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Recent work in theoretical syntax has revealed the strong explanatory power of the notions of economy, competition, and optimization. Building grammars entirely upon these elements, Optimality Theory syntax provides a theory of universal grammar with a formally precise and strongly restricted theory of universal typology: cross-linguistic variation arises exclusively from the conflict among universal principles.Beginning with a general introduction to Optimality Theory syntax, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art, as represented by the work of the leading developers of the theory. The broad range of topics treated includes morphosyntax (case, inflection, voice, and cliticization), the syntax of reference (control, anaphora, and pronominalization), the gammar of clauses (complementizers and their absence), and grammatical and discourse effects in word order. Among the theoretical themes running throughout are the interplay between faithfulness and markedness, and various questions of typology and of inventory.ContributorsPeter Ackema, Judith Aissen, Eric Bakovic, Joan Bresnan, Hye-Won Choi, João Costa, Jane Grimshaw, Edward Keer, Géraldine Legendre, Gereon Müller, Ad Neeleman, Vieri Samek-Lodovici, Peter Sells, Margaret Speas, Sten Vikner, Colin Wilson, Ellen Woolford

This is an introduction to Optimality Theory, whose central idea is that surface forms of language reflect resolutions of conflicts between competing constraints. The book does not limit its empirical scope to phonological phenomena, but also contains chapters on the learnability of OT grammars; OT's implications for syntax; and other issues such as opacity. Exercises accompany chapters 1-7, and there are sections on further reading. Optimality Theory will be welcomed by any linguist with a basic knowledge of derivational Generative Phonology.

Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. 1.43

Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader is a collection of readings on this important new theory by leading figures in the field, including a lengthy excerpt from Prince and Smolensky’s never-before-published Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Compiles the most important readings about Optimality Theory in phonology from some of the most prominent researchers in the field. Contains 33 excerpts spanning a range of topics in phonology and including many never-before-published papers. Includes a lengthy excerpt from Prince and Smolensky’s foundational 1993 manuscript Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Includes introductory notes and study/research questions for each chapter.

This volume provides the first general introduction to optimality theory -- arguably the linguistic theory of the 1990s. The book leads the reader to an understanding of optimality theory via the exploration and resolution of specific problems in phonology, morphology, and syntax, but presumes virtually no background knowledge in linguistics.

Doing Optimality Theory brings together examples and practical, detailed advice for undergraduates and graduate students working in linguistics. Given that the basic premises of Optimality Theory are markedly different from other linguistic theories, this book presents the analytic techniques and new ways of thinking and theorizing that are required. Explains how to do analysis and research using Optimality Theory (OT) - a branch of phonology that has revolutionized the field since its conception in 1993 Offers practical, in-depth advice for students and researchers in the field, presented in an engaging way Features numerous examples, questions, and exercises throughout, all helping to illustrate the theory and summarize the core concepts of OT Written by John J. McCarthy, one of the theory’s leading proponents and an instrumental figure in the dissemination and use of OT today An ideal guide through the intricacies of linguistic analysis and research for beginning researchers, and, by example, one which will lead the way to future developments in the field.

The need of optimal partition arises from many real-world problems involving the distribution of limited resources to many users. The "clustering" problem, which has recently received a lot of attention, is a special case of optimal partitioning. This book is the first attempt to collect all theoretical developments of optimal partitions, many of them derived by the authors, in an accessible place for easy reference. Much more than simply collecting the results, the book provides a general framework to unify these results and present them in an organized fashion.Many well-known practical problems of optimal partitions are dealt with. The authors show how they can be solved using the theory -- or why they cannot be. These problems include: allocation of components to maximize system reliability; experiment design to identify defectives; design of circuit card library and of blood analyzer lines; abstraction of finite state machines and assignment of cache items to pages; the division of property and partition bargaining as well as touching on those well-known research areas such as scheduling, inventory, nearest neighbor assignment, the traveling salesman problem, vehicle routing, and graph partitions. The authors elucidate why the last three problems cannot be solved in the context of the theory.

The need of optimal partition arises from many real-world problems involving the distribution of limited resources to many users. The "clustering" problem, which has recently received a lot of attention, is a special case of optimal partitioning. This book is the first attempt to collect all theoretical developments of optimal partitions, many of them derived by the authors, in an accessible place for easy reference. Much more than simply collecting the results, the book provides a general framework to unify these results and present them in an organized fashion.Many well-known practical problems of optimal partitions are dealt with. The authors show how they can be solved using the theory -- or why they cannot be. These problems include: allocation of components to maximize system reliability; experiment design to identify defectives; design of circuit card library and of blood analyzer lines; abstraction of finite state machines and assignment of cache items to pages; the division of property and partition bargaining as well as touching on those well-known research areas such as scheduling, inventory, nearest neighbor assignment, the traveling salesman problem, vehicle routing, and graph partitions. The authors elucidate why the last three problems cannot be solved in the context of the theory.

