OT

[nigel.vincent at man.ac.uk]

In a recent posting, Dan Everett writes:

>In one 'monostratal' theory, OT, ...

I think a wording like this is misleading, and since it's the second time
in a week that I've heard/read something similar (the other was at an OT
workshop here in Manchester), I thought I'd say why such wordings worry me,
in order to find out how people react.

Dan's remark is in the context of discussing the merits of mono-stratal vs
multi-stratal theories, and I take it that members of the set under
discussion, ie theories of linguistic structure, would include LFG, P&P,
HPSG, RG, RRG, etc. It does not seem to me that OT is a member of this set.
It is rather a way of interpreting any member of this set. Thus there could
be, and are, OT approaches to at least LFG and P&P. I know that within the
P&P/Minimalism community there is an active debate about the merits of OT
with powerful figures lined up on either side. There has perhaps been less
active debate in the LFG forum, but I'm sure some LFG-ers are more
sceptical than others. I don't know about the situations in the other
communities, but it seems to me perfectly reasonable to think of an
OT-inspired approach to RG and RRG, to name the two I know most about.
Rumour has it that HPSG-ers don't like OT (at least that's the rumour I've
heard) but again from what little I know of the system I can't see that it
couldn't be OT-ised if people thought it was appropriate.

One obvious piece of empirical evience in favour of the view I'm espousing
is the existence of Joan's reply to Grimshaw (1995/1997). What Joan and
Jane don't disagree about is the rightness of an OT-approach; the
difference lies in the theory they choose to apply their metatheoretical
vision to. A second point would be that the OT syntactic analyses proposed
by Grimshaw, Speas, Pesetsky, etc from within a P&P/Minimalist perspective
are not 'monostratal' - at least not in the sense that I understand that
term.

If this view of OT in syntax is right, it would seem to contrast sharply
with the status of OT in phonology, where there seems to be very little
else on offer, (though I guess some of the declarative phonologists would
beg to differ!). Maybe this means phonology really is different, but even
then one could wonder whether this was an inherent difference in the nature
of phonology or a difference in the current status of OT-inspired work
within the field of phonology.

Nigel

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