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Local optionality with partial orders*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2016

Aaron Kaplan
Aaron Kaplan*
Affiliation:
University of Utah
*
E-mail: a.kaplan@utah.edu.
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Abstract

In local optionality, an optional process may apply at some loci in a form but not at others. Some theories of optionality, such as Partial Orders Theory, produce optionality by making multiple strict constraint rankings available, and have been claimed to be incompatible with local optionality: if the process-triggering constraint outranks faithfulness, the process applies exhaustively; under the opposite ranking, it applies nowhere. On this view, candidates in which the process applies at some loci but not others are harmonically bounded. This paper argues against that position by showing that for a variety of locally optional processes each locus can be independently manipulated if the theory makes use of constraints that target particular prosodic or morphosyntactic units – constraints that are motivated independently of their utility in local optionality. The result is that, contrary to the harmonic-bounding argument, Partial Orders Theory can provide plausible accounts of local optionality.

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Articles
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Phonology , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , August 2016 , pp. 285 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the following people for their insightful comments and questions throughout the development of this paper: Aniko Csirmaz, Rachel Hayes-Harb, Abby Kaplan, Jonah Katz, Wendell Kimper, Armin Mester, Ed Rubin and Jennifer Smith, as well as audiences at the University of Utah and the 2012 UNC Spring Colloquium.

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