The Emergence of the Unmarked: Optimality in Prosodic Morphology
 

John J. McCarthy

UMass Amherst



Alan Prince

Rutgers University



Published (1994) in Mercè Gonzàlez, ed., Proceedings of the North East 
 Linguistics Society 24, GLSA, Amherst, MA. Pp. 333-379. 
 French translation (1997) 'L'émergence du non marqué. L'optimalité en 
 morphologie prosodique,' Langages special issue 'Nouvelles phonologies', 
 vol. 125, pp. 55?99. Ed. Bernard Laks, trans. Marc Klein.
 

This paper identifies and illustrates a key consequence of Optimality 
 Theory called 'emergence of the unmarked'. In OT, a constraint can be 
 active even if it is crucially dominated. A low-ranking markedness 
 constraint, then, can decide between candidates, as long as they tie 
 on all higher-ranking constraints. The linguistic structure that is 
 unmarked with respect to this constraint can emerge in such circumstances.
 

This notion is applied to a core problem in the theory of Prosodic 
 Morphology, that of defining templates. The frequently encountered 
 minimal-word template is shown to emerge from markedness constraints 
 on prosodic structure. (Also see ROA-59, ROA-216, and ROA-236.)