This volume presents a series of original papers focusing on the theme of phonological argumentation, set within the framework of Optimality Theory. It contains two major sections: (1) chapters about the evidence for and methodology used in discovering the bases of phonological theory, i.e., how constraints are formed and what sort of evidence is relevant in positing them; and (2) case studies that focus on particular theoretical issues within OT, usually through selected phenomena in one or more languages, arguing in favor of or against specific formal analyses. A noteworthy detail of this book is that all of the contributors are connected with the program in phonology and phonetics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, either as current professors or former graduate students. Consequently, all of them have been directly influenced by John McCarthy, himself one of the major proponents of OT. This collection will therefore be of interest to anyone who seriously follows the field of OT. The intended readership is primarily graduate students and those already holding an advanced degree in linguistics, i.e., persons conversant with and capable of interacting with the OT literature.
Foreword ix
Introduction 1
Part I Phonological Argumentation and the Bases of Optimality Theory 7
1 Grammar is both categorical and gradient Andries W. Coetzee 9
2 Phonological evidence Paul de Lacy 43
3 Underphonologization and modularity bias Elliott Moreton 79
4 Contrast, comparison sets, and the perceptual space M?ire Ni Chios?in Jaye Padgett 103
5 Morpheme-specific phonology: Constraint indexation and inconsistency resolution Joe Pater 123
6 Source similarity in loanword adaptation: Correspondence Theory and the posited source-language representation Jennifer L Smith 155
Part II Case Studies in Phonological Argumentation 179
7 Exploring recursivity, stringency, and gradience in the Pama-Nyungan stress continuum John Alderete 181
8 Acoustics of epenthetic vowels in Lebanese Arabic Maria Gouskova Nancy Hall 203
9 The onset of the prosodic word Junko Ito Armin Mester 227
10 Infixation as morpheme absorption Ania &Lstroke;ubowicz 261
11 Vowel length in Arabic verb stems Sam Rosenthall 285
References 308
Author index 348
Index of constraints 355
Index of languages 358
Subject index 361
Overview
This volume presents a series of original papers focusing on the theme of phonological argumentation, set within the framework of Optimality Theory. It contains two major sections: (1) chapters about the evidence for and methodology used in discovering the bases of phonological theory, i.e., how constraints are formed and what sort of evidence is relevant in positing them; and (2) case studies that focus on particular theoretical issues within OT, usually through selected phenomena in one or more languages, ...