When an interaction is both opaque and transparent: the paradox of fed counterfeeding

Abstract

Opaque interactions have long been recognised as a challenge for Optimality Theory. We show that although there has been considerable effort to bring opacity into the scope of Optimality Theory, some types of process interactions are still problematic for the theory. Based on data from Tundra Nenets, we present and analyse a case of fed counterfeeding in which a process A feeds a process B, and B counterfeeds A. We argue that such interactions present a challenge to Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (OT-CC; McCarthy 2007) since the two interactions impose contradictory ranking requirements. We propose an extension of the theory that does not abandon its main assumptions and that makes fed counterfeeding analysable in OT-CC. This extension is based on the assumption that constraints can make reference to the position specified in a previous step in the derivation.