Optimality Theoretic Account Research Articles

Perception and production mismatch in truncated past tense verbs in Korean

Abstract Korean is often described as neutralizing its obstruents to unreleased stops in coda position. However, a stylistic truncated form of the intimate past tense expressing avuncularity, contradicts this description by realizing a fricative word finally. Despite tokens elicited from informants lacking phonetic evidence for a word-final vowel, speakers report hearing [ɨ] word-finally in these truncated forms. The present article gives an optimality theoretic (OT) account (McCarthy & Prince 1995) of this phenomenon by utilizing Benua’s (1995) base-truncated form (BT) constraints to explain the production of the form and Boersma & Hamann’s (2008) cue constraints to explain the mismatch between the production and perception in parallel to the treatment of loanwords. This suggests that output-output constraints and perceptual cue constraints may interact to create differences in phonological form between production and perception, even within native phonologies, and lends further support for the need for separate production and perception phonologies ( Boersma 1999 ).

Metathesis in Moroccan Arabic: Optimality-theoretic account

This paper aims to examine the phonological process of metathesis occurring in MA. The article provides preliminary observations and analysis within Optimality Theory and the rule-based approach. Notably, this paper aims to analyse and unveil the constraint interactions responsible for the consonantal sequence alteration occurring in MA. After presenting the MA data, an optimality-theoretical analysis is developed for further scrutiny. The results have highlighted that the SyllCon constraint is an undominated constraint and motivating force behind the metathesis process in MA.

Moroccan Arabic Consonant Clusters Resulting From Negation as an Exception to Benhallam’s SSAA: An Optimality-Theoretic Account

This article examines the status of the consonant cluster resulting after the concatenation of the discontinuous plural morpheme ma…….∫. In disconformity with Benhallam’s Syllable structure Assignment Algorithm (henceforth SSAA) which predicts that every succession of consonants is resolved in MA by inserting schwa to break hiatus, the succession of consonants after the abovementioned morphological operation does not permit schwa epenthesis. As such, it is imperative to account for the status of the final consonants and incorporate them into the syllable structure of the language. The claim of this article is that schwa is not inserted here as the ∫ of the negative morpheme is assigned an appendix which is moraless. So, it cannot make a mora in combination with the moraless schwa. The analysis is couched within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). More specifically, the constraints that interact to account for this seeming ad hoc are both faithfulness and markedness constraints. It is argued that some faithfuness as well as markedness constraints interacting with each other are responsible for the existence of such consonant clusters.

Non-iterativity, Icy Targets, and the Need for Non-linear Representations in Feature Spreading

Vowel and vowel-consonant harmonies have been central to much linguistic theorizing over the last century. One prevailing theme in this work is the need for non-linear representations. Clements (1981) and Jurgec (2011) argue for the superiority of non-linear representations for the analysis of unbounded and bounded feature spreading, respectively. This paper modifies and extends the metrical analysis in Jurgec (2011) to provide an Optimality Theoretic account for three bounded harmonies, rounding harmony in Central Crimean Tatar, as well as ATR harmony in Bangla and Iny. In all of these patterns, a vowel undergoes harmony but does not further propagate the harmonic feature. The metrical analysis is then compared to analyses employing string-based and autosegmental representations.

An optimality-theoretic account of the acquisition of English tenses: The case of Moroccan EFL learners

The study intends to describe the acquisition of the English tenses among Moroccan EFL learners. The analysis investigates each tense, employing the constraint demotion algorithm (CDA). The belief here is that errors emerging at the initial learning stages are indicators of L1 transfer. Based on the L1 properties, CDA rearranges the constraints to establish a constraint ranking, identical to that of English, based on the hierarchy detected through universal grammar (UG). Two hundred and twenty students, belonging to three different academic levels, participated in the study. The questionnaire they answered tested tenses through three different tasks. The output stemming from the analysis was that students’ mother tongue plays an important role in the acquisition of the tenses of English. The article concludes that the learners reach an intermediate phase in the interlanguage before eventually learning the correct tense form.

An Optimality-theoretic Approach to Weight of Superheavy Syllables in Qassimi Arabic

The ultimate purpose of this paper is to investigate the distribution of superheavy syllables (i.e. CVVC and CVCC) in Qassimi Arabic (QA), a sub-dialect of Najdi Arabic, which is mainly spoken in central Saudi Arabia, particularly, in the cities of Qassim Region. In order to do this, an Optimality-theoretic account is used to account for the moraic structures of these superheavy syllables. In general, the study finds out that CVVC and CVCC are both allowed to surface in Qassimi Arabic in final and non-final positions. Furthermore, using mora-sharing analysis (Broselow 1992; Broselow et al. 1995 and 1997; Watson 2007), the study observes the occurrence of CVVC and CVCC both in word-finally and word-internally. In particular, the study maintains that by proposing the dominant of (MORAICCODA) constraint over (FINAL-C-μ) constraint, the analysis of mora-sharing is superior to that of extrametricality. Thus, the paper suggests that the notion that all coda consonants in Arabic are moraic, including the last consonants of final-CVC syllables (Broselow et al. 1997).

Cluster repair strategies in child Greek: An optimality theoretic account

This case study investigates the simplification strategies of reduction to the more sonorous cluster member and cluster deletion in [obstruent + liquid] clusters. These strategies are in complementary distribution: the former applies in [obstruent + lateral] clusters and the latter in [obstruent + rhotic] ones. There is a contiguity effect in the child’s system, i.e. the grammar requires that the adjacent segments in the input be adjacent in the output. The pattern of reduction to the more sonorous member of the cluster in [obstruent + lateral] clusters is contiguity-driven and satisfies the adjacency requirement. The adjacency requirement is not met in [obstruent + rhotic] clusters. The complementary distribution of these strategies emerges from the permission of lateral-initial onsets and the prohibition of rhotic-initial ones in the output. We claim that cluster deletion is an epiphenomenon of the grammar’s restrictions on onsets, i.e. the contiguity effect and the prohibition of rhotic-initial onsets results in cluster deletion.

An optimality-theoretic account of syllable restructuring in Early Bislama

The paper looks at syllable restructuring in Early Bislama. The analysis is couched in the framework of Optimality Theory. The empirical evidence considered is from a corpus of pre-World War II records of Early Bislama, covering a period ranging from 1867 to 1935. It is shown that Early Bislama tends to disallow complex syllable margins and employs mostly vowel epenthesis and, to a lesser extent, consonant deletion as repair strategies for the resolution of etymological onset and coda clusters. Also discussed are the quality of the epenthetic vowels (minimally marked vs. contextually coloured), and the relevance of Early Bislama to the transformations undergone by otherwise stable features of English syllable structure.

Coda cluster simplification of English loans in Chittagonian Bangla: An optimality theoretic account

The paper investigates the phenomenon of cluster simplification process at word-final level of English loans to Chittagonian Bangla through vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion. An Optimality eoretic (OT) analysis follows and exemplifies the cluster simplification process. It has been well represented that the emergence of constraint *CLUSTERCODA (Kager 1999) is in the driving seat in Chittagonian Bangla. MAX- C/V and CONTIGUITY are two more vital constraints beside two lower ranked faithful constraints MAX-IO and DENT-IO that rank in the vowel epenthetic and consonant deletion process. Further, ANCHOR-IO (R) works vital as the second lowest ranked constraint before DEP-IO. Deletion of ‘r’ in coda cluster is very distinctive in CB. Finally, it is apparently found that, the deletion of consonant /r/ results in a merger and thus influencing the lengthening of preceding monophthong to keep the syllable weight intact in CB.

Ignorance implicatures of modified numerals

Modified numerals, such as at least three and more than five, are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than. We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that (a) the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those of more than, (b) the presence and strength of the ignorance inferences triggered by both at least and more than depends on the question under discussion (QUD), and (c) whether ignorance inferences are detected in a given experimental setting depends partly on the task that participants are asked to perform (e.g., an acceptability task versus an inference task). We offer an Optimality Theoretic account of these findings. In particular, the task effect is captured by assuming that in performing an acceptability task, participants take the speaker’s perspective in order to determine whether an expression is optimal given a certain epistemic state, while in performing an inference task they take the addressee’s perspective in order to determine what the most likely epistemic state of the speaker is given a certain expression. To execute the latter task in a fully rational manner, participants have to perform higher-order reasoning about alternative expressions the speaker could have used. Under the assumption that participants do not always perform such higher-order reasoning but also often resort to so-called unidirectional optimization, the task effect finds a natural explanation. This also allows us to relate our finding to asymmetries between comprehension and production that have been found in language acquisition.

An Optimality Theoretic Account of Korean Partial Reduplication as a Suffixation Type

The purpose of this paper is to show the following three characteristics regarding Korean partial reduplication. First, Korean partial reduplication data were meticulously reviewed and grouped anew reflecting the fundamental nature of the phenomena. The phonological condition of the prefixing type of reduplication requires that the base words should end in consonant ‘l’. By contrast, suffixing reduplication occurs in consonant-final base words except for final-‘l’. Secondly, Korean partial reduplication is argued to be basically suffixation of core syllable template, and some apparent prefixing cases are exceptions to the suffixation. This further indicates suffixation is a more universal phenomenon in morphology of partial reduplication. Thirdly, the complementary distribution of prefixing CV vs. CVC reduplicant patterns are determined by the interaction of the ranked constraints of Optimality Theory. This can also account for why suffixing reduplication does not show any complementarity between CV and CVC reduplicative templates. These findings contribute to making the current analysis more advanced and predictive than the previous analyses.

