Publication Date
January 1997
Journal or Book Title
Linguistic Inquiry
Abstract
Similar phonological processes can be governed by different constraints. Davis (1995) claims that the effect of such process-specific constraints cannot be obtained in Optimality Theory (OT), exemplifying this point with material from harmony in Palestinian Arabic. On the contrary, I show that process-specific constraints are a natural and expected result of constraint ranking, the fundamental idea of OT. Furthermore, OT makes a restrictive prediction, the subset criterion, about coexistent process-specific constraints within a single grammar—a prediction supported by the Palestinian material. Davis also presents evidence that epenthetic segments have featural specifications, claiming that OT says they are featureless. This is incorrect; OT is a model of constraint interaction, not of the representation of epenthetic segments.
Pages
231-251
Volume
28
Issue
2
Recommended Citation
McCarthy, John J., "Process-specific constraints in Optimality Theory" (1997). Linguistic Inquiry. 61.
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/linguist_faculty_pubs/61
Included in
Morphology Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons, Phonetics and Phonology Commons
Comments
Copyright MIT Press.