OT and functional explanation

[david_tuggy at SIL.ORG]

Fritz Newmeyer asks,

****
Is 'convention' admissible as a category of functional motivation? (That
would raise a host of problems, no?)
****

I for one think it has to be, or else we can not begin to think of
functionalist linguistics as covering anywhere near all of language. (It
also seems prima facie obvious that doing things the same way you have done
them before/heard others doing them is functionally advantageous!)

--David Tuggy