Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, etc.

On Friday, February 6, 2004, at 01:37  AM, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> From:    Shreyas Sampat <shreyas@...>
>> In Optimality Theory, a set of universal *constraints* mandate that
>> the
>> ends of a word coincide with the ends of a metrical foot. (this means
>> it
>> is bad if a word has a foot break in it or is too small to fill a
>> foot.)
>> But other constraints (like one that maintains length contrasts) can
>> force violations of the foot-alignment if they are ranked correctly.
>>
>> OT rules.
>
> Oh really.  What do you say about opacity?  Do you favor Sympathy
> Theory, or Comparative Markedness, or Targeted Constraints? All
> of these attempts to answer this problem have been incredibly
> convoluted.
>
> Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of a two-level mapping of input
> and ouput.  It's just that no one has yet been able to come up with
> a way to do that.  If you're going for OT, Stratal OT is probably
> your best bet.
Stratal OT? Puhleez. If you want to do Lexical Phonology, then do
Lexical Phonology and leave OT out of it. Personally, I favor a model
in which there is *no* phonological input. Lexical items *are*
constraints (or groups of constraints), and Output-Output Faithfulness
guarantees similarity among related forms. In other words, the Lexicon
is the Grammar. (A bit simplistic, but it's a nice slogan.)

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie

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