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CHAPTER 4 —o> — THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OPTIMALITY THEORY (OT) Optimality Theory (OT)! is a generative grammar-based formal framework attempting to apply generative grammatical rules in order to describe how natural languages work. It is currently one of the dominant paradigms in phonology, and is a relatively new framework used in syntax. Although OT is a generative-grammar-based theoretical framework, its main premise is that — instead of focusing on the input representations of linguistic utterances, which is in the primary focus of generative grammar — the significant regularities of natural languages can be understood by analyzing the output structure, the surface realizations of utterances. As opposed to the method of generative grammar, which turns the input configuration into potential output structures (surface realizations) by applying generative processes, OT claims that relying on an algorithmic-based representation of empirically observed output representations, the actual rules governing linguistic mechanisms can be understood. While generative grammar sets rules of well-formedness, OT moves toward setting “constraints” of well-formedness. OT premises that actual speech production is the result of a derivational process between a generative device (GEN), a set of ranked constraints (CON), and an evaluative part (EVAL). As a derivational process, OT always proceeds from an underlying representation (UR), which is fed as input to the generative (GEN) function. GEN is a cognitive device of universal grammar that generates constraints through which the underlying candidates (inputs) have to pass before surface realization (output). The underlying candidates are in conflict with each 100 Alan Prince — Paul Smolensky, Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar, Manuscript, University of Colorado and Rutgers University, 1993; Alan Prince — Paul Smolensky, Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar, Massachusetts, USA, Blackwell, 2004 + 39 +
