A Comparative Study Of Rule-based Phonology And Optimality Theory

This dissertation uses rich and complicated tone sandhi across Chinese dialectsas empirical data to compare and examine the explanatory adequacy of rule-basedphonology and optimality theory with the following two aims: on the one hand topromote the reconceptualization, extension and improvement of phonological theoryto best capture the phonological phenomena of natural languages, thus makes usmore close to the nature of phonological component of grammar, on the otherhand to deepen our understanding of tone sandhi in Chinese.The causes of Chinese tone sandhi are various. Tone sandhi reflecting thehistorical changes in the process of tonal evolution is quite arbitrary andunpredictable in synchronic level. If we want to find the deep reason, historicalcomparison is needed to reconstruct the ancient tonal system. Historical tone changesresult in the unnaturalness of synchronic phonologies and those unnatural aspects ofphonologies can be accounted for in rule-based phonological theories by adoptinglanguage-specific rules, extrinsic ordering of rules or lexical marking of exceptions.Optimality theory accounts for the synchronic phonological patterns by universalconstraints interaction, however, the arbitrary, idiosyncratic tone sandhi phenomenabrought out by the historical tone change can not be explained by universalconstraints and adopting language specific constraints is not compatible with thetenets of optimality theory which is strong evidence for rule-based phonology thatphonological component of grammar should contain rules. Those tone sandhireflecting the phonetic assimilation and dissimilation can be captured in optimalitytheory. Optimality theory not only can explain why the tone change but how the tonewill change. Tone sandhi related with morphology can be better accounted for inrule-based lexical phonology than in optimality theory indicating theory has itsapplicability and pertinence.Tone sandhi directionality is phonological opaque due to the counter-feeding andcounter-bleeding rule relation. Optimality theory with candidate chain (OT-CC) designed to deal with phonological opacity fails to provide insightful and inspiringunderstanding on the reasons of governing the directionality of rule application. Inorder to increase the explanatory power for opacity, OT-CC incorporates derivationinto optimality theory which abandoned the central theoretical tenets of classicoptimality theory and weakened its advantage over rule-based phonology on globalphenomena. In addition, OT-CC fails to capture directionality of Chinese Tone sandhiand opacity in other languages, which indicates the advent of OT-CC, instead ofsupporting OT, at some extend give its support for rule-based phonology.Chinese tone sandhi domain has come to occupy a prominent position in theresearch on the syntax-phonology interaction. Xiamen and Shanghai data areoriginally taken to motivate single edge-based theory put forward by Selkirk.Recently Selkirk put forward Match theory to replace single edge-based theory.Match theory is late syntax-phonology interface theory in the framework ofoptimality theory. Selkirk claims that Match theory can not only equally consistentwith the data for single edge-based theory but also can accommodate data whichdiagnose two edges, but Match theory can account for tone sandi domain of Xiamenand fail to predict tone sandhi domain of shanghai. Align and Wrap theory and matchtheory are originated from indirect reference idea on syntax-phonology interface.Pingyao tone sandhi is sensitive to complicated syntactic constructions. The syntacticconditions even are defined as prosodic units, the tone sandhi patterns still can not beexplained very well. It is likely that Pingyao tone sandhi domain need direct referencesyntactic information. It is still debatable what kinds of questions of tone sandhidomain of Mandarin tell us about the syntax and phonology interaction. On the basisof the wrong predication that new syntax and phonology interface theories inframework of optimality theory that the sentences with the same syntactic treestructures have the same prosodic structures we argue that tone sandhi in Mandarindo not need posit phonological phrase level. In short, Match theory in framework ofoptimality theory can not achieve the equally explanatory adequacy as the rule-basedsingle edge-based theory.