MOT: Sketch of an OT approach to morphology

draft, July 24, 1999



Kevin Russell

University of Manitoba





This sketch presents a unified framework for analyzing morphological
 phenomena within Optimality Theory (called, for want of a better term,
 MOT).



OT has been successful at coming up with non-derivational accounts of
 individual modules of grammar, especially syntax and phonology.  But
 the relationship between modules is still usually assumed to be
 derivational -- for example, the output of syntax serves as the input
 to phonology or morphology.  In contrast to this, MOT is based on the
 following ideas:



 - An OT grammar evaluates all sub-representations (e.g., phonology,
 syntax, semantics) in parallel. 

 - An OT grammar can impose interface constraints on which phonological,
 syntactic, and semantic representations can co-occur with each other.
  - The information of "lexical entries" is nothing more than specialized
 versions of such interface constraints.

 - There is no need for the "lexicon" to contain pieces of
 representation, such as partial syntactic nodes or phonological
 underlying representations.



The sketch shows how such a framework can shed light on many of the
 problem cases of morphological theory.  Some of the topics discussed
 are: the default mapping between syntactic categories and inflection
 classes (as argued by Aronoff 1993), regular and irregular inflection,
 prosodic morphology (exemplified by Yawelmani), truncatory morphemes
 (e.g., navig-ate-able -> navig-able), phonological underspecification,
 haplology, head operations, and a synthesis of realizational and
 word-syntax approaches to morphology.