Optimality Theory and Prosodic Morphology

A central concern of Optimality Theory (OT) from its beginnings (McCarthy & Prince 1993a, Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004) has been to provide a coherent framework for formalizing solutions to the traditional problems posed by prosodic morphological constructions for the concatenative principles assumed by most morphological theories. This chapter surveys analyses of constructions such as reduplication, root-and-pattern morphology, truncation, and infixation in both ‘classic’ OT and alternative OT approaches. The aim of the chapter is to show how OT has brought a fresh perspective to the analysis of prosodic morphology constructions by providing a formalism that allows prosodic constraints to interact with morphological concatenative principles in a well-defined way. The chapter concludes with discussion of open issues in the OT approach to prosodic morphology.