Available for the first time in book form, Prince and Smolensky's Optimality Theory is the seminal work in the field. In it, the theory's fundamental ideas are developed in detail and their explanatory power demonstrated across a wide array of phonological domains.

Prefactory Note. Acknowledgments. 1. Preliminaries:. Background and Overview. Optimality. Overall Structure of the Argument. Overview of Part I. 2. Optimality in Grammar: Core Syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber:. The Heart of Dell & Elmedlaoui. Optimality Theory. Summary of discussion to date. 3. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies IBlocking and Triggering: Profuseness and Economy:. Epenthetic Structure. Do Something Only When: The Failure of Bottom-up Constructionism. 4. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies IIDo Something Except When: Blocking, or The Theory of Profuseness:. Edge-Oriented Infixation. Interaction of Weight Effects with Extrametricality. Background: Prominence-Driven Stress Systems. The Interaction of Weight and Extrametricality: Kelkar’s Hindi/Urdu. Nonfinality and Nonexhaustiveness. Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Raw Minimality. Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form:Extended Minimality Effects. Summary of Discussion of the Except When Effect. Except meets Only: Triggering and Blocking in a Single Grammar. 5. The Construction of Grammar in Optimality Theory:. Construction of Harmonic Orderings from Phonetic and Structural Scales. The Theory of Constraint Interaction. Comparison of Entire Candidates by a Single Constraint. Ons: Binary constraints. Hnuc: Non-binary constraints. Comparison of Entire Candidates by an Entire Constraint Hierarchy. Discussion. Non-locality of interaction. Strictness of domination. Serial vs. Parallel Harmony Evaluation and Gen. Binary vs. Non-binary constraints. Pâòini’s Theorem on Constraint Ranking. Overview of Part II. 6. Syllable Structure Typology I: the CV Theory:. The Jakobson Typology. The Faithfulness Interactions. Groundwork. Basic CV Syllable Theory. Onsets. Codas. The Theory of Epenthesis Sites. 7. Constraint Interaction in Lardil Phonology:. The Constraints. The Ranking. Some Ranking Logic. Ranking the Constraints. Verification of Forms. Consonant-Final Stems. Vowel Final Stems. Discussion. 8. Universal Syllable Theory II: Ordinal Construction of C/V and Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetry:. Associational Harmony. Deconstructing Hnuc: Berber, Take 1. Restricting to Binary Marks. Reconstructing the C and V Classes: Emergent Parameter Setting via Constraint Ranking. Harmonic Completeness of Possible Onsets and Peaks. Peak- and Margin-Affinity. Interactions with Parse. Restricting Deletion and Epenthesis. Further Necessary Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei. Sufficient Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei. The Typology of Onset, Nucleus, and Coda Inventories. The Typology of Onset and Nucleus Inventories. Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetries. An Example: Berber, Take 2. Simplifying the Theory by Encapsulating Constraint Packages. Encapsulating the Association Hierarchies. An Example: Berber, Take 3. Sufficiency and Richness of the Encapsulated Theory. 9. Inventory Theory and the Lexicon:. Language-Particular Inventories. Harmonic Bounding and Nucleus, Syllable, and Word Inventories. Segmental Inventories. Universal Inventories. Segmental Inventories. Syllabic Inventories. Optimality in the Lexicon. 10. Foundational Issues and Theory-Comparisons:. Thinking about Optimality. Fear of Optimization. The Reassurance. The Connectionism Connection, and other Computation-based Comparisons. Why Optimality Theory has nothing to do with connectionism. Why Optimality Theory is deeply connected to connectionism. Harmony Maximization and Symbolic Cognition. Analysis of ‘Phonotactics+Repair’ Theories. CV Syllable Structure and Repair. General Structure of the Comparisons: Repair Analysis. Persistent Rule Theory. English Closed Syllable Shortening. Shona Tone Spreading. Summary. The Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies. Appendix. A.1 The Cancellation and Cancellation/Domination Lemmas. A.2 CV Syllable Structure. A.3 Pâòini's Theorem on Constraint-ranking. References. Index of Constraints. Index of Languages. General Index

Available for the first time in book form, Prince and Smolensky's Optimality Theory is the seminal work in the field. This influential work: • Defines grammatical well-formedness as optimality with respect to a ranked set of universal constraints • Presents the theory both through examples and formally, emphasizing its core commitments: strict domination, the Markedness/Faithfulness distinction, strong universality of the constraint set, interlinguistic variation as variation in ranking • Illuminates generalization patterns shared across empirically diverse phenomena ranging from epenthesis to infixation to complex dependencies among prominence, syllabification, stress and word-form • Derives universals of basic syllable structure and constructs a prosodic theory based on multipolar scales, laying the groundwork for a domain-general approach to gradient interactions • Shows how to obtain universal and language-particular inventories, identifies the role of optimality in structuring the lexicon, and deals with key foundational issues. For the newcomer, this pivotal work serves as an excellent introduction to the principles and practice of Optimality Theory. For the professional audience, it will suggest many directions for further exploration and development.

“This is a very important book. Optimality Theory has transformed the field of linguistics more than almost any other development of the past half-century, and Prince and Smolensky started it all.” John J. McCarthy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst "OT does not need to permanently influence linguistic theory: it has already done so. Between 1993 and 2004, Prince and Smolensky’s Optimality Theory was by far the most widely circulated manuscript among phonologists. Fortunately, it is now available for a larger audience in this text edition." René Kager, Utrecht University

1. Preliminaries. 2. Optimality in Grammar: Core Syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber. 3. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies IBlocking and Triggering: Profuseness and Economy. 4. Generalization-Forms in Domination Hierarchies IIDo Something Except When: Blocking, or The Theory of Profuseness. 5. The Construction of Grammar in Optimality Theory. 6. Syllable Structure Typology I: the CV Theory. 7. Constraint Interaction in Lardil Phonology. 8. Universal Syllable Theory II: Ordinal Construction of C/V and Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetry. 9. Inventory Theory and the Lexicon. 10. Foundational Issues and Theory-Comparisons. Appendix. A.1 The Cancellation and Cancellation/Domination Lemmas. A.2 CV Syllable Structure. A.3 Pâòini's Theorem on Constraint-ranking. References. Index