An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the Acquisition of English Diphthongs: The case of Moroccan EFL Learners

An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the Acquisition of English Diphthongs: The case of Moroccan EFL Learners

An optimality theoretic account of word stress in Hindi

In this paper, I present a new account of word stress in Hindi. I begin with the attempt to show that the apparently different patterns of Hindi stress described in the literature are in fact bound by one core pattern. The core pattern crucially involves an interdependence between rhythm and quantity in the placement of stress within a window of three syllables from the right. The Hindi data pose the following challenge to metrical stress theory and OT: ternary feet arise not from Extrametricality or Nonfinality but from a weight and rhythm-based foot structure in which both the factors are integrated. The new analysis presented in this paper meets the challenge in terms of the constraints Window (Kager, 2012), PERFECTGRID and PG – FORWARDPULL. The latter constraints are proposed following the insights in Prince (1983) and Hayes (1995).

Abishai, Daniel and Hezekiah

Abstract This paper analyzes Biblical Hebrew personal names like ʔăḇīšay ‘Abishai’ and dɔ̄niyyēl ‘Daniel’, names that are made of two primary elements that are related to meaningful elements from outside the domain of personal names. I argue that these names are best analyzed as a case of lexical secreted affixation, such that their recurring element is a derivational affix for deriving personal names. Furthermore, I argue that the medial vowel, occurring in the middle of ʔăḇīšay and dɔ̄niyyēl, is an underlying part of the affixes, such that they are /ʔabi-/ and /-iʔel/. An Optimality-theoretic account is given for the allomorphy of the Yahwistic suffix and variable occurrence of the medial vowel. Lastly, I argue that these affixes diachronically originate from blend and clitic group names that were morphologically reanalyzed to include an affix.

An Optimality Theoretic account of verbal pattern-root consonant assimilation in Modern Standard Arabic

AbstractThe goal of this study is to propose an Optimality-Theoretic (OT) account of the assimilation that arises from adjacency between root and pattern consonants in the two verbal patterns “ɪn-a-a-” and “ɪ-ta-a” in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). As for the pattern of “ɪn-a-a-”, ranking syntagmatic constraints higher than the faithfulness constraint of the root explains why the nasal /n/ agrees with the first radical in place features. In the second pattern (“ɪ-ta-a-”), ranking syntagmatic constraints higher than the faithfulness constraints correctly predicts the change of the pattern affix /t/ to [d] provided that it follows a voiced coronal consonant. This ranking also successfully explains why /t/ becomes emphatic (i.e., [tˤ]) when it occurs after an emphatic radical. Some constraints are posited in order to account for the change of pattern /t/ into /w/ when the latter comes after the vowel /ɪ/.

Vowel-consonant metathesis in Nivaĉle

AbstractVowel-consonant metathesis is observed in a variety of contexts throughout the Nivaĉle (Mataguayan) grammar. It occurs in both verbal and nominal domains, characteristically resulting from the affixation of a consonant-initial suffix to a consonant-final stem. This paper provides an optimality theoretic account for vowel-consonant metathesis and vowel epenthesis in Nivaĉle. It is demonstrated that metathesis responds to phonological requirements; specifically, it serves to avoid marked structures in the language: complex codas, derived complex onsets, and bad syllable contacts. The prosodic analysis of syllable structure constraints aims to provide broad empirical coverage, as well as a coherent and integrated theoretical interpretation.

Sonority-driven stress and vowel reduction in Uyghur

A number of authors have argued that sonority differences among vowels may interact with weight-sensitive stress placement (e.g. Kenstowicz 1994, 1997; de Lacy 2006). In previous work on sonority-sensitivity, variable stress placement has usually been assumed. In this paper, I examine the role of sonority in Uyghur, a language with fixed stress. I argue that sonority is encoded as a weight distinction in the language, which drives asymmetric lengthening of word-final high vowels. I demonstrate that a mora-based analysis also offers insight into medial vowel raising in the language, and sketch out an Optimality theoretic account of the data. Findings from this study support the recent claim made by Shih & de Lacy (2019) that sonority differences are only indirectly available to the grammar in the form of weight distinctions.

