ROA: | 402 |
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Title: | Optimality and functionality: Some critical remarks on OT syntax |
Authors: | Frederick J. Newmeyer |
Comment: | |
Length: | 56 |
Abstract: | Optimality and functionality: Some critical remarks on OT syntax Frederick J. Newmeyer University of Washington This paper presents a critique of optimality-theoretic syntax. First, it questions the frequently encountered claim that an OT approach to a particular problem is 'restrictive', in the sense that it limits the class of possible languages. Such claims, it will be argued, are in principle difficult if not impossible to substantiate. Since constraints are, by hypothesis, universal, there will almost surely be some additional constraint whose interaction with the constraints of the proposed analysis would yield the undesired grammars. Secondly, the paper criticizes the attempt to provide substance to the idea that constraints are universal by requiring for each a functional motivation. While identifying a function for each OT constraint is trivially accomplishable, it is an undesirable 'accomplishment'. Functions and functionally-motivated hierarchies are neither part of grammar nor linked directly to grammatical constructs. Rather, their effect is manifest at the level of language use and language acquisition and (therefore) language change. Finally, OT falters in its treatment of optionality, whether discourse-independent or discourse- dependent. In both cases, it needs to posit otherwise unneeded competition sets and in the latter case it requires the blurring of the distinction between purely syntactic generalizations and those relating syntactic structure to information structure. |
Type: | Paper/tech report |
Area/Keywords: | |
Article: | Version 1 |