Optimality Theory
Optimality Theory or
OT is a recent theory with applications in
phonology in particular and also in other subfields of
linguistics (e.g. syntax, where it has been combined both with mainstream
transformational syntax and with theories such as
Lexical Functional Grammar). OT states that utterances (
phonetic sounds, but also other speech units) are determined by the relative ranking of sets of (violable) constraints. The resulting speech is optimal in the sense that it obeys as many of the constraints as possible with respective to the constraints' relative weightings.
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