Phonological Argumentation
Essays on Evidence and Motivation
Edited by: Steve Parker
Equinox Publishing
Series: Advances in Optimality Theory
Description
This volume presents a series of original papers focusing on phonological argumentation, set within the framework of Optimality Theory. It contains two major sections: 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 case studies that focus on particular theoretical issues within Optimality Theory, 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, one of the major proponents of Optimality Theory. This collection will therefore be of interest to anyone who seriously follows the field of Optimality Theory. The intended readership is primarily graduate students and those already holding an advanced degree in linguistics.
Contents
Foreword by Elisabeth Selkirk
Introduction (Steve Parker)
Part 1: Phonological argumentation and the bases of Optimality Theory
Chapter 1: Grammar is both categorical and gradient (Andries Coetzee)
Chapter 2: Phonological evidence (Paul de Lacy)
Chapter 3: Underphonologization and modularity bias (Elliott Moreton)
Chapter 4: Contrast, comparison sets, and the perceptual space (Máire Ní Chiosáin & Jaye Padgett)
Chapter 5: Morpheme-specific phonology: Constraint indexation and inconsistency resolution (Joe Pater)
Chapter 6: Source similarity in loanword adaptation: Correspondence theory and the posited source-language representation (Jennifer Smith)
Part 2: Case studies in phonological argumentation
Chapter 7: Exploring recursivity, stringency and gradience in the Pama-Nyungan stress continuum (John Alderete)
Chapter 8: Acoustics of epenthetic vowels in Lebanese Arabic (Maria Gouskova & Nancy Hall)
Chapter 9: The onset of the prosodic word (Junko Ito & Armin Mester)
Chapter 10: Infixation as morpheme absorption (Ania Lubowicz)
Chapter 11: Vowel length in Arabic verb stems (Sam Rosenthall)
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