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This chapter addresses the question of how direct the linkage is between functional pressures and the typological distribution of formal elements that represents a response to those pressures. It contrasts two positions on the question: one of which maintains that the link between grammatical constructs and functional motivations is very close, the other that maintains that the relationship between the two is extremely indirect. The latter position is shown to be the correct one.

This chapter identifies an inventory of core phonological processes that are robustly attested in all or nearly all human languages. These are compared to the classes of phenomena predicted to be possible and impossible by Rule-Based Phonology (Kenstowicz 1994; Vaux 1998) and Classic Optimality Theory (Kager 1999). The comparison is argued to demonstrate that a phonological theory that employs extrinsically ordered rules, cyclicity, inviolable constraints, and the other machinery of Rule-Based Phonology provides a superior empirical match to and formal model of the facts.

This chapter elaborates a more precise account of the phrasal morphology that is responsible for the appearance of special clitics, within an Optimality Theoretic framework. A limited set of constraint types suffice to describe these concisely and insightfully. The OT-based account of ‘Clitics as Phrasal Affixes’ is compared with a variety of other theories: those postulating a purely syntactic account of cliticization, and those locating the unusual properties of special clitics in their phonology or in other properties of the interface between syntax and other parts of grammar. The system of second-position clitics in Tagalog provides a complex and nuanced example displaying a number of the properties discussed to this point.

To say that one sense of the term ‘clitic’ is to be identified with the phonology of the relevant elements does not, of course, actually provide in itself a theory of that dimension. In fact, the phonology of cliticization is closely bound up with the nature and status of the much broader theory of prosodic structure in language, and we can only understand phonological clitics by placing their behaviour within this larger context. This chapter outlines a view of prosodic categories and their relations within the framework of Optimality Theory, and uses it to arrive at a characterization of the phonology of clitics, especially (but not exclusively) in English. It is argued that the properties of English reduced auxiliaries do indeed fall within a phonological account, and thus that there is no obstacle to calling them ‘simple’ clitics in the technical sense, despite the complexities of their behaviour.

In this chapter we present a Realization Optimality‐Theoretic account of full and partial identity of forms, i.e. paradigmatic syncretism and cases in which lexemes share the same inflectional formative. Our approach involves both output‐to‐output correspondence constraints and realization constraints that associate morpho‐syntactic feature values with morpho‐phonological forms. We show that Realization Optimality Theory (Xu 2007) offers a unified account of these phenomena. Additionally, we argue that Realization Optimality Theory has advantages over several alternative approaches such as feature impoverishment‐plus‐insertion (Noyer 1998), rules of referral (Zwicky 1985; Stump 1993a), and two different models of OT morphology proposed by Müller (2007; 2008). We argue for an autonomous morphological component and also discuss related issues such as the morphology–phonology interface.

This chapter presents an Optimality-Theoretic (OT) account of the linguistically significant generalizations of bilingual codeswitching in argument positions in different language pairs. I claim that the constraint interaction and satisfaction approach of OT (Prince and Smolensky 1993; Grimshaw 1997) yields a straightforward account of the distribution of bilingual codeswitching in argument positions in different language pairs making use of mainly two conflicting constraints, *Spec and Comp (see Bhatt 1997), both violable under appropriate conditions. The difference in codeswitching outcomes in different language pairs turns out to be, as expected under OT, how these constraints are ranked relative to each other.

This introductory chapter provides essential background for the analyses developed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The first section defines the scope of the book, introducing the types of prosodic morphemes to be discussed (reduplication, word minimality, templatic morphology, hypocoristics). The next two sections discuss how prosodic morphology has been of interest to recent theories of phonology and morphology. In phonology, prosodic morphology illustrates theories of segmental and prosodic shape markedness. In morphology, prosodic morphology challenges the Item-and-Arrangement approach that is most easily modeled in constituency trees. The final sections present a critical overview of recent work on prosodic morphology within Optimality Theory and outline the new theory developed in the book.

