This thesis has two flavors: 1. A universal theory of universal multi-user communication with fidelity criteria: We prove the optimality of digital communication for universal multi-user communication with fidelity criteria, both in the point-to-point setting and in the multi-user setting. In other words, we prove a universal source-channel separation theorem for rate-distortion, both in the po...

This paper presents a new finite-state model of Optimality Theory (OT). In this model, two assumptions are imposed on the OT framework. Firstly, I adopt the Harmonic Serialism version of OT, in which output forms are derived from input forms via a series of incremental changes. Secondly, constraints are assumed to be strictly local in the sense that each markedness constraint specifies a set of...

This paper ties up some loose ends in finite-state Optimality Theory. First, it discusses how to perform comprehension under Optimality Theory grammars consisting of finite-state constraints. Comprehension has not been much studied in OT; we show that unlike production, it does not always yield a regular set, making finite-state methods inapplicable. However, after giving a suitably flexible pr...

This paper explores several patterns of consonantal weakening such as voicing and spirantization. Given that such weakening usually applies to either intervocalic or intersonorant obstruents, this paper contends that inherently redundant features such as [voice] for sonorants or [continuant] for vowels, cannot license their syllabic constituents, thus triggering consonantal weakening. In additi...

This paper explores an optimality-theoretic approach to syntax based on Tree-Adjoining Grammars (TAG), where two separate optimizations are responsible for the construction of local pieces of tree structure (elementary trees) and the combination of these pieces of structure. The local optimization takes a non-recursive predicate-argument structure (PA-chunk) as an underlying representation and ...

This paper introduces primitive Optimality Theory (OTP), a linguistically motivated formalization of OT. OTP speci es the class of autosegmental representations, the universal generator Gen, and the two simple families of permissible constraints. In contrast to less restricted theories using Generalized Alignment, OTP's optimal surface forms can be generated with nite-state methods adapted from...

Is Optimality Theory a constraining theory? A formal analysis shows that it is, if two auxiliary assumptions are made: (1) that only markedness and faithfulness constraints are allowed, and (2) that input and output representations are made from the same elements. Such OT grammars turn out to be incapable of computing circular or infinite chain shifts. These theoretical predictions are borne ou...

ACAL, held at the University of Illinois in 1989. At that time, the dominant research paradigm was autosegmental phonology, a theory which is concerned with issues in the representation of distinctive features (Goldsmith 1976; Leben 2006). Work on African language phonology was so central to the development of autosegmental phonology, that Goldsmith (1990) in his presentation felt no need to de...

Idsardi (2006) claims that Optimality Theory (OT; Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) is “in general computationally intractable” on the basis of a proof adapted from Eisner (1997a). We take issue with this conclusion on two grounds. First, the intractability result holds only in cases where the constraint set is not fixed in advance (contra usual definitions of OT) and second, the result cruciall...

This volume represents a synthesis of collaborative research from Indiana University’s Learnability Project. Its chapters report data, methods, treatments, and findings derived primarily from corpora of nearly three hundred English-learning children aged 3 to 7 with ‘functional (non-organic) phonological delays’, referred to hereafter in this review as PDs. The book sustains an extended argumen...