The Implications of Lexical Exceptions for the Nature of Grammar

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the consequences of lexical exceptions for the nature of grammar, drawing a comparison between two types of phonological theory: rule theory (or derivational theory), which uses rules to capture alternations and constraints to capture static patterns, and Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993), which uses constraints to handle alternations as well as static patterns. We conclude that in order to deal with lexical exceptions, rule theory is forced to use morpheme-specific co-phonologies (subgrammars), a practice which engenders such serious problems that it must be rejected outright. By contrast, Optimality Theory is capable of avoiding morpheme-specific co-phonologies. The fact that OT has violable constraints allows it to employ a principled prespecification approach to lexical exceptions. As we demonstrate, prespecification has a number of advantages over the co-phonology approach and none of its fatal problems. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the positive implications of OT for a principled underlying representation, and with some speculation on the grammatical status of static patterns.