Optimality and diachronic adaptation

Optimality and diachronic adaptation

In this programmatic paper, I argue that the universal constraints of Optimality Theory (OT) need to be complemented by a theory of diachronic adaptation. OT constraints are traditionally stipulated as part of Universal Grammar, but this misses the generalization that the grammatical constraints normally correspond to constraints on language use. As in biology, observed adaptive patterns in lan...

Diachronic vocabulary adaptation for b

This article investigates the use of Internet news sources to automatically adapt the vocabulary of a French and an English broadcast news transcription system. A specific method is developed to gather training, development and test corpora from selected websites, normalizing them for further use. A vectorial vocabulary adaptation algorithm is described which interpolates word frequencies estim...

phonological metathesis in persian: synchronic, diachronic, and the optimality theory

metathesis as a phonological phenomenon in order to reverse segments has been focus of many studies. metathesis according to the range of application can be sporadic or regular. it links synchronic studies of language to diachronic ones and thereby has some consequences for phonological theory. the central goal of this paper is to elucidate the conditions under which metathesis occurs synchroni...

german loanwords adaptation in persian: optimality approach

this paper aims at describing the mechanism of german loanwords adaptation with respect to constraints of persian language and within ot framework. consequently the adaptation of consonant clusters and diphthongs as well as the phonemes substituted in loanwords will be examined. prince and smolensky’s (1993) optimality theory with its key notions of faithfulness and markedness constraints is su...

Money Pumps, Diachronic and Synchronic