The Incompatibility of Underspecification and Markedness in Optimality Theory
نویسنده
چکیده
Underspecification in the underlying representation cannot give rise to marked structure on the surface, because Optimality Theory grammars force an output to be equally or less marked than the input. Underspecification can still account for alternations involving unmarked structure, but it is only useful when such alternations exist along with forms that do not alternate. The evidence for the existence of such grammatical systems is not very convincing, casting doubts about the usefulness of underspecification in general.
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