Optimality Theory and Language Change

460 Pages·2003·11.816 MB·

by  D. Eric Holt (auth.), D. Eric Holt (eds.)

OPTIMALITYTHEORYAND LANGUAGECHANGE
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
VOLUME56
ManagingEditors
Marcelden Dikken, City University ofNewYork
LilianeHaegeman, University 0/Lille
Joan Mating,Brandeis University
EditorialBoard
GuglielmoCinque, University ofvenice
CarolGeorgopoulos, University 0/Utah
Jane Grimshaw, Rutgers University
MichaelKenstowicz,MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology
HildaKoopman, University ofCalifornia, LosAngeles
HowardLasnik, University 0/ConnecticutatStorrs
Alec Marantz, MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology
John J.McCarthy, University ofMassachusetts, Amherst
Ian Roberts, University 0/Cambridge
Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedattheenda/thisvolume.
OPTIMALITY THEORY AND
LANGUAGECHANGE
Edited by
D.ERICHOLT
University ofSouth Carolina,
Columbia, U.S.A.
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4020-1470-3 ISBN 978-94-010-0195-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-010-0195-3
Printed on acid-free paper
An Rights Reserved
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2003
N o part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording
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and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
DEDICATION
For
Martha Bean (1943-2001)
Betchen Barber
Lucian
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Listofcontributors IX
Acknowledgements Xl
PART1: OPTIMALITYTHEORYANDLANGUAGECHANGE:OVERVIEWAND
THEORETICALISSUES
1. D.ERICHOLT/Remarkson OptimalityTheory andlanguage change
2. PAULBOERSMA/Theoddsofeternal optimization inOptimalityTheory 31
3. RANDALLGESS/Onre-ranking andexplanatoryadequacy ina
constraint-basedtheoryofphonologicalchange 67
4. RICARDOBERMUDEZ-OTERO& RICHARDM.HOGG/Theactuation
problem inOptimality Theory:Phonologization,ruleinversionand
ruleloss 91
5. APRILMcMAHON/ Whenhistorydoesn'trepeat itself:
OptimalityTheory and implausiblesound changes 121
6. CHARLESREISS/Languagechange without constraint reranking 143
PARTII:CASESTUDIESOFPHONOLOGICALCHANGE
7. DONKAMrNKovA& ROBERTSTOCKWELL/Englishvowelshiftsand
'optimal' diphthongs:Istherealogical link? 169
8. VIOLAMIGLIO& BRUCEMOREN/Merger avoidanceandlexical
reconstruction:AnOTmodel oftheGreat Vowel Shift 191
9. HAIKEJACOBS/Theemergenceofquantity-sensitivityinLatin:
Secondarystress,IambicShorteningandtheoreticalimplicationsfor
'mixed' stresssystems 229
10. CONXITALLEO/ Someinteractionsbetween word, footandsyllable
structure inthehistoryoftheSpanish language 249
11. D.ERICHOLT/Theemergence ofpalatalsonorants andalternating
diphthongs inOldSpanish 285
12. JAYEPADGETT/Theemergence ofcontrastive palatalizationinRussian307
PARTIII:CASESTUDIESOFSYNTACTICCHANGE
13. BENJAMINSLADE/ How to rank constraints:Constraintconflict,
grammaticalcompetition andthe rise ofperiphrastic do 337
14. LARRYLAFoND/ Historical changesin verb-second and null subjects
from Oldto Modem French 387
Bibliographyon Optimality Theoryand language change/ RANDALLGESS 413
REFERENCES 419
INDICES 443
Names 443
Languages 449
Constraints 451
Terms 455
LIST OFCONTRIBUTORS
Ricardo Bermudez-Otero April McMahon
DepartmentofEnglish Literary& DepartmentofEnglishLanguage&
LinguisticStudies Linguistics
UniversityofNewcastle,England UniversityofSheffield,England
[email protected] [email protected]
Paul Boersma Viola Miglio
Institute ofPhonetic Sciences Department ofSpanish& Portuguese
UniversityofAmsterdam UniversityofCalifornia,Santa Barbara
The Netherlands [email protected]
[email protected]
RandallGess Donka Minkova
DepartmentofLinguistics EnglishDepartment
UniversityofUtah UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles
[email protected] [email protected]
Richard Hogg BruceMoren
DepartmentofEnglish&American DepartmentofLinguistics
Studies CornellUniversity
UniversityofManchester,England [email protected]
[email protected]
D. Eric Holt Jaye Padgett
DepartmentofLanguages,Literatures DepartmentofLinguistics
& Culturesand Linguistics Program UniversityofCalifornia,Santa Cruz
University ofSouthCarolina [email protected]
[email protected]
HaikeJacobs Charles Reiss
FrenchDepartment LinguisticsProgram
UniversityofNijmegen Concordia University
The Netherlands Montreal,Canada
[email protected] [email protected]
Larry L. LaFond BenjaminSlade
DepartmentofEnglish DepartmentofCognitiveScience
Southern Illinois University, Johns Hopkins University
Edwardsville [email protected]
[email protected]
ConxitaLleo RobertStockwell
Institut fiirRomanistik DepartmentofLinguistics
UniversitatHamburg University ofCalifornia,LosAngeles
Hamburg,Germany [email protected]
[email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people to whom lowe my gratitude and sincere appreciation for
their efforts, guidance and support. Beginning with the inception ofthe project, I
acknowledge the organizers ofthe 2000 conference ofthe International Linguistics
Association, who solicited special sessions for inclusion in the program, and in
response to which I organized the double session on Optimal Approaches to
Language Change.Inparticular, Ithankthe lateRuthBrend,theconference chair,as
well as Johanna Woltjer, the conference secretary, and Father Sara Solomon, SJ.,
