| ROA: | 584 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Input-Output Mismatches in OT |
| Authors: | David Beaver, Hanjung Lee |
| Comment: | To appear in Reinhard Blutner and Henk Zeevat (eds.), Optimality Theory and Pragmatics. Palgrave/Macmillan. |
| Length: | 38 |
| Abstract: | Bidirectional Optimality Theory allows us to see a wide range of problems which would previously have been considered unrelated from a new perspective, the perspective of asymmetric relationships between input and output. For interpretation, the input is a form and the output a meaning, and for production the input is a meaning and the output is a form. A mismatch is any case where there is no isomorphism between the space of meanings and the space of forms, say because one form has no meaning (uninterpretability), or multiple meanings (ambiguity), or because a meaning is inexpressible,(ineffability) or may be expressed in multiple ways (optionality). In this paper, we study architectural aspects of four versions of bidirectional OT so far proposed, and their treatments of these form-meaning asymmetries. The four models to be studied here are the strong and weak bidirectional OT of Blutner (2001), and the asymmetric OT models of Wilson (2001) and Zeevat (2001). We show that each of these models provides at best a partial solution to the problems of form-meaning asymmetry. We also discuss some possible directions in which these existing proposals could be developed so as to model cases of form-meaning mismatches that they fail to account for. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | Pragmatics/Semantics, Syntax |
| Article: | Version 1 |