As an empirical evaluation of the MacSwan’s (1999) PF Disjunction Theorem, reformulated here in Optimality Theoretic terms as the PF Interface Condition, this paper investigates the question of whether bilinguals mix phonologies in codeswitching contexts under two conditions: (a) when relevant phonological constraint rankings introduce a ranking paradox crosslinguistically; and (b) when they do not. Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 tested whether Spanish intervocalic approximant (traditionally fricative) allophones of /b, d, g/ would occur in codeswitching contexts when situated between an English vowel and a Spanish vowel at word boundaries (e.g., Hablamos de mi ghost yesterday). Experiment 2 evaluated whether a word-initial English segment may serve as a trigger for Spanish /s/-voicing (e.g., mis ghosts) which shares its internal ranking with English. In Experiment 1 the Spanish process was not triggered on English words. In Experiment 2, a word-initial English voiced consonant was found to trigger voicing assimi-lation in Spanish. Results indicate that phonological processes accept triggers from another language at word boundaries, but do not modify structure crosslinguistically: Spanish phonological processes cannot be triggered to modify English segments. This generalization is true regardless of whether the specific process involves a ranking paradox (as in Experiment 1) or not (as in Experiment 2). Results support the conclusion that phonological rankings are contained within discretely represented phonological systems, and crosslinguistic differences among constraint rankings relevant to specific phonological processes are sufficient to constitute a ranking paradox for the purpose of the PF Interface Condition when the same constraints are ranked differently

This chapter introduces a novel formalization of surface resemblance through shared paradigm membership, couched within Optimality Theory (OT) and correspondence theory. In this Optimal Paradigms model (OP), an OT constraint hierarchy evaluates candidates consisting of entire paradigms. Within a paradigm qua candidate, every output realization of a lexeme stands in correspondence with every other output realization of that lexeme. Faithfulness constraints on this intraparadigmatic Output–Output correspondence relation resist alternation within the paradigm. Through interaction with markedness and standard faithfulness constraints, they account for surface resemblance and failure of resemblance among members of a paradigm. The OP model is illustrated and supported by a type of data that has not figured in previous discussions of the surface-resemblance problem. The chapter argues that certain properties of Classical Arabic root-and-pattern morphology cannot be satisfactorily explained without the OP model. This argument also shows how OP supports the minimalist goals of Generalized Template Theory (GTT), which seeks to eliminate templates and similar stipulations from linguistic theory, replacing them with independently motivated constraints. The analysis of Arabic templates sets in clear contrast the differences between OP and serial-derivational models, including proposals for melding OT with Lexical Phonology.

This chapter argues that paradigm uniformity (PU) effects ultimately show that, while the move towards parallelism initiated by OT was much on the right track, the degree of parallelism in the system is in fact more extensive, concerning not only the internal structure of phonology, but also the relationship between phonology and morphology. It further argues that the mental calculations or ‘processing’ required by phonology and morphology are not only parallel, but also ‘distributed’, indeed as in ‘Parallel Distributed Processing’ — the formal term for connectionism. The chapter proceeds as follows. Sections 4.2 and 4.3 argue that representations influence or ‘attract’ each other to a degree that is inversely related to their geometrical or global distance. Section 4.4 argues that the role of global distance reveals that mental representations have fundamental properties of neural nets, and also that a major factor behind the Optimality Theory (OT) notion of OO-F is precisely the noted attraction effect. Section 4.5 elaborates further on the proposal of Section 4.4, pointing to additional consequences of significance. Section 4.6 suggests that a coherent and improved approach to morphology can also be developed from this perspective, one that further defines the OO-F relations at work within the phonology in terms of morphological relations. Section 4.7 reviews the typology of PU effects, showing that it is captured by the present approach though not by traditional means.

