Summing constraints in and across properties

Abstract

Work in Optimality Theory on the constraint set, Con, has often raised the question of whether certain types of constraints have multiple specific versions or are single general constraints that effectively sum the violations of specific variants. Comparing and evaluating analyses that differ in this way requires knowing the effect of this kind of summing on the full typology, which itself depends on the relationship of summands in the full system. Such relationships can be difficult to ascertain from inspecting violation profiles alone. This paper uses Property Theory to analyse the systematic effects of summing constraints in two distinct kinds of relationships: (i) across distinct properties, and (ii) within a constraint class in a single property. The results show how these two types collapse the typology in different, yet predictable, ways. Property Analysis provides a key to identifying constraint relationships and so to delineating the effect of summing.