| ROA: | 421 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Faithfulness and Componentiality in Metrics |
| Authors: | Bruce Hayes |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 40 |
| Abstract: | Faithfulness and Componentiality in Metrics Bruce Hayes UCLA The core ideas of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993) have been shown in earlier work (Hayes and MacEachern 1998) to be applicable to the study of poetic meter: metrical data are appropriately analyzed with ranked, conflicting constraints. However, application of OT to metrics still raises problems. First, while OT grammars derive outputs from inputs, metrics is non-derivational, the goal being simply to characterize a set of well-formed structures. Second, because constraints in OT are violable and conflict, there can be well-formed outputs that violate high-ranking constraints. Thus, it is not clear when constraint violations imply unmetricality. Third, there is no criterion for linking constraint violations to metrical complexity. Lastly, candidate competitions in OT always yield winners. This implies--falsely--that unmetrical forms should always suggest their own repairs, in the form of the winning candidate. A solution to these problems is proposed along the following lines. The well-formed structures are those that can be derived from a rich base that includes all possible surface forms (Prince and Smolensky 1993, Smolensky 1996, Keer and Bakovic 1997). Unmetricality results not from constraint violations per se, but from violations of markedness constraints that outrank competing Faithfulness constraints. Complexity works similarly, under a gradient conception of constraint ranking adopted from Hayes (in press) and Boersma and Hayes (in press). Lastly, unmetrical lines do not suggest a repaired alternative because their derivations \"crash.\" Crashing results from componentiality, and occurs when different components of the metrical grammar (Kiparsky 1977) disagree on which candidate should win. Data are taken from studies of English folk verse by Hayes and Kaun (1996) and Hayes and MacEachern (1998). |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |