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

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, And Rosta wrote:
> 'Thou shalt not kill' is a rule, but it is a constraint,
Very well, but then what are we to do with this rule:

        Actions which would normally be treated as "causing
        accidental death" will, when committed during the
        perpetration of a felony, be treated as "murder".

(The "felony murder" rule.)  What kind of constraint is that?
I suppose you can say that it constrains the behavior of
prosecutors rather than of felons, but that seems rather
upside down.

> Not that I've anything against the idea of ranked constraints; I'm just
> mystified at how this simple idea burgeoned into the huge industry that
> is OT (in the USA). The obvious answer is sociopolitical, career-savvyness,
> bandwagon joining, and then the natural tendency of graduate students to
> continue doing what their teachers teach. But can such a huge academic
> juggernaut have such a flimsy intellectual basis, in a discipline that is
> fundamentally rational and quasiempirical?
Umm, why not?  Consider Schoolman metaphysics.  Or not to be tendentious,
the (false) flavor of Darwinism that talks of "survival of the fittest",
but upon investigation implicitly defines fitness in terms of mere
differential reproductive success, i.e. survival.

The highly successful calculus was from its invention by Newtonleibnitz
in the 17th C until the 19th C firmly planted on a foundation of
absolute rubbish, quite rightly mocked by Bishop Berkeley thus:

        And what are these same evanescent increments?  They are neither
        finite quantities nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing.
        May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities?

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter