| Abstract: | The paper examines the general properties of StOT grammars viewed as parametric statistical models and shows how the knowledge of these properties facilitates all StOT-related computations. On the basis of these results, the paper addresses the problem of typological predictions of StOT grammars and shows that they can but need not be determined by the specific properties of the StOT mechanism of constraint interaction, depending on the configuration of constraint sets. Finally, the paper establishes a minimal condition that must be satisfied by a constraint set for its typological predictions to be StOT-specific and the corresponding criterion of linguistic plausibility of the StOT mechanism of constraint interaction. |
