The Yokuts Challenge
Diana B. Archangeli, Keiichiro Suzuki · 1997
Abstract A challenge to Optimality Theory (henceforth, OT) (Prince and Smolensky 1993, McCarthy and Prince 1993a) comes from certain cases which have been characterized by the interaction of multiple rules. Such cases are problematic if they create a situation in which some linguistically significant generalizations are non-surface true, the property also known as phonological opacity (Kiparsky 1971; 1973). Under the serial-derivational model, such a situation is dealt with by the interaction of ordered rules. Since constraints in OT are stated in terms of output well-formedness, however, there is no means of referring to any intermediate stage of derivation.