Introduction: Optimality Theory: Phonology, Syntax, and Acquisition

Abstract The introduction of Optimality Theory (OT) by Prince and Smolensky (1993) can be considered the single most important development in generative grammar in the 1990s. It has profoundly changed (morpho-)phonological inquiry, and it has given an important impulse to the study of language learning. Although its impact on (morpho- )syntax is not as overwhelming as on phonology, the success of OT is remarkable. Perhaps the key to its success is its applicability in all areas of grammar, offering a new perspective on a wide range of problems in linguistics. The major shift OT brought about in phonology is that from a rule-based to an output-based model—a move that was also foreshadowed in several other publications (see Prince and Smolensky 1993: 1). In Chomsky and Halle’s (1968) influential Sound Pattern of English it was assumed that phonology consisted of sequentially ordered rules. In the decades that followed there was increasing attention for so-called phonological conspiracies—i.e. the phenomenon that several phonological rules together aim at the same representational goal. In an output-based approach, such as OT phonology, constraints on surface forms can express these conspiracies.