Optimality-Theoretic Syntax

Optimality Theory (OT) has been developed since the early ni neties, by Alan Prince, Paul Smolensky, John McCarthy and others. At first, the focus was m inly on phonology; but the approach has since been extended to morphology, syntax, sem antics, and pragmatics. The most comprehensive (and best) exposition of the theory is still P r nce & Smolensky (1993; 2004). Early groundbreaking work in syntax includes Grimshaw (199 7), Pesetsky (1998), and Legendre, Smolensky & Wilson (1998). Introductions include Ka ger (1999) (with little material on syntax), Müller (2000b) (in German), Legendre (2001), an d McCarthy (2002) (with quite a bit on syntax). OT shares with most other grammatical theor ies the assumption that constraints are crucial in restricting the class of possible linguistic expressions (LEs) in natural languages; however, it differs in important ways from virtu ally all other grammatical theories in that it envisages a non-trivial interaction of constraints . More specifically, OT rests on four basic assumptions: First, constraints are universal ( universality). Second, constraints are violable (violability). Third, constraints are ranked ( ranking). And fourth, the wellformedness of an LE cannot solely be determined on the basis of LE’s internal pro perties. Rather, external factors (more precisely, the competition of LE with other linguisti c expressions) determine whether LE is grammatical or not ( competition): LEs arecandidates .1 None of these assumptions is shared by standard grammatical theories like Chomsky’s (1981) Gov ernment-Binding (GB) theory or Pollard & Sag’s (1994) Head-Driven Phrase Structure Gramma r. Taking GB theory as a typical example, we can first observe that here, not all constraints a re universal (there are parameters and language-specific filters – but cf. ‘third-factor’ metaconstraints on constraints in recent work in the minimalist program, as in Chomsky (2007; 2008)). Second, constraints cannot be violated. Third, constraints are not ranked (i.e., all are e qually important and do not interact). 2

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