Harmonic Grammar and Harmonic Serialism - John J. McCarthy
5. Serial Restrictions on Feature/Stress Interactions
Harmonic Grammar and Harmonic Serialism - John J. McCarthy
Robert Staubs [+]
Independent scholar
Description
This paper discusses a solution to a pathological class of predictions found in parallel Optimality Theory. In these predicted languages, featural faithfulness and positional markedness conspire to create stress systems driven by arbitrary segmental features. This is possible even if the markedness constraints are for typologically motivated interactions such as sonority-driven stress and vowel reduction. The solution described here uses the gradual nature of derivations in Harmonic Serialism. Gradualism allows the determination of stress to be separated from featural changes in a way that avoids the pathology. To preserve descriptive adequacy on the full range of sonority effects, this solution requires an enriched representation of stress, supporting recursive notions of foot structure.