A note on phonological similarity in Tesar's (2014) theory of output-drivenness. (13th March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Magri, Giorgio
• Is Part Of: Journal of logic and computation. Volume 28:Number 6(2018)
• Page Start: 1243
• Page End: 1274
• Publication Date: 2018-03-13
• Subjects: Logic programming -- Periodicals; Logic, Symbolic and mathematical -- Periodicals; Computational complexity -- Periodicals; 005.115
• DOI: 10.1093/logcom/exy002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0955-792X

Abstract

Abstract: Tesar's ( Output-Driven Phonology: Theory and Learning, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 2014) notion of output-drivenness is an attempt at characterizing non-opaque phonological mappings in terms of a notion of phonological similarity between underlying and surface levels. Tesar defines phonological similarity concretely in terms of segment strings and correspondence relations. Magri (2017, Journal of Logic, Language, and Information ) instead defines similarity axiomatically through an inequality on faithfulness constraint violations. This paper studies the formal properties of the latter axiomatic notion of similarity. In particular, it shows that Tesar's concrete definition of similarity satisfies Magri's axiomatization in terms of faithfulness constraints. The theory of output-drivenness reconstructed in Magri (2017, J ournal of Logic, Language, and Information ) thus subsumes Tesar's ( Output-Driven Phonology: Theory and Learning, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 2014) original theory as a special case.