Segmental Phonology in Optimality Theory

Download or read book Segmental Phonology in Optimality Theory written by Linda Lombardi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-27 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optimality theory has rapidly become the dominant framework in formal phonological theory. OT fundamentally revises the basic notions of generative grammar, replacing rules and derivations with a system of interacting constraints. Early work in OT tended to concentrate mainly on prosodic phonology and the phonology-morphology interface, and it was not initially clear how the theory could attack the rich range of phenomena found in segmental alterations. However, there is a body of work that concentrates on working out the details of featural phonology with OT, and this work shows that the theory allows superior explanations of the typological possibilities and the underlying motivations for these phenomena. This volume, first published in 2001, brings together work by some of the influential researchers in this area, ranging from the authors of influential dissertations to prominent senior faculty.