One of the longstanding puzzles in generative phonology is the so-called Nonderived Environment Blocking (NDEB), proposed by Paul Kiparsky. Based on NDEB, some phonological rules apply only in derived environments—that is, across a morpheme boundary or if fed by an earlier phonological rule—but are blocked in other cases. According to Kiparsky, rules that are both cyclic and lexical apply in nonderived environments. This is supported by the optional rule of Vowel Coalescence in Colloquial Helsinki Finnish. This chapter examines the Finnish evidence based on a corpus of spoken Helsinki Finnish encompassing 126 speakers and approximately 500,000 word forms. It argues that there is no relation between derived environment behavior and any kind of phonological rules, analyzes the Finnish evidence in terms of Optimality Theory, and suggests that NDEB arises from root faithfulness relativized to markedness.

This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of change in the syntax of early English subjects within the framework of Stochastic Optimality Theory (StOT). It shows that positional discrepancies between subject pronouns and full noun phrase (NP) subjects in Old English (OE) and early Middle English (EME) can be accounted for if pronouns are non-projecting (do not project to a maximal phrase) and appear in the IP domain, whereas full NP subjects can appear in Spec,VP or Spec,IP. The structure of the chapter is as follows. After stating some preliminary assumptions about early English syntax, the chapter presents an analysis of subjects that accounts for the positional discrepancies between full NP subjects and subject pronouns. Next, it shows that StOT, given the theory of syntax embodied by the constraint set, provides an illuminating model of change in the syntax of subjects in OE and ME.

This chapter summarizes the various factors that contribute to the typological distribution of phonological patterns and provides an overview of how these factors are formally modeled in contemporary theories. Relevant factors include physiological constraints imposed by the articulatory, auditory, and speech processing systems, cognitive biases that may make certain patterns easier to acquire than others, and frequency asymmetries. These functional pressures may be captured either directly in the formalism or indirectly through the medium of phonological predicates and operations referencing them. Experimental research designed to test whether these biases are synchronically productive for speakers or whether they reflect vestiges of diachronic pressures is summarized. The treatment of typological variation in constraint-based models of phonology (e.g. Optimality Theory), both discrete and stochastic, is exemplified.

What principles of morphology determine the locus of word stress in Spanish and Italian verb forms? It is argued that paradigmatic uniformity has played a crucial role in the evolution of verb stress from Latin to the modern languages. At the same time, phonological regularization is relevant, as well. The analysis is represented in a standard Optimality‐Theoretic model, drawing on alignment constraints (McCarthy and Prince 1993) for representing boundary effects and on McCarthy's (2005) optimal paradigms approach to represent paradigm uniformity effects.

This chapter begins by sampling pervasive patterns in linguistic systems which result from optimality effects in syntax and semantics. Blocking, minimality, markedness, last resort, and complementarity are shown to be at the heart of an Optimality-Theoretic analysis. The discussion also brings the directionality of grammar to the foreground. The complex input–output relations in syntax and semantics raise the issue of how much speakers take the perspective of the hearer into account in language production, and how much hearers take the perspective of the speaker into account in language comprehension. The chapter also includes a presentation of symmetric and asymmetric versions of bidirectional Optimality Theory in the syntax–semantics interface, as well as a discussion of the role of bidirectional optimization in first-language acquisition. It ends with an overview of the chapters in the volume.

This chapter discusses processes of templatic and subtractive truncation as forms of morphological exponence. Even though there exists a substantial body of research especially on the formal analysis of truncatory processes, patterns of truncation have played a rather marginal role in morphological theory. The chapter proposes that there is clear evidence that both templatic and subtractive truncation are genuine and regular morphological processes. For templatic truncation we argue that the irregularity claim is untenable for a large number of attested processes. The chapter proposes a form-based typology and an optimality-theoretic approach to account for the this typology. For subtractive truncation, we summarise recent developments in optimality-theoretic phonological theory, which suggest that no subtractive formalism is needed to account for the pertinent phenomena. With respect to the meaning of templatic truncation, the chapter argues that the available evidence suggests that truncations are diminutives, which can be accommodated in recent morphological theories of diminutivisation.