• Time: W 9:00am–11:30am
• Place: Linguistics Seminar room
• Instructor: Brian W. Smith
• Contact: bsmith88@usc.edu
• Office hours: Mondays 2–4pm in GFS 301C
• Course forum: ling531a-fall2019.slack.com
• Updated schedule and handouts: 531 schedule

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Overview

This course deals with central issues in segmental phonology, focusing on the mental representation of individual speech sounds and their interaction. The emphasis throughout is on theory development and argumentation: how formal models are evaluated and revised in order to meet empirical and conceptual goals.

We focus in particular on the constraint-based framework Optimality Theory (OT: Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004), an alternative to rule-based frameworks in the tradition of Chomsky and Halle’s (1968) Sound Pattern of English. We will survey the motivations for adopting OT, and become familiar with its formal architecture, some of its results, and some of its shortcomings. OT makes predictions about phonological typology, and we will discuss many cross-linguistic generalizations about patterns involving sets of segments, especially as they relate to assimilation, syllable structure, and licensing. The course concludes with discussion of current issues in constraint-based frameworks, including variation and weighted constraints.

The sequel to this course, LING 531B, continues within constraint-based frameworks, focusing on prosodic phonology and phonology-morphology interactions.

Goals

• By the course’s conclusion, you will:
  • be able to find generalizations in a data set and describe phonological patterns in relatively theory-neutral terms,
  • be familiar with rule formalism and rule ordering,
  • be able to formulate analyses in OT and understand the predictions that they make,
  • be able to argue effectively for a given analysis (especially able to justify constraints),
  • be able to read and interpret original research in OT and segmental phonology,
  • have begun to develop your own research project that makes use of the concepts discussed in class.

Materials

Textbook and handouts

• There is one required textbook: Doing Optimality Theory by John J. McCarthy (2008).
• Handouts are posted on the website for USC Graduate Phonology.
• The class forum is hosted on Slack.
• Readings are downloadable at a private link I’ve shared via Slack and e-mail. Please don’t share this link.

Electronic device policy

• Please bring your charged laptop to class. Throughout the semester, we’ll collaborate using Google Docs and Slack.
• However, I ask that outside of these activities, you minimize your electronic device usage, restricting it to accessing readings and taking notes.
  • Using electronic devices during class can serve as a distraction not only to you, but also to others.
  • Please silence phones and stow them during class. Texts, emails, web browsing and so on, can wait until afterwards.
  • Your respect for this policy is appreciated – it makes a real difference to the classroom environment as a whole.
• My personal advice is to take handwritten notes and focus on the handout.
  • Studies seem to agree that handwritten notes result in better recall and increased focus, relative to typed notes.

Requirements

Class participation

• This is the most important requirement.
• Engagement is important for establishing your reputation as a serious, competent graduate student.
• It provides practice for question asking and conversation at conferences, academic meetings, and job interviews.
• Our shared goal is to get everyone talking roughly the same amount.
• Running out of time is never an issue: the goal of the course is to develop skills –- not cover any particular material.

Reading comments

• For every class (except the first), you are required to post (on Slack) a short question or comment on one of the assigned readings.
• The deadline is the night before class.
• Two or three sentences is sufficient and ideal.

Opt-out office hours

• Since the class is small, I’m going to schedule a weekly 20–30 minute meeting with each of you.
• You can use this time to discuss the final paper, class material, additional readings, or whatever else you’d like to.
• You can always opt out: if you’d like to skip a meeting, e-mail me the night before.

Homework assignments

• These provide hands-on practice with analysis, argumentation, and applying, extending and revising theories.
• Think of them as mini-papers.
• There will be about six or seven.
• You are encouraged to collaborate with others, but you must write up and submit your own solution, listing anyone with whom you collaborated.
• Submit hard copies at the beginning of class on the due date.
• Assignments are returned in class within seven days of submission.
• Submitted assignments shouldn’t contain text, figures, tables, and so on that have been copied electronically or otherwise from another student or any other source.
  • Quotations or other forms of reference to other work are of course acceptable with the appropriate citations.
  • USC takes academic integrity very seriously and enforces it strictly.
  • To find out more, students should consult the guide to academic integrity for graduate students. Also see the Academic Conduct section of the syllabus.
  • If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or cheating, please come and see me.

In-class language data presentation

• Your goal is to demonstrate the ability to objectively describe language data.
• For your presentation, you will present a set of data supporting claims about the phoneme inventory of a language and demonstrating an allophonic alternation.
• Your presentation should be about 12–15 minutes long and must be accompanied by a handout or slides.
• The presentations will be on October 2.

A term paper

• Your goal is to demonstrate all of the skills you’ve developed in class.
• The aims of the paper are threefold:
  • To show your ability to describe and analyze a set of data.
  • To apply techniques of current theory.
  • To effectively argue for your proposed account.
• In the paper, you will:
  • Describe a phonological pattern from some language in theory-neutral terms, using data from a grammar, dissertation, or published paper (including proceedings papers).
  • Write an original rule-based analysis of the pattern.
  • Write a constraint-based analysis of the pattern.
  • Compare the rule-based and constraint-based analysis, and argue for one over the other.
• Paper timeline:
  • By November 13: select a proposed topic and meet with me for approval of the topic.
  • By November 20: submit a 1–2 page outline of your paper proposal. Your proposal should summarize the key aspects of the data/problem that you are interested in investigating.
  • On December 4: present your paper in class with a handout (or slides) outlining your analysis.
  • By December 13 at 5pm: submit a written version of the research paper that takes into account comments received during your presentation. You can e-mail it to me. The paper will probably be about 8–15 pages (double-spaced), including data and references. No late papers are accepted, barring a student taking an “incomplete” for the class.

Grade breakdown

Assignments	50%
Term paper (due 12/13)	25%
In-class language data presentation (10/2)	10%
Participation, readings, reading comments	15%

Important dates

9/2	Labor Day – no classes
10/2	In-class language data presentations
10/17–10/18	Fall recess
11/13	Deadline for in-person approval of paper topic
11/20	Deadline for submission of outline of paper proposal
11/27–12/1	Thanksgiving Holiday – no classes
12/4	In class presentations of term papers
12/13	Due date for final paper

Schedule

• Please note: the schedule will change depending on the pace of the class.
• See this page for an up-to-date daily schedule – don’t trust the schedule below. Some homeworks have moved around.
• Changes to readings or due dates will be announced in class.
• The readings with citations like (Year/2004) are from McCarthy’s (2004) book Optimality Theory: A reader, which republished excerpts from influential OT papers.

Date	Read before class	Topics	Deadlines
8/28	Zsiga (2013) Ch 10–11	Phonemes, allophones, and contrast Phonotactics and alternations Contrastive distribution Complementary distribution Contextually-limited contrast (positional neutralization)
9/4	Zsiga (2013) Ch 12–13	Natural classes, distinctive features, and rules Why features? Rule writing conventions Rule ordering Autosegmental representations	Assignment 1 (identifying distributions)
9/11	Kisseberth (1970) Doing OT Ch 1–1.2	Introducing constraints The conspiracy problem A conceptual crisis Introducing OT: Gen, Con, Eval
9/18	Doing OT Ch 1.3–1.9	OT Mechanics The selection problem and VTs The ranking problem and CTs Ranking arguments Harmonic bounding	Assignment 2 (rules)
9/25	Doing OT Ch 2–2.8 Steriade (2007)	Phonemes, allophones, and contrast in OT Richness of the Base Lexicon optimization Typology of contrast in OT	Assignment 3 (OT practice)
10/2	Doing OT Ch 3	Language data presentations
10/9	Doing OT Ch 2.10–2.12 Tesar & Smolensky (1998/2004)	Constraint ranking by algorithm and computer RCD and EDCD ERC Fusion Using OT-Help	Assignment 4 (licensing)
10/16	Doing OT Ch 4.6 Doing OT Ch 5 Lombardi (1999/2004)	Factorial typology and universals Syllable structure typology Correspondence theory Positional faithfulness Assimilation typology	Assignment 5 RCD
10/23	Hayes (1999/2004) Doing OT Ch 4	Justifying constraints Functional grounding Assimilation typology, revisited	Assignment 6 (typology)
10/30	Pater (1999/2004) Zuraw and Lu (2009)	Homogeneity of target / heterogeneity of process *NC̥ effects Dissimilation The too-many-solutions problem
11/6	Bakovic (2011) Doing OT Ch 6.4	Derivational opacity The opacity problem Output-output faithfulness	Assignment 7 (HoT/HoP)
11/13	Pater (2016)	Weighted constraints Harmonic Grammar Gang effects / ganging	Paper topic by now
11/20	Doing OT Ch 6.2 Coetzee & Pater (2011)	Phonological variation Types of variation MaxEnt Harmonic Grammar	Paper proposal due
11/27	No class - Thanksgiving holiday
12/4	Term paper presentations

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct

• Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences.
  • Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards”.
  • Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable. See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct.  

Support Systems

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