2 ABSTRACT The 'initial state' of a child's phonology has been much discussed but rarely empirically investigated within an Optimality Theory framework. The most common assumption has been that, at the onset of word production, all markedness constraints strictly dominate all faithfulness constraints. In this paper, the early phonologies of 20 children, five each learning one of four languages ...

The order of acquisition of Dutch syllable types by first language learners is analyzed as following from an initial ranking and subsequent rerankings of constraints in an optimality theoretic grammar. Initially, structural constraints are all ranked above faithfulness constraints, leading to core syllable (CV) productions only. Subsequently, faithfulness gradually rises to the highest position...

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES v INTRODUCTION 1 NOTATION AND TERMINOLOGY, DEFINITIONS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND ALGORITHMS 3 DAGS and Probability Distributions 3 Causal Graphs 9 The Markov Condition and the Causal Markov Condition 21 CARTWRIGHT’S CRITIQUE 22 The Faithfulness Assumption 22 The Markov Condition and the Factory Example 24 SOME RESPONSES TO CARTWRIGHT 29 The Factory Example and the...

This paper shows that the commonly held serial view of the incorporation of overt forms in the grammar (e.g. Hayes 1996 for phonology, and Legendre, Smolensky & Wilson 1998 for syntax) is inconsistent with the even more commonly held view that if two distinct underlying forms are pronounced identically, at least one of them must violate faithfulness. By contrast, perceptual control grammars (Bo...

1 Workshop at which this work was first presented (Utrecht, June 22-24, 1994). For comments on this material, we are grateful to them and the other workshop participants, especially Austin have provided valuable feedback; and the comments, questions, and suggestions from the participants in the (eventually joint) UMass and Rutgers Correspondence Theory seminars were particularly important for t...

comments on this article, and to audiences at the University of Maryland (especially Luigi Burzio, Diamandis Gafos, Linda Lombardi, and Paul Smolensky), at the University of Tromsø (especially Patrik Bye, Mike Hammond, René Kager, Ove Lorentz, and Curt Rice), at the 1997 LSA Summer Institute (especially Tivoli Majors and Eric Bakoviƒ), and at a 1997 HIL course in Amsterdam (especially Harry van...

Any theory of language development, whether emergentist or nativist, must address the child's phonological development. Children's pronunciations of words are often quite different from those of adults. The child pronunciations may diverge notably from the target adult phonology, but in ways that make sense from a cross-linguistic perspective on the phonological systems of adult languages. In t...

In child language, consonants often assimilate in primary place of articulation across intervening vowels. In adult language, primary place assimilation occurs only between adjacent consonants. In both cases, the first consonant usually assimilates to the second. The standard analysis of directionality of local assimilation in Optimality Theory uses positional faithfulness to protect the second...