Derivational Phonology and Optimality Phonology: Formal Comparison and Synthesis

• Main Author: Russell James Norton
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Chukchee
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.387.4474; http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/613-0903/613-NORTON-8-0.PDF

This thesis conducts a formal comparison of Optimality Theoretic phonology with its predecessor, Rule-based Derivational phonology. This is done in three studies comparing (i) rule operations and Faithfulness constraint violations, (ii) serial rule interaction and hierarchical constraint interaction, and (iii) derivational sequences and harmony scales. In each, the extent of the correlation is demonstrated, and empirical implications of their differences drawn out. Together, the studies demonstrate that there is no case in which the two frameworks mimic each other at all three points at once: the “Duke of York gambit”, where one rule is reversed by another, is the one case where rule ordering and constraint ranking converge, yet the complexity of this composite mapping demonstrably exceeds that of the input-output mappings of Optimality Theory. It is also argued that the Duke of York mapping is generally unexplanatory, and that its availability falsely predicts that a vowel inventory may be reduced to one in some contexts by deletion and then insertion. The failure of this prediction is illustrated from Yokuts, Chukchee and Lardil. A synthesis of derivational and optimality phonology is then presented in which