Re: THEORY: [CONLANG] OT Syntax

And Rosta wrote:

> > 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).
>
>I have a gut preference for the former, more declarative Gen. But I'd
>be interested to see the arguments pro & con.
I also prefer the former. The advantage for the second version is that it
makes the theory even more restrictive, and it requires that each
representation that a given constraint judges will be less marked than the
preceding constraint's. I am not sure where the empirical differences
between the two will be, because McCarthy's presentation at WCCFL only
discussed the topic in abstract terms without much in the way of application.

> > 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.
>
>It seems to me to be an inescapable weakness of both OT and Minimalism that
>they have such difficulties dealing with 'free variant' structures --
>structures that are different but are the same at interpretation at the
>conceptual interface.
This is certainly true of Minimalism. Chomsky explicitly states that there
is no optionality in syntax. All different structures have a slightly
different meaning to them, even if you cannot pin down the exact difference.

However, apparently you are unfamiliar with the stochastic OT model. I'm
probably not the best person to be explaining this, but here it goes:

Under Stochastic OT, constraints are not in a simple "linear". Each
constraint is a "wave": imagine the one positive peak of a sine wave, and
you get the idea. Each constraint is a separate wave, and they overlap. So,
say 10% of the time, Constraint A precedes Constraint B, but the remaining
90% Constraint B precedes Constraint A. This means that in 10% of the
utterances, the optimal candidate will be determine by A instead of B, but
in the other 90% the candidate faithful to B will win out over the one
faithful to A.

There is a paper relating this to Syntax by Ash Asudeh at Stanford.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to read it yet, because the copies he
uploaded to Rutgers are corrupt.

>  Wh-questions with and without fronting would be such
>an example, for although echo questions are not interpretationally equivalent
>to wh-fronted questions, quizshow questions are.
But you must admit that quizshow questions are stylistically marked.
Therefore it is not unreasonable to claim that this sylistic aspect has
prevented movement, but in the interpretational portion of the derivation
(LF in a GB grammar, post-Spell-Out in Minimalism), the wh-element does in
fact raise. The typical argument that this is indeed the case is that
quizshow questions are ungrammatical in exactly the same contexts as
wh-fronted questions. In fact, wh-in-situ is what motivated the existance
of LF movement in the first place.

>Ah -- I'd been wondering who at UCLA is an OT syntactician. I know Jane
>Grimshaw has been doing OT syntax, and Joan Bresnan has been using it in
>her work.
I understand there is a fair amount of OT syntax being done at UC Santa
Cruz. And I think somebody said something about Amherst once, but I'm not
sure at all.

>OK, I get it. But in fact the implication that "OT syntax" is an OT-ization
>of some other theory, so you get "OT Minimalism" and "OT LFG", etc. etc.,
>seems
>much more on the mark to me, and makes more sense.
I agree. The paper by Asudeh I mentioned above is based on LFG.

> > 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).
>
>Interesting. It seems to be true of all the artlangers here that at heart
>they are fieldworkers, even when, like Matt & Dirk, they're also
>theoreticians.
Half the point to being a linguist is too learn "exotic" languages. The
more different from English the better. I actually like to make my theories
account for the obscure languages, then cram English into those theories --
the opposite of the standard approach linguists take. I've had the thrill
of watching professors squirm at my proposals, but having to hedge on their
criticisms since they believe in Universal Grammar and Chickasaw plainly
does what I claimed.

>I've never had any desire to do fieldwork, but then I'm more loglanger than
>artlanger.
Fieldwork is addictive. Pam Munro told me that once, but I didn't believe
her. Now I do.

> > 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.
>
>Bloody hell. That's outrageous. Was she set on not switching institutions?
She wrote her thesis, got her MA, then dropped out to become a professional
singer in a Bulgarian Choir. She seems more happy now.

> > 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.
>
>I'll remain interested if you share it with us then.
While do.

> > 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.
>
>The most charitable answer I can give here is that Minimalism is not to the
>slightest degree a model of processing, except in the metaphors it uses to
>describe itself; it is a model only of competence. The obvious riposte to
>this is, How can an ostentatiously mentalistic model of competence ignore
>processing, given that a halfway decent model of processing could quite
>possibily handle the rest of competence?
I wanted say that! :-)

One of my syntax prof's seems to be getting tired of reminding me that
Minimalism doesn't model production. But I find it harder and harder to
believe that given the claims that are made.

> > 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.)
>
>I'm surprised at your claim. LFG was founded as a psychologically more viable
>alternative to TG. I don't see the processing problems in HPSG or Categorial
>or Word Grammar (the theory my PhD grew out of). I know of other,
>processing-driven formalist models of syntax, too.
I have never heard of Word Grammar. Where can I read up on it?

As for HPSG and Categorial Grammar, they may be less problematic for
processing, but I don't like them as a form of Syntax. I've had very
limited exposure to HPSG, but I've done a bit of work in CG, and don't
believe for a second that it is the right way to go. As for LFG, I'm more
willing to accept it than the others. Maybe my problem with it is that I've
only read analyses done in the framework, I've never actually read the
exposition of what it should be. That goes on my list of things to do over
the Winter Break.


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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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