A Tentative Analysis of Optimality Theory

高海玲 李延林

Abstract: This thesis is a tentative analysis of Optimality Theory, whose central idea is that the surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints. A surface form is optimal if it incurs the least serious violation of a set of constraints, taking into account their hierarchical ranking. Languages differ in the ranking of constraints, and any violations must be minimal. This article includes these parts: its origin; the theoretical framework and its core principles.

Key words: Optimality Theory; theoretical framework; core principles

中图分类号：TU7 文献标识码： A

1. Introduction

Origin of OT

Optimality Theory (hereinafter referred as OT) first gained wide exposure from a course taught by Prince and Smolensky at the 1991 Summer Institute of the Linguist Society of America. The earliest and still the most detailed exposition of the theory is their manuscript in 1993, an excerpt form which is here published for the first time. There has been much interest in this emerging theory. It has been the subject of a large and growing professional literature, many courses and conference papers, and several textbooks. Although it was originally applied to phonology, but the relevance of Optimality Theory in phonetics, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and semantics has become apparently.

OT is the inheritance and development of generative grammar theory, pursuing the formalized method to establish a universal explanation theory of grammar. Specifically, optimality theory is to absorb the natural generative phonology, “response to the surface forms of voice control” and “rules of the sound system should be a nonlinear process”. It also absorbs the thought of “harmony theory” about “The universal restriction conditions can be illegal”.

The above ideas and the advocate of natural generative phonology (Vennemann, 1972; Hooper, 1976) are mainly on the basis of the standards and criticism of generative phonology for Chomsky & Halle.

基金项目：湖南省社科基金外语科研联合项目：言外之意翻译的关联理论视[12WLH48]；湖南省教改项目：跨文化交际能力培养与大学英语教学[2005(280)]；中南大学研究生培养办项目：文化翻译学学科建设的理论与实践[71333000408]

高海玲（1988-），女，湖南益阳市安化县人，中南大学在读硕士研究生，研究方向：MTI翻译实践，翻译教学；

李延林（1960—），湖南益阳资阳区人，中南大学教授、硕士生导师、创新教育专家，荣誉博士，中国译协专家会员。研究方向：翻译理论，MTI口笔译及其教学。

1.2 Theoretical Framework of OT

The OT assumes that the human brain contains two kinds of language mechanism functions. One is generative function, which gives a lot of outputs candidates. And the other is a filter function, choosing from many candidates for the best output form. Next, I will briefly introduce the each part of mechanisms.

The input form: It can be a sound or more. And any form is possible to be the input form.

The generative function: It is the production machine of OT, which contains the distinguishing features and rhyme categories, with formalization rules of universal principles. In addition to produce the candidates, it gives each candidate the relationship between this option and the input form. Whether they have relationships or not dont matter.

The output candidates: The output candidates are the products of generative function. The output forms are more than input forms, that is to say, an input form is corresponding multiple output form. Theoretically speaking, the output candidate is infinite, because the OT doesnt set any limitations for generative function.

The filter function: It is the filter of OT, which is the core part of the basic framework of OT. And screening criteria is a set of different sorting restricted conditions.

The restrictive conditions: the restrictive conditions reflect the language has the common features. And it is divided into two classes. One is fidelity restriction condition whose role is to ensure consistency between the input form and output form. The other is structural restriction condition whose role is to ensure that the structure of language is conciseness. And it bans the emergence of complex structures, so it also calls complexity constraint condition.

The priority level of constraints: it is to reflect the personality and language types. OT assumes that the grammar system of each language is priority level of restrictive conditions. All language constraints are common, but the condition of the same priorities in different languages is different. Therefore, the different languages in the same constraints are different orders. The different ranking reflects the difference between different languages, and it also reflects the different types of language.

The output: It is the best screening results, which is the actual language words or the language form. The optimal output form is not perfect, but it is better than the other candidates.

Core Principles of OT

The OT puts forward the legal concept is the best.

Legitimacy is relative and the legal relativity is rooted in the conflict between constraints that are included in the grammatical system. An output form is legal only in comparison and competition with other show output.

Individuality and commonness: language has the individuality and commonness, which is no controversy. The controversy is how the individuality and commonness of language perform. According to the OT, all languages contain the same constraints, which is the commonness of language. And different languages of the same restricted conditions order different, which is the individuality of the language.

Simplicity and complexity: the frequency of the complex language structure is lower than the appearance of the language structure, and its distribution is often limited. First, the complexity of language structure can be defined from different angles. Second, determining a linguistic form is complex or simple, which can not be isolated and should get its surrounding voice environment together. Third, the complexity of language structure not only reflects in the segmental level, but also in the prosodic hierarchy.

The type of language: the basic method of the research type of the OT is deductive reason. Assume a set of constraints, according to the different order constraints predict different language types, and then use the actual language to test this prediction. How many constraints are there, and how many language types are there?

2. Criticisms of the OT Concept

Optimality theory has attracted substantial amounts of criticism, most of which is directed at its application to phonology (rather than syntax or other fields).It is claimed that optimality theory cannot account for phonological opacity (see Idsardi 2000, e.g.). In derivational phonology effects may be seen that are inexplicable at the surface level but which are explainable through "opaque" rule ordering; but in optimality theory, which has no intermediate levels for rules to operate on, these effects are difficult to explain. Another objection to optimality theory is the claim that it is not technically a theory, in that it does not make falsifiable predictions. The source of this issue is terminology: the term "theory" is used differently here than in physics, chemistry, and other sciences. Specific instantiations of optimality theory may make falsifiable predictions, in the same way that specific proposals within other linguistic frameworks can. What predictions are made, and whether they are testable, depends on the specifics of individual proposals (most commonly, this is a matter of the definitions of the constraints used in an analysis). Thus, optimality theory as a framework is best described as a scientific paradigm.

3. Conclusion

Although the OT is produced in the rhythm phonology, and mainly developed in the field of phonology, but the significance of the theory is by no means confined to phonologies analysis, which is to the nature of language and the syntactic and semantic level. Traditional generative linguistics think language is constituted by a set of rules and principles. However, according to OT, language is expressed on the surface of constraints which is composed of a group. From the phonological level perspectives, language is constituted by a set of constraints. Then the syntactic and semantic level, the language is constituted by the constraints, because the language is homogeneous rather than heterogeneous. That is to say, the OT can be applied on all levels of language structure. However, syntactic and semantic level is different from the phonological level in the properties after all. Anyway, the generative linguists have felt a strong challenge on the OT outbalanced the traditional theory. However, to make all generative linguists accept the hypothesis and that the language is consisted of a set of constraints still has quite a long way to go.

References

[1] Chomsky, N. & M. Halle. The Sound Pattern of English [M]. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

[2] Vennemann, T. Phonological uniqueness in natural generative grammar [J].Glossa, 1972, (6).

[3]Idsardi, William J. (2000). Clarifying opacity. The Linguistic Review 17:377-50

[4]蒋丽平，李延林.优选论在科技翻译中的应用[J]. 科技与企业（学术综合），2007（10）.