Arto Anttila

Morphologically conditioned phonological alternations

Alternations that are partly phonologically, partlymorphologically conditioned are a central problem in phonologicaltheory. In Optimality Theory, two types of solutions have beenproposed: morphologically specialized phonological constraints(interface constraints) and different constraint rankings fordifferent morphological categories (cophonologies). This paperpresents empirical evidence that distinguishes between these twohypotheses. Stem-final vowel alternations in Finnish are governed by amixed set of conditions that range from purely phonological tomorphological and lexical, from iron-clad exceptionless regularitiesto quantitative tendencies. Using a standard dictionary as the database, we show that phonological conditioning plays the dominant role,but in cases where phonology underdetermines the output, morphologicalconditioning may emerge. We then show that partial ordering ofconstraints, commonly used to model variation, extends tomorphological conditioning as well. The partial ordering model is arestrictive version of the cophonology model, which is thus supported.

Variation and Change in Optimality Theory

Abstract This paper puts forward an optimality-theoretic explanation for the structure-dependence of synchronic variation and diachronic change. The approach is illustrated by modelling two well-documented phonological changes in detail. The model combines invariant regularities, variable regularities and statistical preferences in a seamless fashion by means of partially ordered constraint sets. Diachronic change is visualized in terms of grammar lattices (inventories of possible grammars) induced by universal and language-particular rankings.

The role of prosody in the English dative alternation

Does prosody influence the ordering of syntactic constituents? One syntactic phenomenon where prosody has occasionally been suggested to play a role is the English dative alternation. Building on proposals in earlier literature, we present a model of the dative alternation based on prosodic constraints interacting in terms of Optimality Theory. The model predicts the possible constituent orderings as well as the relative well-formedness of each ordering for verb phrases of different prosodic types. Data from two corpora that represent informal written and spoken English show that these predictions are largely confirmed. We conclude that the dative alternation exhibits prosodic effects that are mostly gradient and variable, yet entirely systematic. The prosodic hypothesis is thus a serious contender that must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the dative alternation in English.

The partitive constraint in optimality theory

This paper discusses a case of syntax/semantics interaction of a characteristically optimality-theoretic kind. Finnish partitive constructions exhibit a case alternation that is partly semantically, partly syntactically driven. The crucial semantic condition that plays a role in case selection is quantitative determinacy, which replaces the definiteness condition familiar from the Partitive Constraint. The crucial syntactic condition is the Case-OCP, which prohibits the assignment of the same case to both the head and its sister. The syntactic and semantic constraints conflict, which leads to various kinds of outcomes, including free variation and ambiguity, as well as preferences in expression and preferences in interpretation. We develop an optimality-theoretic analysis of these facts based on partially ordered optimality-theoretic grammars. In such grammars, conflicts among semantic and syntactic constraints are resolved in terms of ranking. Partial ordering is crucial in deriving preferences in expression as well as interpretation, including blocking effects.

Variation and opacity in Singapore English consonant clusters

Singapore English consonant clusters undergo phonological processes that exhibit variation and opacity. Quantitative evidence shows that these patterns are genuine and systematic. Two main conclusions emerge. First, a small set of phonological constraints yields a typological structure (T-order) that captures the quantitative patterns, independently of specific assumptions about how the grammar represents variation. Second, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that phonological opacity has only one source: the interleaving of phonology and morphology.

Deriving Consonant Cluster Phonotactics: Evidence from Singapore English

Consonant clusters are often targeted by phonological processes that typically make them simpler. This brings up two questions of theoretical interest. First, why do cluster processes occur? One possible answer is that they occur to improve syllable structure (e.g. Steriade 1982, Borowsky 1986, Ito 1988, Blevins 1995); another is that they improve the perceptibility of stop place cues (Labov 1997, Hume 1998, Cote 2000, Steriade 2001). Second, how does a language choose among possible cluster processes? In Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993), the choice is uniquely determined by the language specific constraint ranking. A potential problem arises in languages with multiple cluster processes that sometimes interact, sometimes do not, and sometimes occur in free variation. We will consider these issues in the light of evidence from Singapore English (Tay 1982, Mohanan 1992, Bao 1998, Poedjosoedarmo 2000). This variety of English exhibits several consonant cluster processes that fall into three types: epenthesis, reordering (Metathesis, Copy) and lenition (Fricativization, Place Assimilation, Deletion), illustrated in (1).

T-orders across categorical and probabilistic constraint-based phonology

Implicational universals (Greenberg 1966) state that, if a language has property P , it also has property P̂ . For instance, if a language allows a complex margin cluster, it also allows simpler clusters (e.g., CCCV→CCV→CV). Another much-discussed example comes from dialects of English: if t/d deletes before vowels (cost us ∼ cos’ us), it also deletes before consonants (cost me ∼ cos’ me). More formally, consider a typology T of phonological grammars (construed as mappings from underlying to surface forms). The entailment (x, y) T → (x̂, ŷ) holds between two underlying/surface form pairs (x, y) and (x̂, ŷ) provided each grammar in T which maps x to y also maps x̂ to ŷ. This relation T → is a partial order on mappings, called the T-order induced by T (Anttila and Andrus 2006).