| ROA: | 424 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Linking, Optionality, and Ambiguity in Marathi |
| Authors: | Ash Asudeh |
| Comment: | File removed. Published as: Asudeh, Ash (2001). Linking, optionality, and ambiguity in Marathi. In Peter Sells (ed.), Formal and empirical issues in optimality-theoretic syntax. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. |
| Length: | 42 |
| Abstract: | Optimality Theory (OT) has problems with ineffability, optionality, and ambiguity, because OT grammars typically pick exactly one winner for any input. This paper take steps to accommodate ambiguity and optionality in Optimality Theory syntax. I briefly present the basic architecture of standard Optimality Theory and how it relates to ineffability, ambiguity, and optionality, and I argue that optionality and ambiguity in OT are formally the same, the first operating in production and the second in comprehension. After discussing four possible ways of capturing optionality and ambiguity in OT, I argue that Boersma\'s stochastic OT model provides the most satisfactory way of dealing with these two phenomena in OT. Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) provides a formalization of the inputs, GEN, and the candidates for OT syntax. My analysis is thus formalized with a stochastic OT-LFG model. Using this model with Dowty\'s theory of proto-roles, I give an analysis of optionality in linking arguments to grammatical functions in Marathi. In doing so, I will illustrate four main points. The first is that linking can be achieved with a small set of cross-linguisically plausible, violable constraints. Second, optionality can be captured in OT syntax by modifying the architecture of the theory only slightly. Third, in comprehension-directed optimization, the same OT constraints that are used to capture the linking optionality in production can also capture the resulting ambiguity in the Marathi strings that correspond to the winning candidates in production. Fourth, this OT approach to linking has interesting implications for proto-role theory. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | This article has been withdrawn. |