The earliest use of the term "grammaticalization" was to refer to the process whereby lexical words of a language (such as English keep in "he keeps bees") become grammatical forms (such as the auxiliary in "he keeps looking at me"). Changes of this kind, which involve semantic …
The central idea of Optimality Theory is that surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints. For linguists with a basic knowledge of derivational Generative Phonology, the book includes exercises.
This is an introduction to Optimality Theory, whose central idea is that surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints. Exercises accompany chapters 1-7, and there are sections on further reading. Optimality Theory will be welcomed by a…
