Re: THEORY: OT Syntax (Was: Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial)

And Rosta wrote:

>If this is to be a distinctively OT analysis then you need to show that
>the constraints conflict and so must be ranked.
Indeed. If you look back at my example, if you rank "stay" above the other
two, you would get sentences that are WH-in-situ and have no Subject-Aux
Inversion: "Mary saw who?"

>For the particular example you give, it's hard to see whether conflicting
>constraints are called for. I have a competing analysis without conflicts,
>but conceivably you could come up with an analysis with fewer but
>conflicting constraints and so arguably superior.
>  But the three constraints
>you give are problematic.
I agree. But as you state, this examples was constructed for expository
purposes.

>  "Stay" seems pointless,
As a matter of fact, it is a common constraint in OT analyses. OT -- like
Minimalism, TAG, CG, TG, etc -- assumes that sentences are heirarchical,
and represent the structure with trees. Movement from node to node is in
fact what "Stay" attempts to prevent -- very similar to the Minimalist
principle of Economy ("Don't move unless it is absolutely required").

>  because 'Gen' should
>generate all forms willynilly, and random or any other rearrangements
>should simply not be part of the model.
That depends on your theory of "Gen". Prince and Smolensky actually provide
two different models. One - the one nearly everybody uses - generates all
possible forms, then selects the most "optimal" form based on the
constraints. The other only generates the forms relevant for the next
constraint on the list. After that constraint has made a decision, the
optimal candidate is used as the base form for generating the next set to
be judged from. McCarthy is the only person I know of to use such a model
in Phonology (but I'm not a phonologist, so I don't know the literature).
Under this second theory of Gen, you do not get the forms generated
"willynilly". Indeed, McCarthy has suggested that Phonology should follow
Syntax in using such a Gen. (That was at the West Coast Conference of
Formal Linguistics, 2000).

>  It's not clear from your exposition
>why Q-head requires inversion, so I can't judge Q-head.
Absolutely. Q-head simply states that there must be an element in the CP to
mark the question. It would also be possible to insert a question marker
like Chinese, move the wh-pronoun there, or something else. I avoided those
issues for simplicity.

There are a couple approaches you could take to this. One would be to say
that the Q-head requires a tensed element in it. Thus, inversion of the
tensed material would be necessary. If you rank such a constraint above
"Stay", then Inversion results. If you rank it below "Stay", then you would
get a question marker like Chinese. This, in fact, could be part of a much
broader constraint that requires "heads" to raise as high as they can in
their phrase. Their upward movement would only be halted by a constraint
that does not allow further movement. English verbs cannot cross the
subject, but French verbs can. That would a difference in constraint ranking.

>  Finally, Wh-initial
>is all well and good, but it wrongly excludes quizshow questions ("Mary
>will see who?").
Not at all. We can introduce another constraint that requires arguments to
occur in their cannonical position in certain contexts like echo questions
and such. You rank that constraint above Wh-initial, and the facts fall
out. But in neutral contexts, this new constraint is dormant and fronting
applies.

>I must in fairness concede that this example was chosen as an exposition
>of what OT syntax is like rather than as an exemplar of analysis where OT
>does better than other theories, but on the other hand the same could be
>said of 98% of the OT analyses I've seen.
Yes. I'm not a firm proponant of OT Syntax.  I jokingly objected to Dirk's
claim that OT is theory of Phonology, and somebody (sorry, don't remember
who) asked to see OT syntax. Viola. Here we are. Basically, I find OT and
Minimalism to alternative characterizations of the exact same ideas and
principles.

>Could you give an example of an analysis does better than other theories?
Without going into details, a further application to WH-questions. Note the
behavior of wh-subjects:

Who saw Mary?

No inversion (or at least not visible). No Do-Support. This is an
embarrasment to Generative Theories -- all the theories for it in GB and
Minimalism are weak, and everybody knows it. They just don't talk about it.
But, under the OT analysis I just sketched (ie, wh-elements raise to the
front, verbs raise as high as they can without crossing the subject), this
is actually predicted. The subject appears in front of the Q-head like
wh-pronouns must in neutral questions. The verb may then safely be in the
Q-head without violating the ban on crossing (or raising above) the
subject. Thus, Do-Support is not needed. Recall that verbs also cannot
raise above negation, thus we expect that in a negative question with a
wh-subject, Do-Support should return. In fact, it does: "Who didn't see Mary?"