the local host at Georgetown University. Much appreciated as well is the support
received from the University ofSouth Carolina office ofSponsored Programs and
Research (SPAR) fortravel assistance totheconference.
lowe a debt of gratitude to those colleagues who lent their expertise to the
evaluation of conference abstract submissions, chapter summaries at the book
proposal stage, and the accepted chapters; heartfelt thanks to all who helped at one
or more of these stages (sincere apologies for the inevitable omissions): Luigi
Burzio, Don Cooper, Dorothy Disterheft, Stan Dubinsky, Kurt Goblirsch, Alfonso
Morales-Front, BruceTesar,Tom Walsh, and the contributors tothis volume, all of
whose insightful commentary has greatly enriched the project. Appreciation is
extended as well to the conference speakers and audience members, whose
participation yielded a stimulating session that eventually led to the publication of
thisvolume.
I thank the Department of Spanish, italian and Portuguese and the newly
consolidated Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures for research and
editorial support; Changyong Liao for assistance in the preparation ofthe volume
proposal; Erin Linden for assistance in preparing the volume's references section
and the indices; and Theresa McGarry for invaluable help with ongoing and
seemingly never-ending formatting and copyediting, as well as preparation of the
various indices; likewise, Iam grateful to Lan Zhang for assistance in proofreading
theindexofnames.
I also thank Gail Hutson, of the College of Liberal Arts Computing Lab, for
computer support and for the debugging ofa frustrating number ofprinting issues,
Carolyn Hansen for assistance in printing at various stages, and Homer Steedly for
guidance intheprinting ofthe finalcamera-ready manuscript.
lowe very special thanks to Stan Dubinsky for the innumerably many ways in
which he has supported the project and offered encouragement and advice at all
stages ofthislongprocess.
From Kluwer, Ithank James McCloskeyand twoanonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments and suggestions; mygratitude aswell to Jacqueline Bergsma and
Iris Klug for editorial guidance and support, and to JoIanda Voogd for seeing the
manuscript throughthe finalstagesofproduction.
Finally, I extend my deepest appreciation to everyone - family, friends, and
colleagues - who has contributed to the realization of this project by their
encouragementandexpressions ofsupport.
D. ERIC HOLT
REMARKS ON
OPTIMALITY THEORY AND LANGUAGE CHANGE
Abstract. The present chapter frames Optimality-Theoretic approaches to phonological and morpho
syntactic change in the context both of theoretical linguistics and ofthe questions asked in traditional
historical linguistics. Previous traditional,standard generativeand OTaccounts arediscussed, including
principles of change invoked (e.g., Transparency Principle, Naturalness Condition, Neutral Ground
Hypothesis, Synchronic Base Hypothesis); changes to the grammatical component (addition, loss,
reordering, inversion ofrules; promotion, demotion ofconstraints); variation (lexicaldiffusion theory;
partialconstraintordering);therelationship betweenrestructuring/reanalysis,childlanguageacquisition,
lexicalizationandlexiconoptimization;andlevel-orderedgrammar(LexicalPhonologyandMorphology;
stratal OT). The chapter concludes with a summary ofthe contents and main findings ofeach ofthe
chaptersofthevolume.
Keywords: Phonological and morpho-syntactic change, generative grammar, Optimality Theory,
restructuring,lexicalization,lexiconoptimization,variation.
O.INTRODUCTION!
Beginning shortly after the circulation of the earliest manuscripts in Optimality
Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy & Prince 1993a,b), various
researchers began to investigate its application to language change. Among the first
historical issues investigated in English, Slavic, a number of Romance languages
and others were the development ofsyllable structure, metrical structure, syncope
and epenthesis, simplification of consonant clusters, changes in vowel and
consonant length, diphthongization, Finnish morphological leveling, and many
others, including syntactic changes. These accounts have appealed to a variety of
theoretical mechanisms, including lexicon optimization, re-ranking or partial
ordering ofconstraints on markedness, faithfulness, alignment, sonority and others.
Additionally, the role of perception and reinterpretation by the listener has been
addressed insome ofthese works, as has the relationship between historical change
andthefirst languageacquisition ofconstraint rankings inachild'sgrammar.
Existing historical OT analyses, though they frequently rely heavily on
traditional argumentation to sustain them, areoften innovative and have allowed for
the establishment ofa relation between the changes discussed in these works that
could not or had not satisfactorily been seen as interrelated previously.Further, OT
approaches have been successful at incorporating or recovering previous insights
into the new theoretical machinery (e.g., functional notions). Additionally, the
application of Optimality Theory to the explanation of historical sound change
arguably provides us with a firmer base for understanding the given phenomena
1
D.EricHolt (ed.),Optimality TheoryandLanguage Change, 1-30.
©2003KluwerAcademicPublishers.