optimality theory

Optimality theory or OT is a linguistic theory proposed by the linguists Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in 1993. Although a lot of the interest in OT has been associated with its use in phonology (the area to which OT was first applied), the theory is also applicable to other subfields of linguistics (e.g. syntax, where it has been combined with theories such as lexical functional grammar; semantics). Optimality theory is usually considered a development of generative grammar, which shares its focus on the investigation of universal principles, linguistic typology and language acquisition. There are, however, linguists who consider OT to be an entirely new theory of grammar. Specifically, they reject the idea of universal grammar. OT is often called a connectionist theory of language, because it has its roots in neural network research. It arose as a successor to Prince and Smolensky's earlier theory of harmonic grammar. The main idea of OT is that surface forms of the language arise from the resolution of conflicts between competing constraints. These constraints are minimally violated in that the form that surfaces is the one which incurs the least serious violations, compared to a set of possible candidates. The seriousness of a violation is defined in terms of hierarchies of constraints in which the violations of higher-ranked constraints are most serious. This domination is said to be strict in that higher constraints take absolute priority over lower constraints. That is, given a constraint C1, ranked above C2 and C3, the expression of the language that surfaces (the winning candidate) may perform worse than its competitors in both C2 and C3, as long as it performs better in C1. Constraints are generally regarded as universal (though not by all OT researchers), but their ranking is particular to each language, accommodating for language variation. Acquisition can be roughly described as the process of ranking these constraints. Constraints can be grouped into two main types: faithfulness constraints (which require identity between the input and the output) and markedness constraints (which impose well-formedness conditions). Consider the manifestation of the English plural morpheme as a simplified example. Say the input form sounds like an s, as in cats. In the case of a word like 'class', a faithfulness constraint would require the plural to be pronounced as an s, but there would be a markedness constraint against having two s sounds following each other. This markedness constraint would be ranked higher in English, thus it would win over the faithfulness constraint (i.e. the word ends up pronounced as classes, rather than something like class-s). Sometimes a language may appear to lack the effects of a constraint. Since constraints are thought to be universally present, the language would still be thought as having the constraint active, but in a lower ranking, masked by the effects of higher ranked constraints. Thus it would be expected that sometimes lower constraints may demonstrate some effects under very specific conditions (where all higher constraints are satisfied) even in languages where this is not usually observable. These are cases known as the emergence of the unmarked.

References

Blutner, Reinhart, Helen de Hoop and Petra Hendriks (2004). Optimal Communication. Book draft, University of Amsterdam/Radboud University Nijmegen/University of Groningen.
Dresher, Bezalel Elan (1996): The Rise of Optimality Theory in First Century Palestine. GLOT International 2, 1/2, January/February 1996, page 8 (a humorous introduction for novices)
Kager, Rene (1999). Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, John (2001). A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, John and Alan Prince (1993): Prosodic Morphology: Constraint Interaction and Satisfaction. Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science Technical Report 3.
Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky (1993): Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science Technical Report 2.

External Links

Rutgers University Optimality Archive

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