>Just point me to someone's article if that's easier.
You could always search the Rutgers Optimality Archive. There isn't much on
Syntax in there.

>BTW, I'm assuming that you're keen to engage in 'lively debate'. But if I'm
>coming across as bullying or obstreporous, just let me know & the thread
>will immediately be aborted.
Not at all. I would just like to point out that I am not an OT
syntactician. I am an amateur dabbler, who spends most of his time split
between Minimalism (which I am very dissatisfied with) and Field Work
(which I love). But I have professors who hate OT, and fail to see that it
is not fundamentally different from their own pet theories. That irritates
me sometimes. I have a friend who wanted to write her thesis in OT, and all
her professors refused to advise her until she switched back to
Minimalism/Antisymmetry.

> > For all of you who may have been brainwashed into believing that Minimalism
> > is the only way to go,
>
>= 0% of the list membership, as far as I can see.
I know there are people on the list who are learning GB style theories. I
was mainly addressing that comment to them.

>  Matt is the only high-
>profile Chomskyan here, and he's not a heavyduty Minimalist.
Matt crosses Minimalism with Antisymmetry, and does some very interesting
work based on that. But it is true that he seems to entertain functionalist
ideas often than many (most?) Chomskyans. He is very enlightening to talk
to about theoretical matters.

> > And to be fair, for all of you who have been brainwashed into believing
> > that Minimalism is the Anti-Christ, Minimalism is one of three theories of
> > syntax that have been shown to be learnable, the other two being Tree
> > Ajoining Grammar and Categorial Grammar. The jury is still out on OT, and
> > all the rest (Transformational Grammar, Lexical Function Grammar, HPSG,
> > Role and Reference Grammar, etc) have been proved to be unlearnable.
> > Chomsky was not happy to hear that about his theory. :-)
>
>Since so little is known about learnability from a psychological perspective,
>I assume this argument must be about learnability from a logicomathematical
>perspective?
Yes, it is.

>I'd like -- nay love -- to see the evidence for the claims you give. Can
>you give the reference?
All I can say is that the work has been done by people such as Ed Stabler
of UCLA and several of his students, such as Henk Harkeman. People are
doing similar work at Rutgers, IIRC. I should be able to be more specific
sometime during the next quarter, when I plan to take Ed's class on the topic.

>BTW, I remember reading a paper by Shalom Lappin & David Johnson about why
>*Minimalism* (unlike certain other theories -- I forget which, but possibly
>including GB and HPSG) was pyschologically unviable. I forget the details,
>but the essence was that economy could be computed only over entire
>derivations,
>so to compute the most economical derivation you have to compute every
>derivation. I seem to recall that Minimalism has since taken steps to fix
>that problem, though.
Currently, most people usually compute Economy at each step during the
derivation, rather than over the entire thing. But that isn't the only area
of Minimalism that is psychologically unviable.

For instance, the production of most biclausal structures takes longer to
pronounce than the "language buffer" in our brains can handle. That is, our
minds can only see so far ahead of what we are actually saying. The
distance has been measured (according to Bruce Hayes, but I don't remember
the exact length or who did the work). Some agglutinative/polysynthetic
languages can form words that take longer to pronounce than the buffer can
handle. (The evidence comes from agglutinative languages that determine
stress from the end of the word, and checking to see how long a word can be
formed before stress cannot be accurately computed anymore.) Minimalism
requires that the entire sentence be constructed before pronunciation
occurs. But how is that possible, if the sentence is longer than the buffer
has space for? I can't believe that a multi-clausal structure can be
constructed, stored, then pronounced, when it is not even possible to
compute the stress pattern of a single super-long word.

We have to have a theory that allows the formation of the sentence as it is
being pronounced. No theory of syntax or grammar that I know of is capable
of this yet. But we will by the time I finish my dissertation in five years
or so. :-) (That's only a half joke. I am working in that direction during
my spare time. I occasionally discuss portions of my developing theory with
various people -- professors and fellow grad students--, but nobody has
heard anything close to the whole story. The most damning criticism I've
been given so far is that my ideas are symmetrical to Minimalism.)


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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