variation in the child’s productions is provided. These different types of variation are revealing of the true nature of certain error patterns, particularly an apparent pattern of cluster reduction. Finally, the results of the analysis lead to suggestions for treatment that focus on the demotion of markedness constraints below faithfulness constraints.