Determinism/non-determinism

Ellen F. Prince ellen at CENTRAL.CIS.UPENN.EDU
Tue Feb 13 19:47:00 UTC 1996


>If we look at OT in terms of the 'path' (to use Ellen Prince's term,
>i.e., in terms of possible steps at a choice point) then OT does
>not commit to any particular *way* of computing things.  Constraints
>could be evaluated always in the same order, or in a random order, or
in parallel, or whatever.  It sounds like Guy was refering to the
>'answer' interpretation, however.

but that's exactly what i meant. ('path' was a bad choice -- i was thinking of
other domains. sorry.) my understanding is that, given a set of constraints and
an ordering/weighting, there's only one possible outcome for a particular case
in ot. and that's how i understand 'deterministic' and that's what i would
guess guy had in mind. (i guess we could ask him! :) )

DIFFERENT TOPIC: am i the only one who finds it weird that we don't see our own
posts??? it's very thoughtful -- but i find it a little unsettling that the
only way we know our words of wisdom have gone out is when we see a response.
(it's no big deal, of course.)



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