This book describes Optimality Theory from the top down, explaining and exploring the central premises of OT and the results that follow from them. Examples are drawn from phonology, morphology, and syntax, but the emphasis throughout is on the theory rather than the examples, on understanding what is special about OT and on equipping readers to apply it, extend it, and critique it in their own areas of interest. The book's coverage extends to work on first- and second-language acquisition, phonetics and functional phonology, computational linguistics, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Chapters conclude with extensive suggestions for further reading, classified by topic, and are supplemented by a massive bibliography (over 800 items).

This book presents the first part of a planned two-volume series devoted to a systematic exposition of some recent developments in the theory of discrete-time Markov control processes (MCPs). Interest is mainly confined to MCPs with Borel state and control (or action) spaces, and possibly unbounded costs and noncompact control constraint sets. MCPs are a class of stochastic control problems, also known as Markov decision processes, controlled Markov processes, or stochastic dynamic pro­ grams; sometimes, particularly when the state space is a countable set, they are also called Markov decision (or controlled Markov) chains. Regardless of the name used, MCPs appear in many fields, for example, engineering, economics, operations research, statistics, renewable and nonrenewable re­ source management, (control of) epidemics, etc. However, most of the lit­ erature (say, at least 90%) is concentrated on MCPs for which (a) the state space is a countable set, and/or (b) the costs-per-stage are bounded, and/or (c) the control constraint sets are compact. But curiously enough, the most widely used control model in engineering and economics--namely the LQ (Linear system/Quadratic cost) model-satisfies none of these conditions. Moreover, when dealing with "partially observable" systems) a standard approach is to transform them into equivalent "completely observable" sys­ tems in a larger state space (in fact, a space of probability measures), which is uncountable even if the original state process is finite-valued.

Despite their apparently divergent accounts of higher cognition, cognitive theories based on neural computation and those employing symbolic computation can in fact strengthen one another. To substantiate this controversial claim, this landmark work develops in depth a cognitive architecture based in neural computation but supporting formally explicit higher-level symbolic descriptions, including new grammar formalisms.Detailed studies in both phonology and syntax provide arguments that these grammatical theories and their neural network realizations enable deeper explanations of early acquisition, processing difficulty, cross-linguistic typology, and the possibility of genomically encoding universal principles of grammar. Foundational questions concerning the explanatory status of symbols for central problems such as the unbounded productivity of higher cognition are also given proper treatment.The work is made accessible to scholars in different fields of cognitive science through tutorial chapters and numerous expository boxes providing background material from several disciplines. Examples common to different chapters facilitate the transition from more basic to more sophisticated treatments. Details of method, formalism, and foundation are presented in later chapters, offering a wealth of new results to specialists in psycholinguistics, language acquisition, theoretical linguistics, computational linguistics, computational neuroscience, connectionist modeling, and philosophy of mind.

This book presents the first part of a planned two-volume series devoted to a systematic exposition of some recent developments in the theory of discrete-time Markov control processes (MCPs). Interest is mainly confined to MCPs with Borel state and control (or action) spaces, and possibly unbounded costs and noncompact control constraint sets. MCPs are a class of stochastic control problems, also known as Markov decision processes, controlled Markov processes, or stochastic dynamic pro­ grams; sometimes, particularly when the state space is a countable set, they are also called Markov decision (or controlled Markov) chains. Regardless of the name used, MCPs appear in many fields, for example, engineering, economics, operations research, statistics, renewable and nonrenewable re­ source management, (control of) epidemics, etc. However, most of the lit­ erature (say, at least 90%) is concentrated on MCPs for which (a) the state space is a countable set, and/or (b) the costs-per-stage are bounded, and/or (c) the control constraint sets are compact. But curiously enough, the most widely used control model in engineering and economics--namely the LQ (Linear system/Quadratic cost) model-satisfies none of these conditions. Moreover, when dealing with "partially observable" systems) a standard approach is to transform them into equivalent "completely observable" sys­ tems in a larger state space (in fact, a space of probability measures), which is uncountable even if the original state process is finite-valued.

These original essays focus on a wide range of topics related to Frank Hahn's distinguished work in economics. Ranging from market analysis and game theory to the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics and from equilibrium and optimality with missing markets to economics and society, they reflect the diversity of modem research in economic theory. What distinguishes Hahn's work and many of the essays in this book is that the motivation often comes from practical concerns about unemployment, savings and investment, poverty, or the stability of markets. The essays in Part I deal with the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics - a field in which Hahn has made important contributions, most notably in the theory of monetary economics. Topics include an evaluation of Hahn's contribution to the theory of distribution and such macroeconomic themes as coordination failure, multiple equilibria, and strategic issues. Part II contains recent contributions to game theory reflecting Hahn's interest in the question of what is rational behavior. The essays in Part III concentrate on general-equilibrium theory with missing markets, a field in which Hahn has made major advances. Although the essays address a different set of issues , they share with Hahn's works such themes as market failure, indeterminacy of equilibrium, and the role of money. Partha Dasgupta is Professor of Economics at Cambridge University. Douglas Gale is Professor of Economics at Boston University. Oliver Hart is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Eric Maskin is Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

This book examines the formal bases of postvelar harmony and its crosslinguistic variation. It is of interest especially to phonologists concerned with segmental harmony and its explanation within Optimality Theory. Postvelar harmony in two unrelated languages, Palestinian Arabic and St'át'imcets Salish, is examined in detail. The result is the first comprehensive clarification of postvelar phonology for either language. Two harmonies are distinguished: uvularisation harmony ('emphasis spread') and pharyngealisation (tongue-root-retraction) harmony. The distinction between these two in the Arabic and the Salish is supported by much instrumental phonetics data. The complex harmony properties are explained as the result of systematic interaction between Correspondence, Alignment and Grounded constraints. In the course of the investigation, the segmental inventories of both languages are clarified, and a careful understanding of the distinction between phonology and phonetics, and the use of phonetics in phonology, is applied.

Devoted to a unified optimality theory, merging three otherwise distinct mathematical disciplines to embrace an astonishingly wide variety of design problems. Outlines typical settings, namely D-, A-, and E-optimal, polynominal regression designs, Bayesian designs, structures for model discrimination, balanced incomplete block arrangements or rotatable response surface designs. The design problems stem from statistics but are solved using special tools from linear algebra and convex analysis.

This overview provides a single-volume treatment of key algorithms and theories. Begins with the derivation of optimality conditions and discussions of convex programming, duality, generalized convexity, and analysis of selected nonlinear programs, and then explores techniques for numerical solutions and unconstrained optimization methods. 1976 edition. Includes 58 figures and 7 tables.

This book covers the main topics of welfare economics ― general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un­ certainty, externalities and public goods ― and some of the major topics of social choice theory ― compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex­ cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.

The third edition of Testing Statistical Hypotheses updates and expands upon the classic graduate text, emphasizing optimality theory for hypothesis testing and confidence sets. The principal additions include a rigorous treatment of large sample optimality, together with the requisite tools. In addition, an introduction to the theory of resampling methods such as the bootstrap is developed. The sections on multiple testing and goodness of fit testing are expanded. The text is suitable for Ph.D. students in statistics and includes over 300 new problems out of a total of more than 760.

This account of the current state of foraging theory is also a valuable description of the use of optimality theory in behavioral ecology in general. Organizing and introducing the main research themes in economic analyses of animal feeding behavior, the authors analyze the empirical evidence bearing on foraging models and answer criticisms of optimality modeling. They explain the rationale for applying optimality models to the strategies and mechanics of foraging and present the basic "average-rate maximizing" models and their extensions.The work discusses new directions in foraging research: incorporating incomplete information and risk-sensitive behavior in foraging models; analyzing trade-offs, such as nutrient requirements and the threat of being eaten while foraging; formulating dynamic models; and building constrained optimization models that assume that foragers can use only simple "rules of thumb." As an analysis of these and earlier research developments and as a contribution to debates about the role of theory in evolutionary biology. Foraging Theory will appeal to a wide range of readers, from students to research professionals, in behavioral ecology, population and community ecology, animal behavior, and animal psychology, and especially to those planning empirical tests of foraging models.

This is the first book on welfare economics to be primarily intended for undergraduates. It explores such concepts as Pareto optimality in a market economy, the compensation criterion, and the social welfare function, and analyzes market failures using different ways of measuring welfare changes. The book covers public choice, and the issues of efficient provision of public goods, government failures, and efficient and optimal taxation, concluding with an examination of applied welfare economics, methods for revealing people's preferences, cost-benefit analysis, and project evaluation in a risky world.