McCarthy, John

Job Title

Distinguished University Professor and Provost Emeritus

Last Name

McCarthy

First Name

John

Discipline

Linguistics
Morphology
Near Eastern Languages and Societies
Phonetics and Phonology

Introduction

My recent work has focused on Harmonic Serialism, a derivational version of Optimality Theory that appears to have several significant advantages over the parallel version.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 90

Open Access
Reduplication with fixed segmentism
(1999) McCarthy, John J; Alderete, John; Beckman, Jill; Benua, Laura; Gnanadesikan, Amalia; Urbanczyk, Suzanne
Fixed segmentism is the phenomenon whereby a reduplicative morpheme contains segments that are invariant rather than copied. We investigate it within Optimality Theory, arguing that it falls into two distinct types, phonological and morphological. Phonological fixed segmentism is analyzed under the OT rubric of emergence of the unmarked. It therefore has significant connections to markedness theory, sharing properties with other domains where markedness is relevant and showing context-dependence. In contrast, morphological fixed segmentism is a kind of affixation, and so it resembles affixing morphology generally. The two types are contrasted, and claims about impossible patterns of fixed segmentism are developed.
Open Access
On targeted constraints and cluster simplification
(2002) McCarthy, John J
In his article 'Consonant cluster neutralisation and targeted constraints', Wilson (2001) proposes a far-reaching revision of Optimality Theory to accommodate targeted constraints, which compare candidates differing only in certain specific ways. Targeted constraints, it is argued, can explain why cluster-simplification processes affect the first member of a cluster but never the more marked member of a cluster. In this remark, I show that this argument encounters difficulties once it has been embedded in a fuller picture of constraint interaction. Some general properties of the targeted-constraints model are also discussed.
Open Access
Generalized alignment
(1993) McCarthy, John J; Prince, Alan
Structural relations between grammatical categories (here, morphological and phonological) are governed by a single family of constraints under Optimality Theory: these demand that one type of grammatical constituent share a designated edge with some other type of constituent. Evidence is considered from footing patterns, infixability, epenthesis, syllabification, and prosodic subcategorization.
Open Access
Extensions of faithfulness: Rotuman revisited
(1995) McCarthy, John J
Open Access
Prosodic morphology
(2006) McCarthy, John J
Open Access
A theory of internal reduplication
(1983) McCarthy, John J; Broselow, Ellen
A broad survey and typology of infixing reduplication.
Open Access
Prosodic structure in morphology
(1984) McCarthy, John J
The thesis of this paper is that morphological templates have access to a richer variety of categories than the CV tier. Although foot and syllable reduplication had been suggested previously, here I have shown the need for templates—conditions on the form of words of particular morphological types—that refer to syllables in modern Hebrew and to feet in Cupeño. In the course of the analyses I have suggested a number of technical proposals: a specific version of the prosodic hierarchy, a procedure for expansion of morphological templates containing higher-level prosodic units, and another procedure for selecting the appropriate structure in case of ambiguity. Furthermore, morphological systems have emerged as a new source of evidence for the nature of prosodic categories, confirming in this case the need for syllables and feet as well as some details of their construction. The fundamental point, however, is that phonological theory and morphological theory must manipulate essentially the same units embedded in the same representational system.
Open Access
Harmony in harmonic serialism
(2009) McCarthy, John J
What OT constraint favors autosegmental spreading? Existing proposals for the pro-spreading markedness constraint make implausible typological predictions. This paper presents a new proposal that depends on Harmonic Serialism to avoid those unwanted predictions.
Open Access
Sympathy and phonological opacity
(1999) McCarthy, John J
This paper explores the nature of phonological opacity (in the sense of Kiparsky 1971, 1973) within Optimality Theory. Previous attempts to address opacity in OT are discussed and a novel proposal, an inter-candidate faithfulness relation called 'sympathy', is offered. Specific applications of sympathy are presented and some general results are derived about counter-bleeding, counter-feeding, multi-process, and Duke-of-York opaque interactions.
Open Access
The P-Map in Harmonic Serialism
(2009) McCarthy, John J
According to the P-Map, a phonological mapping is less faithful to the extent that there is more perceptual distance between its input and output. Although this idea is attractive, it cannot be implemented in the standard parallel version of Optimality Theory. This note explains why and shows how a derivational version of OT, Harmonic Serialism, can solve this problem.