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On targeted constraints and cluster simplification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2003

John J. McCarthy
John J. McCarthy
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Abstract

In his article ‘Consonant cluster neutralisation and targeted constraints’, Wilson (2001) proposes a far-reaching revision of Optimality Theory to accommodate targeted constraints, which compare candidates differing only in certain specific ways. Targeted constraints, it is argued, can explain why cluster-simplification processes affect the first member of a cluster but never the more marked member of a cluster. In this remark, I show that this argument encounters difficulties once it has been embedded in a fuller picture of constraint interaction. Some general properties of the targeted-constraints model are also discussed.

Type
Squibs and replies
Information
Phonology , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , August 2002 , pp. 273 - 292
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Paul de Lacy, Maria Gouskova, John Kingston, Steve Parker, Joe Pater, Alan Prince, Ellen Woolford and the participants in Linguistics 751 (UMass Amherst, Spring 2002) for discussion of this material. I am especially grateful to Colin Wilson for his thoughtful and open responses to several long e-mails. An associate editor and three anonymous reviewers have also offered helpful suggestions. I alone am responsible for everything here.