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Title: Static Harmonic Grammar: Constraint Conflict without Candidate Comparison
In Harmonic Grammar and Optimality Theory, well-formed representations are those that optimally satisfy a set of violable constraints, as determined by candidate comparison under a given weighting or ranking. This paper develops variants of HG/OT in which conflict among violable constraints plays out locally, within each part of a representation, rather than through optimization over alternatives. Static HG/OT has a simple formal definition that has important precedents in classic and modern neural networks and that restricts the logic expressivity of constraint-interaction grammars. The static approach to constraint conflict is illustrated for local segmental phonology (the distribution of vowel height in Cochabamba Quechua) and unbounded feature spreading (nasal harmony as in Johore Malay). A Python implementation of the theory and several demonstrations are available at https://github.com/colincwilson/statgram.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1941593
PAR ID:
10317320
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Editor(s):
Soo, Rachel; Chow, Una Y.; Nederveen, Sander
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the 38th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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