Directionality Effects via Distance-based Penalty Scaling

In this paper we develop a new proposal for distance-based penalty scaling in Optimality-theoretic analyses, including Harmonic Grammar. We apply this technique to the analysis of two phonological phenomena, both of which have posed challenges to implementation using standard constraint-based methods: directionality effects and bounded domain windows. We show that distance-based penalty scaling handles both effects in a straightforward and unified manner. Directionality effects, in particular, are widely acknowledged as challenging for surface-oriented constraint-based models (see e.g. Zoll (1997); Hansson (2001); McCarthy (2003); Bakovic & Rose (2014), among many others). Cases covered by our analysis include both unidirectional harmonies and stress assignment patterns, as well as more complex cases of ‘opposite-edge’ effects, in which two competing directionality effects co-exist. We show that the same scaling functions which offer a solution to directionality effects can be readily applied to model window effects (e.g., Kager (2012)), in which phonotactic constraints apply in only one portion of a domain.