Parsing syllables: modeling OT computationally

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel Prolog-based parser implementation of Optimality Theory for syllabification, demonstrating its feasibility and proposing reforms for certain OT constraints based on phonological properties.

Contribution

It introduces a finite-state, constraint-by-constraint OT syllabification parser, showing how to handle candidate sets efficiently and reformulating key OT constraints.

Findings

Parser successfully implements syllabification in OT.

Constraints are encoded as finite-state transducers.

Reformulations of OT constraints like *COMPLEX and NOCODA are proposed.

Abstract

In this paper, I propose to implement syllabification in OT as a parser. I propose several innovations that result in a finite and small candidate set. The candidate set problem is handled with several moves: i) MAX and DEP violations are not hypothesized by the parser, ii) candidates are encoded locally, and iii) EVAL is applied constraint by constraint. The parser I propose is implemented in Prolog. It has a number of desirable consequences. First, it runs and thus provides an existence proof that syllabification can be implemented in OT. There are a number of other desirable consequences as well. First, constraints are implemented as finite-state transducers. Second, the parser makes several interesting claims about the phonological properties of so-called nonrecoverable insertions and deletions. Third, the implementation suggests some particular reformulations of some of the benchmark constraints in the OT arsenal, e.g. *COMPLEX, PARSE, ONSET, and NOCODA.