Humans weave phonological patterns instinctively. We form phonological patterns at birth,
we spontaneously generate them de novo, and we impose phonological design on both our …

INFORMATION TO USERS Page 1 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been
reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy …

A number of phonological laws require adjacent elements to stand a certain distance apart
from each other on some prominence scale. For example, according to the Syllable Contact …

Markedness distinctions can be ignored. For example, in some languages stress avoids
central vowels, and falls on high peripheral vowels, yet in the Uralic language Nganasan …

A current controversy in phonological theory concerns the explanation of crosslinguistic
tendencies. It is often assumed that crosslinguistic tendencies are explained by mental bias …

In this dissertation I propose a rank-ordering model of EVAL. This model differs from classic
OT as follows: In classic OT, EVAL distinguishes the best candidate from the losers, but does …

Optimality Theory explains typological markedness implications by proposing that all
speakers possess universal constraints penalising marked structures, irrespective of the …

This dissertation concerns the role of similarity in phonology, specifically with respect to two
processes: onset simplification in reduplication, and onset simplification in loanword …

Phonologically conditioned allomorphy is sometimes determined by universal marking
conditions derived from low-ranked constraints, which is viewed as an effect of the …

In this article, I make two theoretical claims.(i) For some form to be grammatical in language
L, it is not necessary that the form satisfy all constraints that are active in L; that is, even …