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ROA:130
Title:The Optimality Interpreter (C program), and A User's Guide to the Optimality Interpreter
Authors:William Raymond, Apollo Hogan
Comment:19 pp + program files (1993)
Length:19
Abstract: -The Optimality Interpreter (C-program)

-A User's Guide to the Optimality Interpreter:

a Software Tool for Optimality Theoretic Analysis



ROA-130 19pp.



William Raymond & Apollo Hogan

University of Colorado at Boulder

hogan@ucsu.colorado.edu



Verifying OT analyses and typologies often requires considerable

calculation, and so lends itself to facilitation through software

that can aid in the design and evaluation of optimality theoretic

grammars. Such a software application, the Optimality

Interpreter, is described in this document. The Interpreter

allows for the specification of constraints and competing

candidates, as well as valuation of the well-formedness of

candidates vis-a-vis the constraints. Constraint rankings can be

used to determine the most harmonic candidates, or the

Interpreter can determine the existence of a constraint ordering

that will force a specified candidate to win. In addition, the

interaction of candidate sets can be explored, with implications

for the explanation or definition of language typologies. This

document describes the functionality of the Optimality

Interpreter, provides a detailed tutorial of its application to a

problem in syntax from the literature, and discusses the

algorithms and data structures underlying the application's

implementation. A user's manual is included as an appendix.

The file optiprog.zip contains all the various components needed

for the program, which is written in c. Unzip the file; it will

create a directory called Optim, in which the program files reside.

Read the README file therein and proceed accordingly (i.e. issue

the command 'make' in that directory and your c-compiler ought

to do the rest).

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Type:Paper/tech report
Area/Keywords:
Article:Version 1