~ ROA Version, 8/2002. Essentially identical to the Tech Report, with new pagination (but the same footnote and example numbering); correction of typos, oversights & outright errors; improved typography; and occasional small-scale clarificatory rewordings. Citation should include reference to this version.

The paper proposes a theory relating syntax, semantics, and intonational prosody, and covering a wide range of English intonational tunes and their semantic interpretation in terms of focus and information structure. The theory is based on a version of combinatory categorial grammar which directly pairs phonological and logical forms without intermediary representational levels.

Overt or covert reference to the edges of constituents is a commonplace throughout phonology and morphology. Some examples include: •In English, Garawa, Indonesian and a number of other languages, the normal right-to-left

Abstract not found

This paper discusses a perceptron model of the learning and assignment of linguistic stress, using data from nineteen human languages. First, we point out some interesting parallels between aspects of the model and the constructs and predictions of metrical phonology, the linguistic theory of stress. Second, we develop a novel analysis of linguistic stress in terms of ease of perceptron-learnability. These two sets of results suggest that simple statistical learning techniques have the potential to complement, and provide computational validation for, abstract theoretical investigations of language. We then examine why such methodologies should be of interest for linguistic theorizing. Our analysis began at a high level by observing inherent characteristics of various stress systems, much as theoretical linguistics does. However, our explanations changed substantially whenwe included a detailed account of the model's processing mechanisms. Our higher-level, theoretical accou...

This paper presents an Optimality-theoretic (Prince and Smolensky 1993) analysis of quantity-insensitive stress. A set of grid-based constraints is shown by means of a computer-generated factorial typology to provide a relatively tight fit to the full range of stress systems attested in an extensive survey of quantity-insensitive stress patterns, many of which have not been previously discussed in the theoretical literature.

Abstract not found

This article, which emerges from my collaboration with Alan Prince on Prosodic Morphology, will explore the consequences of the Prosodic Morphology Hypothesis for a fairly complete account of the central regularities of canonical form in two Semitic root-and-pattern morphological systems, those of Arabic and Akkadian. We will see that the core of the Arabic nominal system is templatic in character, with templates that conform to (3). But two more specialized nominal constructions depart from (3) and are provably non-templatic. They are analyzed instead in terms of two other notions from Prosodic Morphology theory, prosodic circumscription and a-templatic prosodic morphology. The Arabic and Akkadian verb system is even more radically non-templatic; just a single template underlies all verb forms, and other morphological regularities are derived by rules of affixation, sometimes via prosodic circumscription.

To what extent can Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004) provide theoretical phonology a satisfactory formalization of markedness theory? This is a central question for linking OT and actual empirical patterns: � of Figure 6 in Chapter 2’s Integrated Connectionist/Symbolic Cognitive Architecture (ICS) map. Through several case studies, it is argued here that OT makes possible formal markedness-based explanations of both broad universal generalizations and complex language-particular patterns—provided the theory incorporates conjunctive constraint interaction. The nonderivational character of OT drives the development of a nonstandard type of constituent in phonological representations: the headed feature domain. The empirical realms investigated are

late 1950's. It's basic premises are that phonological structure reflects the linguistic competence of the individual native speaker to compute a phonetic representation for the potentially infinite number of sentences generated by the syntactic component of the grammar and that this competence can be investigated in a serious scientific fashion. The generative point of view has become dominant in the field of linguistics and has had varying degrees of influence on other cognitive sciences. This entry surveys the development of the generative approach over three fifteen-year segments and concludes with current research trajectories. 1. SPE: 1960- 1975 The early work of Chomsky and Halle both embraces and rejects various aspects of the two major schools of American Structural Linguistics inaugurated by Edward Sapir 1 (1884-1942) and Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949). Sapir's "Item and Process " model posits an abstract Phonological Representation that is converted to a Phonetic Representation by processes that delete, add, and change sounds. Sapir stressed the