Non-sound’ verb Inflection in Arabic: Allomorphic variation and paradigmatic uniformity

Focusing on the Levantine Arabic variety, this paper investigates the paradigmatic asymmetry observed in the inflection of sound verbs whose stems contain three or four consonants and non-sound verbs whose stems contain only two consonantal realizations. It provides a unified account of verb inflection within Optimality Theory and the theory of paradigms. The target of investigation is the allomorphic variation in the non-third person markers which appear in their basic allomorph in inflected sound verbs, but appear in their augmented eeC form in the paradigms of non-sound (weak and geminate) verbs. Previous analyses have viewed this paradigmatic inconsistency as arbitrary exceptions requiring highly specific rules or allomorphic postulates, thus treating the sound and non-sound verb systems as two distinct types. This paper shows that the interaction of independently-motivated markedness constraints with paradigmatic uniformity constraints is capable of producing these allomorphic effects without recourse to ad-hoc rules or arbitrary allomorphic statements. The two verbal types are therefore treated as a unified system. The Optimality-theoretic account of affix allomorphy accords a prime role to the markedness constraint optimizing binarity of prosodic constituents, and rhythmic and prosodic uniformity within and across inflectional subparadigms the interaction of which explains the emergence of the augmented allomorph of the affix. The paper advocates an expanded definition of paradigms allowing grammatical categories such as gender, person, case, etc. to form subparadigms subject to what I refer to as paradigm-to-paradigm faithfulness requiring paradigmatic identity within a grammatical category regardless of verb type. Hollow verbs which present an interesting challenge to the analysis are discussed and accounted for by highlighting the role of Anchor in differentiating between hollow verbs and other non-sound verbs. The paper ends with a comparison with the contrast analysis of Broselow (2008) demonstrating on empirical grounds the superiority of the uniformity against the contrast account.

Loan Words Stress System in Bedouin Jordanian Arabic: An Optimality Theoretic Account

This study investigates the stress system of loan words in Bedouin Jordanian Arabic from an optimality theoretic perspective. The data is obtained from Huneety and Mashaqba's (2016) recent study. The corpus of the study consists of thirty-four words: nine monosyllabic words, nine disyllabic words, and sixteen words that are of at least three syllables. The data analysis is conduct in two interrelated stages: the data in light of metrical parameters following Hayes (1995). The aim of this stage is to evaluate the conclusion that Huneety and Mashaqba (2016) have reached through their analysis. The second stage of data analysis will analyze loan words under the Optimality Theoretic approach following (Prince & Smolensky, 1993). The findings of the study confirm Huneety's and Mashaqba's (2016) conclusion in that stress in BJA follows the following parameters: trochaic footing from left to right and that the language is quantity sensitive. The final mora is extrametrical and degenerate feet are not allowed. Moreover, the study shows that the dialect abides a universal set of OT constraints. The study shows that BJA stress system abides the following constraint ranking: LXWD=PRWD, RHTYPE TROCHEE, MAIN RIGHT, *SECONDARY, FTBINμ>> NonFinal μ >> PARSE SYL >> NONFINALITY >> ALLFTRIGHT >> ALLFTLEFT.

Featural Faithfulness in Consonantal Repairs of Arabic Loanwords in Sundanese

This paper provides an Optimality-Theoretic account of the consonantal repairs employed by Standard Sundanese to adapt seven illicit Arabic consonants in Arabic loanwords and thus bring them into conformity with its phonemic system. The study supports Best's Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), which posits that the unfamiliar consonants are perceived to their closest native counterparts in terms of articulatory features. It has been found that all seven Arabic consonants are replaced with native Sundanese counterparts with, first and foremost, the same major articulator (i.e., labial or coronal: IDENT (ARTICULATOR)) and voicing quality (i.e., [±voice]: IDENT (VOICE)), followed by the same manner of articulation (i.e., IDENT (MANNER)), which is preserved in the adaptation of five Arabic consonants only. In addition, while the source place (i.e., IDENT (PLACE)) and stridency (i.e., IDENT (STRIDENCY)) features are matched in only three adaptations each, IDENT (C) (i.e., no change of features) is never reflected in the data. Moreover, the adaptation of Arabic consonants satisfies markedness restrictions (represented by *EMPHATIC, *LABIODENTAL, *DENTAL, */f/, */z/, and */ʃ/) in Sundanese phonology against the importation of Arabic consonants. This is captured by the following OT constraint ranking: MARKEDNESS, IDENT (ARTICULATOR), IDENT (VOICE)>> IDENT (MANNER)>> IDENT (PLACE)>> IDENT (C). In conclusion, this paper contributes to the insufficiently researched area of Sundanese loanword phonology.