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Change, Chance, and Optimality
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Change, Chance, and Optimality Hardcover - 2000

by April M. McMahon


From the publisher

This book is about how languages change. It is also a devastating critique of a widespread linguistic orthodoxy. April McMahon argues that to provide a convincing explanation of linguistic change the roles of history and contingency must be accommodated in linguistic theory. She also shows that theoretical work in related disciplines can be used to assess the value of such theories. Optimality Theory, or OT as it is usually called, dominates contemporary phonology, especially in the USA, and is becoming increasingly influential in syntax and language acquisition. Having set out its basis principles, Professor McMahon assesses their explanatory power in analysing language change and its residues in current phonological systems. Using cross-linguistic data, and drawing comparisons with other theories inside and outside linguistics, she shows that OT is incapable of accounting for language change, without the addition of rules and an appreciation of chance and historical contingency that would then undermine its theoretical underpinnings.

Details

  • Title Change, Chance, and Optimality
  • Author April M. McMahon
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 216
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher OUP Oxford, Oxford
  • Date 2000-11-16
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780198241249 / 0198241240
  • Weight 1.05 lbs (0.48 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.21 x 6.14 x 0.5 in (23.39 x 15.60 x 1.27 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Evolution, Optimality theory (Linguistics)
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001274515
  • Dewey Decimal Code 417

About the author


Dr April McMahon has been Lecturer in Historical Linguistics and Phonology at the University of Cambridge since 1988. From March 2000 she will be Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Understanding Language Change (CUP, 1994) and Lexical Phonology and the History of English (CUP, forthcoming 2000), and has published articles and reviews in many journals. She has long-standing research interests in the relationship of phonological theory and sound change, and in interdisciplinary issues including connections between evolutionary theory, genetics and historical linguistics.
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Change, Chance, and Optimality

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Change, Chance, and Optimality
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Change, Chance, and Optimality

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Change, Chance, and Optimality
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Change, Chance, and Optimality

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